The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Adam Smith2 quotes
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. — Adam Smith · 1759Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations... His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourselves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at last to affect us, and we then tremble and shudder at the thought of what he feels. — Adam Smith · 1759Aristotle1 quote
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must either be a beast or a god. — Aristotle · 350 BCBaruch Spinoza1 quote
Man is a social animal. — Baruch Spinoza · 1677Carl Jung1 quote
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. — Carl Jung · 1933Carol Shields1 quote
To be like everyone else. Isn't that what we all want in the end? — Carol Shields · 1997David Whyte1 quote
The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self. The ultimate touchstone is witness: the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone. — David Whyte · 2020Eric Hoffer1 quote
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. — Eric Hoffer · 1955Ernest Hemingway1 quote
No matter how a man alone ain't got no bloody fucking chance. — Ernest Hemingway · 1937Euripides1 quote
Every man is like the company he is wont to keep. — Euripides · 400 BCGroucho Marx1 quote
Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. — Groucho Marx · 1949J.B. Priestley1 quote
We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. — J.B. Priestley · 1945John Donne1 quote
No man is an Island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. — John Donne · 1624John Stuart Mill1 quote
The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that...he never conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body. — John Stuart Mill · 1861Karl Marx1 quote
Society does not consist of individuals; it expresses the sum of connections and relationships in which individuals find themselves. — Karl Marx · 1883Learned Hand1 quote
The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world. — Learned Hand · 1931Leo Tolstoy1 quote
There are no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted by everyone about him. — Leo Tolstoy · 1877M.F.K. Fisher1 quote
Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly. — M.F.K. Fisher · 1949Marcus Aurelius1 quote
Mankind have been created for the sake of one another. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Menander1 quote
This is living, not to live unto oneself alone. — Menander · 290 BCPeter Kropotkin1 quote
Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle... Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle. — Peter Kropotkin · 1902Plautus1 quote
No man is wise enough by himself. — Plautus · 184 BCRabindranath Tagore1 quote
Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence. — Rabindranath Tagore · 1916Robert Burns1 quote
The social, friendly, honest man,
Whate'er he be,
'Tis he fulfills great Nature's plan,
An' none but he! — Robert Burns · 1785Robert Burton1 quote
Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn? — Robert Burton · 1621Robert Louis Stevenson1 quote
So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend. — Robert Louis Stevenson · 1872Ryan Bingham1 quote
Everybody needs a co-pilot. — Ryan Bingham · 2009Sansa Stark1 quote
When the snows fall, and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. — Sansa Stark · 2017Sei Shonagon1 quote
There is nothing in the whole world so painful as feeling that one is not liked. It always seems to me that people who hate me must be suffering from some strange form of lunacy. — Sei Shonagon · 1002The Joker1 quote
Can't rely on anyone these days, you have to do everything yourself, don't we. — The Joker · 2008The Shins1 quote
I know things can really get rough when you go it alone. Don’t go thinking you gotta be tough and bleed like a stone. — The Shins · 2012