Rat Race Quotes

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  The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

  Lily Tomlin

  Inspirational, Funny, Meaningful

  Quoted in People, 26 Dec. 1977. Although now associated with Tomlin, this saying appears anonymously in Robert Reisner, Graffiti (1971), in the form "Remember, even if you win the rat race - you're still a rat." Rosalie Maggio, in New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, states that William Sloane Coffin said "Even if you win the rat-race, you're still a rat" as a chaplain at Williams College or Yale University in the 1950s or 1960s.

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• Seventy-five years. That's how much time you get if you're lucky. Seventy-five years. Seventy-five winters, seventy-five springtimes, seventy-five summers, and seventy-five autumns. When you look at it like that, it's not a lot of time, is it? Don't waste them. Get your head out of the rat race and forget about the superficial things that pre-occupy your existence and get back to what's important now.

  Eddie Murphy

  Summer, Autumn, Winter

  "Fictional character: 'G'". "Holy Man", www.imdb.com. 1998.

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• You can win the rat race but you're still a rat.

  Banksy

  Inspirational, Winning, Race

  Banksy (2005). “Banksy: wall and piece”, Random House UK

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• Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Hero, Race, Champion

  1969 'Those Daring Young Men In Their Flying Machines Ain't What They Used To Be!', in Pageant, Sep.

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• A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

  Jimmy Reid

  Race, Self, Silence

  "The People Speak: Democracy is not a Spectator Sport". Book by Colin Firth (p. 226), September 13, 2012.

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• Nobody loves the rat race, but nobody can think of anything else—Satan has us just where he wants us.

  Hugh Nibley

  Thinking, Race, Want

  Hugh Nibley (1989). “Approaching Zion”, Shadow Mountain

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• Nature shows me incredible beauty standing just beyond the rat race. It's always there if I'm open enough to see it.

  Dewitt Jones

  Race, Rats, Celebration

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• In this rat-race everybody's guilty till proved innocent!

  Bette Davis

  Race, Rats, Innocence

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• They said, congratulations you got what it takes. They sent him back to the rat race without any brakes.

  Bob Dylan

  Work, Congratulations, Race

  Bob Dylan (2013). “Lyrics:1962-2012”, p.689, Simon and Schuster

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• I didn't miss the rat race, but I kinda missed the rats.

  Jerry Nachman

  Race, Missing, Rats

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• Just because it's a rat race doesn't mean it's okay to be a rat.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Mean, Race, Rats

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• If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Race, Rats, Ifs

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• I can do anything I want, I'm eccentric!

  John Cleese

  Want, Eccentric, Can Do

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• The great disadvantage of being in a rat race is that it is humiliating. The competitors in a rat race are by definition rodents.

  Margaret Halsey

  Race, Rodents, Definitions

  Margaret Halsey (1952). “The Folks at Home”

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• Retirement: It's nice to get out of the rat race, but you have to learn to get along with less cheese.

  Gene Perret

  Teacher, Retirement, Nice

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• I wouldn't mind the rat race - if the rats would lose once in a while.

  Tom Wilson

  Race, Mind, Rats

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• Everybody in America is so money-hungry. It's like a rat race and even when you win you're still a freaking rat.

  Mike Tyson

  Winning, Race, America

  2000 In The Times, Dec 26.

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• People sometimes forget that a rat race can be won only by a rat.

  Paul Palmer

  Race, People, Rats

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• Usually when you ask somebody in college why they are there, they'll tell you it's to get an education. The truth of it is, they are there to get the degree so that they can get ahead in the rat race. Too many college radicals are two-timing punks. The only reason you should be in college is to destroy it.

  Abbie Hoffman

  College, Race, Two

  Abbie Hoffman (1971). “The "steal Yourself Rich" Book”

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• What about the rat race in the first place? Is it worthwhile? Or are you just buying into someone else's definition of success? Only you can decide that, and you'll have to decide it over and over and over. But if you think it's a rat race, before you drop out, take a deep breath. Maybe you picked the wrong job. Try again. And then try again.

  Sheryl Sandberg

  Jobs, Thinking, Race

  "FACEBOOK COO SANDBERG: The Women Of My Generation Blew It, So Equality Is Up To You, Graduates" by Sheryl Sandberg, www.businessinsider.com. May 18, 2011.

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• The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

  David Foster

  Real, Sacrifice, Thinking

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• TV is the rat race of the century.

  Groucho Marx

  Race, Rats, Tvs

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• Perfection is something we should all strive for. It's a duty and a joy to perfect one's nature... The most difficult thing is love. A loveless, driving person that just competes in the rat race is far from perfection in my book.

  R. D. Laing

  Book, Perfect One, Race

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• Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Love, Hero, Reality

  1969 'Those Daring Young Men In Their Flying Machines Ain't What They Used To Be!', in Pageant, Sep.

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• Only a rat can win a rat race.

  Michael Franti

  Winning, Race, Rats

  Song: Sometimes

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