George Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic and author. He was regarded as one of the most important and influential stand-up comics of all time.
Carlin was known for his dark comedy and reflections on politics, religion, psychology, language and taboo subjects.
George Carlin has many famous quotes about government, education and the American dream that are often referenced as truth.
Below you’ll find the best collection of George Carlin quotes. Whether you’re looking for inspirational or funny quotes by George Carlin or whether you’re looking for his famous quotes politics and education, it’s all here. Enjoy!
Inspirational George Carlin Quotes
1. “Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” – George Carlin
2. “Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.” – George Carlin
3. “Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.” – George Carlin
4. “Everyone should try to scratch their name on the bomb of life.” – George Carlin
5. “We have multiplied our possessions but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years.” – George Carlin
6. “It’s never just a game when you’re winning.” – George Carlin
7. “It’s important in life if you don’t give a shit. It can help you a lot.” – George Carlin
8. “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” – George Carlin
9. “By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.” – George Carlin
10. “If it requires a uniform, it’s a worthless endeavor.” – George Carlin
11. “The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.” – George Carlin
12. “Think off-center.” – George Carlin
13. “I often warn people: ‘Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, ‘There is no ‘I’ in team.’ What you should tell them is, ‘Maybe not. But there is an ‘I’ in independence, individuality, and integrity.” – George Carlin
14. “The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” – George Carlin
15. “A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.” – George Carlin
16. “There’s a humorous side to every situation. The challenge is to find it.” – George Carlin
17. “I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It’s so fuckin’ heroic.” – George Carlin
18. “Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.” – George Carlin
19. “Electricity is really just organized lightning.” – George Carlin
20. “Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough not to quit.” – George Carlin
21. “There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.” – George Carlin
22. “Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.” – George Carlin
23. “Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.” – George Carlin
24. “We think in language. The quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language.” – George Carlin
25. “Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.” – George Carlin
26. “When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I’m sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.” – George Carlin
27. “People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.” – George Carlin
28. “Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.” – George Carlin
29. “A good motto to live by: ‘Always try not to get killed.'” – George Carlin
30. “My advice: just keep moving straight ahead. Every now and then you find yourself in a different place.” – George Carlin
31. “If your kid needs a role model and you ain’t it, you’re both fucked.” – George Carlin
32. “The only person who is with us our entire life is ourselves.” – George Carlin
33. “People are wonderful one at a time. Each one of them has an entire hologram of the universe somewhere within them.” – George Carlin
34. “Everyone smiles in the same language.” – George Carlin
35. “Life is a zero sum game.” – George Carlin
36. “If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.” – George Carlin
37. “I don’t have to tell you it goes without saying there are some things better left unsaid. I think that speaks for itself. The less said about it the better.” – George Carlin
38. “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.” – George Carlin
39. “Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of them are stupider than that.” – George Carlin
Funny George Carlin Quotes
40. “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” – George Carlin
41. “Some people have no idea what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” – George Carlin
42. “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.” – George Carlin
43. “Some people see the glass half full, others see it half empty. I see a glass that’s twice as big as it needs to be.” – George Carlin
44. “Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body.” – George Carlin
45. “The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” – George Carlin
46. “If you can’t beat them, arrange to have them beaten.” – George Carlin
47. “When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.” – George Carlin
48. “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.” – George Carlin
49. “Well, if crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?” – George Carlin
50. “One good reason to only maintain a small circle of friends is that three out of four murders are committed by people who know the victim.” – George Carlin
51. “Instead of warning pregnant women not to drink, I think female alcoholics ought to be told not to fuck.” – George Carlin
52. “Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.” – George Carlin
53. “What exactly is ‘viewer discretion’? If viewers had discretion, most television shows would not be on the air.” – George Carlin
54. “If black boxes survive air crashes – why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?” – George Carlin
55. “I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. They should be more vivid. Here is one I would suggest: ‘Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was.'” – George Carlin
George Carlin Quotes On Government & Politics
56. “Sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize: the government does not give a fuck about them. The government doesn’t care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare, or your safety. It’s interested in its own power. That’s the only thing keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.” – George Carlin
