The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Progress4 quotes
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight. — Bruce Cockburn · 1984Believe it or not-and I know that most people do not-violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species' existence. — Steven Pinker · 2011The march of social progress is like a long and straggling parade, with the seers and prophets at its head and a smug minority bringing up the rear. — Pierre Berton · 1968Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art, in literature-subtract the work of the men above forty, and while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are today... The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty. — William Osler · 1925Advertising and marketing2 quotes
Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it. — Stephen Leacock · 1924Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century. — Marshall McLuhan · 1976America2 quotes
Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. — Pierre Trudeau · 1969North American civilization is one of the ugliest to have emerged in human history, and it has engulfed the world. Asphalt and exhaust fumes clog the villages... This great, though disastrous, culture can only change as we begin to stand off and see... The inveterate materialism which has become the model for cultures around the globe. — Arthur Charles Erickson · 1973Art2 quotes
The purpose of art is the lifelong construction of a state of wonder. — Glenn Gould · 1982Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century. — Marshall McLuhan · 1976Canada2 quotes
Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else. — Leonard Cohen · 1963My country is not a country, it is winter. — Gilles Vigneault · 1964Conformity2 quotes
It will be convenient to have a name for the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability, and it should be a term that emphasizes this predictability. I shall refer to these ideas henceforth as the conventional wisdom. — John Kenneth Galbraith · 1958These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the scriptural parable, the bland lead the bland. — John Kenneth Galbraith · 1958Healing2 quotes
But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind. — Margaret Atwood · 1985There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in — Leonard Cohen · 1992Leadership2 quotes
All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. — John Kenneth Galbraith · 1977Leadership means making people feel good. — Jean Chretien · 1984Life2 quotes
A little while and I will be gone from among you, whither I cannot tell. From nowhere we came, into nowhere we go. What is life? It is a flash of a firefly in the night. It is a breath of a buffalo in winter time. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset. — Crowfoot · 1890Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at it while it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud. — Yann Martel · 2001Media2 quotes
The medium is the message. — Marshall McLuhan · 1964Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America—not the battlefields of Vietnam. — Marshall McLuhan · 1975Modern life2 quotes
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel,
A boutique, and a swinging hot spot. — Joni Mitchell · 1970We are stardust,
We are golden,
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden. — Joni Mitchell · 1969Patriarchy2 quotes
A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love. — Leonard Cohen · 1963Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. — Charlotte Whitton · 1963Politics2 quotes
Trickle-down theory—the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows. — John Kenneth Galbraith · 1992Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear. — Naomi Klein · 2003Social progress2 quotes
Believe it or not-and I know that most people do not-violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species' existence. — Steven Pinker · 2011The march of social progress is like a long and straggling parade, with the seers and prophets at its head and a smug minority bringing up the rear. — Pierre Berton · 1968Taking risks2 quotes
100 percent of the shots you don't take don't go in the net. — Wayne Gretzky · 1983Don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life. — Robin Sharma · 2014The human condition2 quotes
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in — Leonard Cohen · 1992Now, maybe there's a God above
As for me all I've ever learned from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
But it's not a cry that you're hear tonight
It's not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the light
No, it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah — Leonard Cohen · 1984Wealth2 quotes
Wealth is not without its advantages and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive. — John Kenneth Galbraith · 1958I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame so that they could see that it’s not where you’re going to find your sense of completion. — Jim Carrey · 2014Women2 quotes
A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love. — Leonard Cohen · 1963Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. — Charlotte Whitton · 1963World War I2 quotes
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below. — John McCrae · 1915To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. — John McCrae · 1915Achievement1 quote
Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art, in literature-subtract the work of the men above forty, and while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are today... The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty. — William Osler · 1925Advance of civilization1 quote
Believe it or not-and I know that most people do not-violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species' existence. — Steven Pinker · 2011America and Canada1 quote
Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. — Pierre Trudeau · 1969Broken relationships1 quote
A divorce is like an amputation: you survive but there's less of you. — Margaret Atwood · 1972Closed-mindedness1 quote
The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism. — William Osler · 1902Communication1 quote
The medium is the message. — Marshall McLuhan · 1964Consumerism1 quote
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot,
With a pink hotel,
A boutique, and a swinging hot spot. — Joni Mitchell · 1970Contentment1 quote
I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame so that they could see that it’s not where you’re going to find your sense of completion. — Jim Carrey · 2014Conversation1 quote
Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness. — Margaret Millar · 1942Curiosity1 quote
My life has been a quest for knowledge and understanding, and I am nowhere near having achieved that. And it doesn’t bother me in the least. — Alex Trebek · 2020Death1 quote
Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at it while it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud. — Yann Martel · 2001