James Owen - The Times Great Quotations - Famous quotes to inform, motivate and inspire

Sir Paul McCartney, English singer-songwriter and composer (1942–)

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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change the more they remain the same.

Les Guêpes (1849)

Alphonse Karr, French critic and writer (1808–1890)

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Future shock … the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.

Future Shock (1970)

Alvin Toffler, American writer, futurist and businessmen (1928–2016)

Still xmas is a good time with all those presents and good food and i hope it will never die out or at any rate not until i am grown up and hav to pay for it all.

How to Be Topp (1954)

Geoffrey Willams(1911–1958) and Ronald Searle(1920–2011), English humourists

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A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

Leaving Home (1987)

Garrison Keillor, American writer, humourist and radio personality (1942–)

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Hogmanay, like all festivals, being but a bank from which we can only draw what we put in.

Sentimental Tommy (1896)

JM Barrie, Scottish writer and dramatist (1860–1937)

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Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

[Letter to a US newspaper, 1863]

Mark Twain, American writer (1835–1910)

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Christmas begins about the first of December with an office party and ends when you finally realise what you spent, around April fifteenth of the next year.

Modern Manners (1983)

PJ O’Rourke, American political satirist and journalist (1947–)

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Christmas is the time for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Old Christmas (1876)

Washington Irving, American writer, historian and diplomat (1783–1859)

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I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!

A Christmas Carol (1843)

Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)

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At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May’s new fangled shows;

But like of each thing that in season grows.

Love’s Labour’s Lost (1597)

William Shakespeare, English poet and dramatist (1564–1616)

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My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?

Bob Hope, English-born American comedian and actor (1903–2003)

If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.

Jesse Owens, American Olympic gold medallist for track and field (1913–1980)

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The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well.

[Speech in London, 1908]

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, French founder of the International Olympic Committee (1863–1937)

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Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize.

The Bible

Corinthians 9:24

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Winning is everything. The only ones who remember you when you come second are your wife and your dog.

The Sunday Times (1994)

Damon Hill, British Formula One world champion (1960–)

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When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were — to the very last minute — a chance to lose it.

[The President’s News Conference, 1956]

Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th president of the US (1890–1969)

War settles nothing … to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one!

An Autobiography (1977)

Agatha Christie, English writer (1890–1976)

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Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Combat (1945)

Albert Camus, French philosopher, writer and journalist (1913–1960)

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I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

[Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, 1931]

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

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The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

[Telegram to prominent Americans, 1946]

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

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There are not fifty ways of fighting, there’s only one, and that’s to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.

L’Espoir (1937)

André Malraux, French writer (1901–1976)

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We are in an armed conflict; that is the phrase I have used. There has been no declaration of war.

[Speech on the Suez crisis, House of Commons, 1956]

Anthony Eden, prime minister of the UK (1897–1977)

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Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.

Notebooks (1921)

Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (1860–1904)

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If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Mother Teresa, Albanian nun and missionary (1910–1997)

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After each war there is a little less democracy to save.

Once Around the Sun (1951)

Brooks Atkinson, American theatre critic and writer (1894–1984)

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It is not violence that best overcomes hate — nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.

Jane Eyre (1847)

Charlotte Brontë, English writer (1816–1855)

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First, we are going to cut it off, and then, we are going to kill it.

[Pentagon press briefing on the Gulf War, 1991]

Colin Powell, US general and politician (1937–)

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It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

Outspoken Essays: First Series “Patriotism” (1919)

Dean Inge, English writer, priest and educator (1860–1954)

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A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.

Philosophy of Plotinus (1923)

Dean Inge, English writer, priest and educator (1860–1954)

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History is littered with the wars which everybody knew would never happen.

The Times (1967)

Enoch Powell, British politician and scholar (1912–1998)

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All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

George Orwell, English writer (1903–1950)

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The weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong.