Quotes · Skopia

157 quotes

The Road Not Taken · 1916

★ 9.5

Criminal trial

Absolutely, 100% not guilty.

OJ Simpson

1994

★ 8.0

Speech

Courage is as contagious as fear.

Susan Sontag

2003

★ 7.0

Speech · Commencement address

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Steve Jobs

2005

★ 6.9

Short story

I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.

Jack London

1916

★ 6.9

There are no atheists in the fox holes.

William Thomas Cummings

1943

★ 6.9

You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

Anne Lamott

1994

★ 6.9

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Jack London

1916

★ 6.7

Sociology

What little girls learn is not the desire for the other, but the desire to be desired.

Naomi Wolf

The Beauty Myth · 1990

★ 6.1

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

These men and women...ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

Anthony Kennedy

Obergefell v. Hodges · 2015

★ 6.1

Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.

Anne Lamott

1994

★ 6.0

I live in a rather special world. I know only one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.

Pauline Kael

1972

★ 6.0

Interview

That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

Marilyn Monroe

1962

★ 5.5

It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the Navy.

Steve Jobs

1987

★ 5.5

Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?

Steve Jobs

1983

★ 5.4

People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?

Rodney King

1992

★ 5.4

There ain't any answer, there ain't going to be any answer, there never has been any answer, that’s the answer.

Gertrude Stein

1946

★ 5.3

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone... We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Earl Warren

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka · 1954

★ 5.3

Essay

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise, they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a. M. Of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.

Joan Didion

On Keeping a Notebook · 1968

★ 5.3

Film · Biography (film) · War (film) · Biography · War

Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

George S. Patton

Patton · 1969

★ 5.3

Speech

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

Philip K. Dick

1978

★ 5.3

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

Charles Bukowski

1994

★ 5.3

Poem

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.

Robert Frost

1914

★ 5.2

Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?

John Cage

1961

★ 5.2

Song · Rock music

Some folks are born made to wave the flag, Ooh, that red, white, and blue. And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief," Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord, It ain't me, it ain't me I ain't no senator's son, no. It ain't me, it ain't me I ain't no fortunate one.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Fortunate Son · 1969

★ 5.2

It'll play in Peoria.

John Ehrlichman

1969

★ 5.2

Essay · Magazine

Much of modern art is devoted to lowering the threshold of what is terrible. By getting us used to what, formerly, we could not bear to see or hear, because it was too shocking, painful, or embarrassing, art changes morals.

Susan Sontag

Freak Show · 1973

★ 5.2

Sociology

"Beauty" is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West it is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.

Naomi Wolf

The Beauty Myth · 1990

★ 5.2

TV program

If you just run through somebody face, a lot of people ain't going to be able to take that over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. They're just not gonna want that.

Marshawn Lynch

60 Minutes · 2016

★ 5.2

Poem

And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I have a lovers quarrel with the world.

Robert Frost

The Lesson for Today · 1941

★ 5.1

Novel

Fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention.

Amy Tan

The Joy Luck Club · 1989

★ 4.7

Speech · Commencement address

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Steve Jobs

1974

★ 4.6

Interview

Justice is love on legs, spilling over into the public sphere.

Cornel West

2009

★ 4.6

Rock music

I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?

Beck

Loser · 1993

★ 4.5

Play · Comedy (play)

The best part of married life is the fights. The rest is merely so-so.

Thornton Wilder

1954

★ 4.5

Song · Pop music

When the moon is in the seventh house, And Jupiter aligns with Mars, Then peace will guide the planets, And love will steer the stars; This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

The 5th Dimension

Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In · 1967

★ 4.5

Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.

Robert Hass

1979

★ 4.4

I would just like to say that no one ever asked me to lie and I was never promised a job for my silence. And that I'm sorry. I'm really sorry for everything that's happened. And I hate Linda Tripp.

Monica Lewinsky

1998

★ 4.4

Novel

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.

John Steinbeck

East of Eden · 1952

★ 3.8

Essay

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

Joan Didion

The White Album · 1979

★ 3.8

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