1980s

Explore 532 quotes from the 1980s

Sort

The purpose of art is the lifelong construction of a state of wonder.

Glenn Gould

There are no other quotes by this person in the Bon Mots database.

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Gould, Glenn. Commencement address. Commencement ceremony. 6 Nov. 1982, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your senses for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.

Jim Morrison

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Morrison, Jim. Interview. PBS Studios, 1969.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.

George Shultz

There are no other quotes by this person in the Bon Mots database.

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Shultz, George. "Moral Principles and Strategic Interests: The Worldwide Movement Toward Democracy." Landon Lecture Series. 14 Apr. 1986, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Introduce the alphabet to a culture and you change its cognitive habits, its social relations, its notions of community, history and religion. Introduce the printing press with movable type, and you do the same. Introduce speed-of-light transmission of images and you make a cultural revolution. Without a vote. Without polemics. Without guerrilla resistance. Here is ideology, pure if not serene. Here is ideology without words, and all the more powerful for their absence. All that is required to make it stick is a population that devoutly believes in the inevitability of progress.

Neil Postman

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Buy Amusing Ourselves to Death at Amazon Buy Amusing Ourselves to Death at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Viking Penguin/Methuen Publishing, 1985, ch. 11.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Italo Calvino

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Original Citation

Calvino, Italo. "Perché leggere i classici? [Why Read the Classics?]" L'Espresso, 28 June 1981.

Original citation text copied to clipboard.

Current Citation

Calvino, Italo. Why Read the Classics? Penguin Classics, 2009.

Current citation text copied to clipboard.

The trouble
with being best man is, you don't get a chance
to prove it.

Les A. Murray

There are no other quotes by this person in the Bon Mots database.

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 1

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Murray, Les A. The Boys Who Stole the Funeral: A Novel Sequence. Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1980.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings it did not replace them with anything more offensive than rubble. We did that.

King Charles III

There are no other quotes by this person in the Bon Mots database.

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

King Charles. Speech at the Mansion House. London Planning and Communication Committee's Annual Dinner. 1 Dec. 1987, Mansion House, London, England, UK.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

We're a nation of community, of thousands and tens of thousands of ethnic, religious, social, business, labor union, neighborhood, regional and other organizations, all of them varied, voluntary, and unique... A brillant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

George H.W. Bush

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Bush, George H. W. Acceptance address at the Republican National Convention. Republican National Convention. 18 Aug. 1988, New Orleans, LA, USA.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Consciousness... Is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.

Roger Penrose

There are no other quotes by this person in the Bon Mots database.

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Penrose, Roger. The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and The Laws of Physics. Oxford University Press, 1989, ch. 10.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price of a paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you're not naive enough to think we're living in a democracy, are you buddy? It's the free market and you're a part of it. Yeah, you got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I still got a lot to teach you.

Gordon Gekko

Wall Street

Watch Wall Street at Amazon Watch Wall Street at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Actor

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Wall Street. Directed by Oliver Stone, American Entertainment Partners/American Films, 1987.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy, who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. Before God I swear this creed: my rifle and myself are defenders of my country, we are the masters of our enemy, we are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but peace. Amen.

Full Metal Jacket

Watch Full Metal Jacket at Amazon Watch Full Metal Jacket at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Full Metal Jacket. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, Natant/Harrier Films, 1987.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

Richard Dawkins

Buy The Blind Watchmaker at Amazon Buy The Blind Watchmaker at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. Norton & Company, 1986, ch. 1.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Oh, life is like that. Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us.

Ralphie Parker

A Christmas Story

Watch A Christimas Story at Amazon Watch A Christimas Story at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Actor

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

A Christmas Story. Directed by Bob Clark, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1983.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Well, you told me I have a plethora. And I just would like to know if you know what a plethora is. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and find out that person has no idea what it means to have a plethora.

El Guapo

Three Amigos!

Watch Three Amigos at Amazon Watch Three Amigos at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Actor

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Three Amigos. Directed by John Landis, Orion Pictures, 1986.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Our hair
turns white with our ripening
as though to fly away in some
coming wind, bearing the seed
of what we know.

Wendell Berry

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 0

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Berry, Wendell. "Ripening." A Part. North Point Press, 1980.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."

Stephen Jay Gould

Evolution as Fact and Theory

There are no other quotes from this source in the Bon Mots database.

Buy Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes at Amazon Buy Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Gould, Stephen Jay. "Evolution as Fact and Theory." Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes. W. W. Norton & Company, 1983, ch. 19.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

John Updike

More information about this quote

Topic

Author

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Updike, John. Self-Consciousness: Memoirs. Knopf, 1989, ch. 3.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

The cosmos is all there is or ever was or ever will be. Our contemplations of the cosmos stir us. There is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the grandest of mysteries.

Carl Sagan

Buy Cosmos (the book) at Amazon Buy Cosmos (the book) at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Source

Medium

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Sagan, Carl. Cosmos. Random House, 1980.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

Now, 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

Hallelujah

There are no other quotes from this source in the Bon Mots database.

Listen to Hallelujah at Amazon Listen to Hallelujah at Amazon

Read the lyrics to Hallelujah at genius.com

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

Cohen, Leonard. "Hallelujah." Various Positions. Columbia Records, 1984.

Citation text copied to clipboard.

The truth is in 7th grade, who you are is what other 7th graders say you are. The funny thing is it’s hard to remember the names of the kids you spent so much time trying to impress.

The Wonder Years

Watch Season 2 of The Wonder Years at Amazon Watch Season 2 of The Wonder Years at Amazon

More information about this quote

Topic

Speaker

Actor

Source

Medium

Genre

Language

Time

Authentication Score 3

More information on Authentication Score coming soon.

Citation

"Square Dance." The Wonder Years, written by Neal Marlens and Carol Black and Todd W. Langen, directed by Tom Moore, season 2, episode 15, The Black/Marlens Company and New World Television, 1989.

Citation text copied to clipboard.