“Every man has his price. For some it's money, for some it's women, for others glory. But the honest man you don't have to buy - he winds up costing you nothing.”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“Funny how you can go along for years hardly thinking about someone, then all of a sudden be so glad to see him.”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“He picked up the telephone on his desk. “Bring in the Cord loan agreement and the check.” “You will note,” he said, “that although the loan is for three hundred thousand dollars, we have extended your credit under this agreement to a maximum of five hundred thousand dollars.” He smiled at me. “One of my principles of banking, Mr. Cord. I don’t believe in budgeting my clients too closely. Sometimes a few dollars more make the difference between success and failure.” Suddenly”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“I put down the phone and finished lighting the cigarette. The blue cover of the script caught my eye. I picked up the telephone again. I gave the operator Tony Moroni’s home number”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“By the time the doctor came, we had lifted my father’s body to the couch and covered it with a blanket. The doctor was a thin, sturdy man, bald, with thick glasses. He lifted the blanket and looked. He dropped the blanket. “He’s dead, all right.” I”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“I don't really care whether I live that long or not, It's just that when I die, I dont want to leave any enemies, and I figure the only way to do that is to outlive them all.”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“She looked down at her hands. “He said I couldn’t marry you. Not only because of that but because you’re—you’re half Indian!” “An’ just”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“laughed aloud. “Don’t worry, Mr. Moroni. It’s as safe as an automobile.”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“Make the loan for thirty thousand dollars,” I said.”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“But in the room there was nothing but the exciting scent of the girl and her wanting. We”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“took out a cigarette and almost before I had it in my mouth, Robair struck a match and held it for me. I dragged deep. “That’s all right, Robair. I don’t think”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“got to my feet and stretched. This sitting at a desk for half a day was worse than anything I’d ever done. “O.K., I’ll go right up.” McAllister”
― Harold Robbins, quote from The Carpetbaggers
“I had this dream that my life was a rolling canvas. Everyday it rolled off the sheet, bleached white, into the beach of my life. Come sunup, I'd begin to paint it with my thoughts and actions. My breathing, my living, and my dying. Some days the pictures pleased me, maybe pleased others, pleased God himself, but some days, some months, even some years, they didn't, and I didn't ever want to look at them again. But the thing is this . . . every day, no matter what I'd painted the day before, I got a new canvas, washed white. 'Cause each night the tide rolled in, scrubbed it clean, and receded, taking it's stains with it. And my dreams . . . I just stood on the beach and watched all that stuff wash out to sea.- Nothing more than ripples in the water. No canvas is ever stained clean through. Not one.”
― Charles Martin, quote from Chasing Fireflies: A Novel of Discovery
“Tull stopped laughing and stared into Loken’s face. His blue eyes were terribly cold and hard. ‘Kaos is the damnation of all mankind, Loken. Kaos will outlive us and dance on our ashes. All we can do, all we can strive for, is to recognise its menace and keep it at bay, for as long as we persist.”
― Dan Abnett, quote from Horus Rising
“His August Majesty chided the bureaucrats for failing to understand a simple principle: the principle of the second bag. Because the people never revolt just because they have to carry a heavy load, or because of exploitation. They don't know life without exploitation, they don't even know that such a life exists. How can they desire what they cannot imagine? The people will rvolt only when, in a single movement, someone tries to throw a second burden, a second heavy bag, onto their backs. The peasant will fall face down into the mud - and then spring up and grab an ax. He'll grab an ax, my gracious sir, not because he simply can't sustain this new burden - he could carry it - he will rise because he feels that, in throwing the second burden onto his back suddenly and stealthily, you have tried to cheat him, you have treated him like an unthinking animal, you have trampled what remains of his already strangled dignity, taken him for an idiot who doesn't see, feel, or understand. A man doesn't seize an ax in defense of his wallet, but in defense of his dignity, and that, dear sir, is why His Majesty scolded the clerks. For their own convenience and vanity, instead of adding the burden bit by bit, in little bags, they tried to heave a whole big sack on at once.”
― Ryszard Kapuściński, quote from The Emperor
“Ask your subordinates about matters you do not understand or do not know, and do not lightly express your approval or disapproval. . . . We should never pretend to know what we do not know, we should “not feel ashamed to ask and learn from people below” and we should listen carefully to the views of the cadres at the lower levels. Be a pupil before you become a teacher; learn from the cadres at the lower levels before you issue orders. . . . What the cadres at the lower levels say may or may not be correct, after hearing it, we must analyse it. We must heed the correct views and act upon them. . . . Listen also to the mistaken views from below, it is wrong not to listen to them at all. Such views, however, are not to be acted upon but to be criticized.”
― Mao Zedong, quote from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung
“one is free of envy’ and ‘Injustice lurks in the soul; strength shows it and weakness hides it.”
― quote from The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 1
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