An important figure in the American Civil Rights Movement, Maya Angelou is also an author, actress and playwright. Her autobiography, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ gave her critical and international acclaim. In the late seventies, she became a friend and mentor to Oprah Winfrey.
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.”
“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”
“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”
- Maya Angelou (1928- )
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American humorist, satirist, writer and lecturer Mark Twain – a pen name for Samuel Clemens - was famous for such notable classics as ‘Huckleberry Finn’ and ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’. The American author William Faulkner called Twain, “the father of American literature”. Known for his wit and satire, he wrote and said many very funny phrases that we now quote here…
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
“It is easier to stay out than get out.”
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
- Mark Twain (1835-1910)
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Nobel Peace Price recipient Al Gore was the 45th Vice President of the United States, serving under President Bill Clinton from 1993-2001. Many believe he should have been the 46th President. Gore lectures widely on the topic of global warming, environmental issues, green living, alternative energy and a sustainable future for planet earth. He starred in the Academy Award winning documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. In October 2007, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in raising awareness for climate change. Here are several of his quotes…
“You see that pale, blue dot? That's us. Everything that has ever happened in all of human history, has happened on that pixel. All the triumphs and all the tragedies, all the wars all the famines, all the major advances... it's our only home. And that is what is at stake, our ability to live on planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization. I believe this is a moral issue, it is your time to cease this issue, it is our time to rise again to secure our future.”
“Our world faces a true planetary emergency. I know the phrase sounds shrill, and I know it's a challenge to the moral imagination.”
“What changed in the United States with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences.”
“I am Al Gore and I used to be the next president of the United States of America.”
- Al Gore (1946- )
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Gloria Steinem is an American women’s rights advocate, journalist and feminist. She was the founder and original publisher of the popular magazine, ‘Ms.’ Steinem was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1983. She has worked tirelessly for women and children’s rights since the 1970’s. Here are several quotes from the iconic Ms. Steinem.
“I have met brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.”
“But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don’t get young men standing up and saying, 'How can I combine career and family?”
“We know that we can do what men can do, but we still don’t know that men can do what women can do. That’s absolutely crucial. We can’t go on doing two jobs.”
“Most women's magazines simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.”
- Gloria Steinem (1934- )
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While Prince and Jesse Ventura called attention to our mostly ‘fair state of Minnesota’ a while back and every so often once in a while yet, Garrison Keillor is kind of a week-in-week-out P-R man for Minnesotans pretty much nonstop. So we’re pretty much OK then when he exaggerates the way we talk here even though we know that its not quite so much of a Minnesota way of talking as he makes out like it is.
“Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.”
“This is a great country, and it wasn't made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger. Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader.”
“I think the most un-American thing you can say is, ‘You can't say that.’
It's a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.”
“Sometimes you have to look reality in the eye, and deny it.”
- Garrison Keillor (1942- )
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A renowned cultural anthropologist, American Margaret Mead wrote the famous book, ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’, based on research she conducted there as a graduate student.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
“Because of their age-long training in human relations - for that is what feminine intuition really is - women have a special contribution to make to any group enterprise.”
“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”
- Margaret Mead (1901-1978)
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Barbara Bush is the wife of the 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush and mother to the current President, George W. Bush. She is perhaps best known for her work in advocating literacy. Here are three quotes by Barbara Bush:
“And who knows? Somewhere out there in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well!”
“Bias has to be taught. If you hear your parents downgrading women or people of different backgrounds, why, you are going to do that.”
“I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children, they just about throw up.”
- Barbara Bush (1925- )
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The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was the principle author of ‘The Declaration of Independence’, and one of the most influential founding fathers. When President John F. Kennedy welcomed forty-nine Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 he said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
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We gathered the following three quotes and just now noticed that they are all by influential woman. Since published written works by women are still underrepresented, and recognition of the contributions by women in all areas of our lives are less recognized, there is a continuing need for women’s studies programs in high schools, colleges and universities. It is our hope that at some point in our history, equality will prevail to such an extent that pointing out the fact that a grouping of quotations happen to all be written by women will seem ludicrous.
