Mean quotes

Mean

28K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

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Mean quotes (page 367 of 1399)

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Kurt Vonnegut Novelist, Satirist
Mean

"Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren, so that the message of our principal art forms, movies and television and political speeches and newspaper columns, for the sake of the economy, simply has to be this: War is hell, all right, but the only way a boy can become a man is in a shoot-out of some kind, preferably, but by no means necessarily, on a battlefield."

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Kurt Vonnegut Novelist, Satirist
Mean

"You say what you have to say. But you have to learn to say it in such a way that the reader can see what you mean."

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Kurt Vonnegut Novelist, Satirist
Mean

"I don't think he was knowable. I mean, when most people talk about knowing somebody a lot or a little, they're talking about the secrets they've been told or haven't been told. They're talking about intimate things, family things, love things," that nice old lady said to me. "Mr. Hoenikker had all those things in his life, the way every living person has to, but they weren't the main things with him."

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Kurt Vonnegut Novelist, Satirist
Mean

"What I would really like to have been, given a perfect world, is a jazz pianist. I mean jazz. I don't mean rock and roll. I mean the never-the-same-twice music the American black people gave the world."

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Kurt Vonnegut Novelist, Satirist
Mean

"Social class means a hell of a lot and upper class people - no matter how well [Franklin ] Roosevelt did - it was stylish to hate him."

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Kurt Vonnegut Novelist, Satirist
Mean

"Well, we are terribly divided politically, yes, and, you know, I don't mean to intimidate you and your listeners but I have a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago."

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Hugh Martin Composer, Lyricist
Mean

"The Churches belong together in the Church. What that may mean for our ecclesiastical groupings we do not know. We have not discovered the kind or outward manifestation which God wills that we shall give to that inner unity. But we must seek it."

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Hugo Weaving Actor
Mean

"When you're battling against the minds of the studios and the money that can go into promoting larger budget films, it's very hard for a very small-budget Australian film to get a look in. You can get critically acclaimed and go to various film festivals around the world, but that doesn't necessarily mean the majority of people are going to hear about it."

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Hugo Weaving Actor
Mean

"A lot of people have a fear of Shakespeare. Even actors do. People are like, "Oh, I won't go and see Shakespeare because the language is so hard," but it is. When you read it on the page, you go, "What?! What does that mean?!" If you go to a Shakespeare play and you've never been, you sit there and go, "I'm an idiot! I don't get it!""

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Lou Reed Musician, Songwriter
Mean

"As you practice things, you get better. I mean I've worked very hard on changing my life and taking what is good about it and trying to jettison the things I think were not good about it. I think the key word is "discipline," focus. I'm always working at it, but I'm not always successful."

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Lou Reed Musician, Songwriter
Mean

"Music is an amazing thing. I don't know if we really think about it the same way we consider a painting an amazing thing. I mean, a painting is, in quotes, imaginary. There is nothing on the canvas when you start; and writing a song, there is nothing there when you start."

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Lou Reed Musician, Songwriter
Mean

"People can vote for who ever they want. That doesn't mean I have to go near them."

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Louisa May Alcott Novelist, Poet
Mean

"I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue."

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Louisa May Alcott Novelist, Poet
Mean

"Mrs. Jo did not mean the measles, but that more serious malady called love, which is apt to ravage communities, spring and autumn, when winter gayety and summer idleness produce whole bouquets of engagements, and set young people to pairing off like the birds."

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Louisa May Alcott Novelist, Poet
Mean

"I'd have a stable full of Arabian steeds, rooms piled with books, and I'd write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous as Laurie's music. I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle,-something heroic, or wonderful,-that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all, some day. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that would suit me, so that is my favorite dream."

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Louise Hay Author, Motivational Speaker
Mean

"Just because the years are passing doesn't mean that the quality of our lives must automatically go downhill."

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