People Quotes - Page 690

People are best convinced by things they themselves discover.

While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means.

No matter what you're doing, if you're trying to make a movie, you need to be working with people that are really good and who make you better.

My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you're born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train's pulled into Piccadilly Circus they've become a Londoner.

Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ‘The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.’

The problem with the West is that they start with political reform going towards democracy. If you want to go towards democracy, the first thing is to involve the people in decision making, not to make it.

Government should stay the hell out of people's business.

The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die.

I don't sign for white people.

. . . it is true, even people with painful childhoods. . . grow up to be more interesting people. So, there's always a positive to a negative.

I really think that the planet is growing a new nervous system. I mean, when you think of Facebook as the third largest nation in the world, that's so unprecedented, so amazing. Think of how many people are texting and twittering. The planet has created a nervous system for massive, rapid connectivity.

The arc of history is longer than human vision. It bends. We abolished slavery, we granted universal suffrage. We have done hard things before. And every time it took a terrible fight between people who could not imagine changing the rules, and those who said, 'We already did. We have made the world new.' The hardest part will be to convince yourself of the possibilities, and hang on.

Those opposed to abortion cannot simply invoke God's will-they have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths.

All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we've done to make so many children's hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right their moral compass - what values we must live by.

I am the eternal optimist. I think that, over time, people respond to civility and -- and rational argument.

I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that.

Occasionally I would like the German people to give us the benefit of the doubt, given our history, as opposed to assuming the worst -- assuming that we have been consistently your strong partners and that we share a common set of values.

Although we may come from vastly different stories and very different walks of life, we are one people who possess common values and common ideals; who celebrate individual excellence but also share a recognition that together, we can accomplish great and wonderful things we can't accomplish alone.

It's going to be years and years before most people realize how greatly he contributed to American music.

You get built up and put on a pedestal and then people want to bring you down. It can be hurtful. Some people try to make me look bad or not a nice person but it's completely false.

If I wanted to make a quick buck, there's far easier ways of doing it. What I want is to provoke people. If you want a hit song, all you need to do is rewrite an old song. It might have been proven to work, but you won't be remembered the same way.

Fear is not the natural state of civilized people.

Man's naked form belongs to no particular moment in history; it is eternal, and can be looked upon with joy by the people of all ages.

People in these places don't know Audrey Hepburn, but they recognise the name UNICEF. When they see UNICEF their faces light up, because they know that something is happening. In the Sudan, for example, they call a water pump UNICEF.

Only the absolutely determined people succeed.