- Richard & Bonne Chandler
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The first black woman to be admitted to the Mississippi Bar in 1964, Marian Wright Edelman is an American activist. She is president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.
“If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won't either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out.”
- Marian Wright Edelman (1939- )
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Leontyne Price is an American opera singer. Born in the segregated South, Price rose to international fame in the 50’s and 60’s. About her debut at the Met in 1961 she said. “It was the first operatic mountain I climbed, and the view from it was astounding, exhilarating, stupefying.”
“Accomplishments have no color.”
- Leontyne Price (1939- )
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An American feminist icon, Gloria Steinem, was founder and original publisher of Ms. magazine.
“I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.”
- Gloria Steinem (1934 - )
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Jef Raskin is best known for starting the Macintosh project for Apple Computers in the 1970’s. A true modern day Renaissance man, Raskin also conducted the San Francisco Opera Company, played the recorder and organ, had his artwork displayed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and sold model airplane kits through hobby shops.
“Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.”
- Jef Raskin (1943-2005)
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Stewart Brand is an author and creator of ‘The Whole Earth Catalog.’ He was one of the ‘futurists’ consulted for the planning of the movie ‘Minority Report’, starring Tom Cruise.
“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road.”
- Stewart Brand (1938- )
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Born of Swedish parents, the American poet Carl Sandburg had a long and successful career, receiving two Pulitzer Prizes. A high school was dedicated to him in Illinois in 1954. Once he showed up at the school unannounced and without identification. Sandburg was called a bum and thrown out. The embarrassed principal cancelled school for the rest of the day and held an assembly in Sandberg’s honor.
“The deepest American dream is not the hunger for money or fame; it is the dream of settling down, in peace and freedom and cooperation, in the promised land.”
- Carl Sandberg (1878-1967)
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Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect who was best known for his design of ‘The World Trade Center’. This quotation is all the more poignant after the tragedy of 9/11.
“The World Trade Center is a living symbol of man's dedication to world peace... a representation of man's belief in humanity, his need for individual dignity, his beliefs in the cooperation of men, and, through cooperation, his ability to find greatness.”
- Minoru Yamasaki (1912-1986)
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Italian model and actress Monica Bellucci started modeling as a teenager to finance her studies for a career in law, which she elected not to pursue, due to her success in modeling. She is articulate and fluent in Italian, English, and French and also speaks Aramaic. This quote is in response to a question about why she hasn’t moved to Hollywood.
“I could never live there. They are obsessed with youth and beauty even more than us. There is this thing in America where actresses reach 40 and go mad. The film industry wants all these young people. They also like a different sort of woman (than me). I will never be skinny. I also had a child a year ago, and I have been lazy. I love to eat. Who cares? I am natural.”
- Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (1964- )
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A Hungarian physicist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1937. He was active in the Hungarian Resistance in World War II and under the guise of presenting scientific lectures, Szent-Gyorgyi secretly met with the Allies. He was issued a personal arrest warrant from Adolph Hitler.
“A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986)
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Best known for hosting Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show', Jon Stewart is an author, producer, and political satirist.
“The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.”
- Jon Stewart (1962- )
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Rupert Murdoch, (1931) is a well-known global media executive. In recent years he has been investing in satellite television, film and the Internet.
“The Internet has been the most fundamental change during my lifetime and for hundreds of years. Someone the other day said, ‘It's the biggest thing since Gutenberg’, and then someone else said ‘No, it's the biggest thing since the invention of writing’."
- Rupert Murdoch, (1931- )
David Brinkley (1920-2003) was a popular television newscaster. President George W. Bush called him the “elder statesman of broadcast journalism” in 1992.
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”
- David Brinkley (1920-2003)
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More Historical Quotes Here