57. “In America, anyone can become president. That’s the problem.” – George Carlin
58. “I think people should be allowed to do what they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.” – George Carlin
59. “Political correctness is America’s newest form of intolerance, and it is especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It presents itself as fairness, yet attempts to restrict and control people’s language with strict codes and rigid rules.” – George Carlin
60. “To me, authority is something that a freer spirit, a more independent mind, and a person who can handle the world, doesn’t need guidance from.” – George Carlin
61. “I’m not sure that’s the way to fight discrimination. I’m not sure silencing people or forcing them to alter their speech is the best method for solving problems that go much deeper than speech.” – George Carlin
62. “Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.” – George Carlin
63. “Keep in mind, the news media are not independent; they are a sort of bulletin board and public relations firm for the ruling class-the people who run things. Those who decide what news you will or will not hear are paid by, and tolerated purely at the whim of, those who hold economic power. If the parent corporation doesn’t want you to know something, it won’t be on the news. Period. Or, at the very least, it will be slanted to suit them, and then rarely followed up.” – George Carlin
64. “The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” and “Thou shalt not lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.” – George Carlin
65. “The next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election.” – George Carlin
66. “Have you ever noticed that the only metaphor we have in our public discourse for solving problems is to declare war on it? We have the war on crime, the war on cancer, the war on drugs. But did you ever notice that we have no war on homelessness? You know why? Because there’s no money in that problem. No money to be made off of the homeless. If you can find a solution to homelessness where the corporations and politicians can make a few million dollars each, you will see the streets of America begin to clear up pretty damn quick!” – George Carlin
67. “A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality – and it’s not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing – it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street.” – George Carlin
68. “All the media and the politicians ever talk about is things that separate us, things that make us different from one another.” – George Carlin
69. “If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain.” – George Carlin
70. “The larger the group, the more toxic, the more of your beauty as an individual you have to surrender for the sake of group thought. And when you suspend your individual beauty you also give up a lot of your humanity. You will do things in the name of a group that you would never do on your own. Injuring, hurting, killing, drinking are all part of it because you’ve lost your identity because you now owe your allegiance to this thing that’s bigger than you are and that controls you.” – George Carlin
71. “Did you ever stop to think about all the people we kill? They’re always people who tell us to live together in harmony and try to love one another: Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, John Lennon. They all said: ‘Try to live together peacefully.’ BAM! Right in the fucking head! Apparently, we’re not ready for that!” – George Carlin
72. “If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to have selfish, ignorant leaders.” – George Carlin
73. “Conservatives say if you don’t give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they’ve lost all incentive because we’ve given them too much money.” – George Carlin
74. “A flag is supposed to represent everything that a country does. It doesn’t only represent the good things. If you burn the flag, you’re burning the flag for what you perceive to be the bad things the country has done. it’s only a symbol. It’s only a piece of cloth.” – George Carlin
75.”The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful of insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers.. but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors. Because you have the illusion of choice!” – George Carlin
76. “Careful, if you think too much, they’ll take you away.” – George Carlin
77. “War is rich old men protecting their property by sending middle-class and lower-class men off to die.” – George Carlin
78. “We are a nation of sheep, and someone else owns the grass.” – George Carlin
79. “We’re so self-important. So arrogant. Everybody’s going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save the snails. And the supreme arrogance? Save the planet! Are these people kidding? Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves; we haven’t learned how to care for one another. We’re gonna save the fuckin’ planet?… And, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with the planet in the first place. The planet is fine. The people are fucked!” – George Carlin
80. “You know how I define the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxis, does all of the work. The poor are just there… just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep ’em showing up at those jobs.” – George Carlin
81. “My mind doesn’t work that way, I got this real moron thing I do, it’s called thinking and I’m not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions… I have certain rules I live by. My first rule, I don’t believe anything the government tells me… And I don’t take very seriously the media or the press in this country.” – George Carlin
George Carlin American Dream Quote
82. “The owners of this country know the truth: It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.” – George Carlin
“The Game Is Rigged!” – George Carlin on American Dream
George Carlin Quotes On Education
83.”There’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got, because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now… the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners.” – George Carlin
84. “It’s disgusting, man. Disgusting that people still make that argument that we can never cut defense but we can cut education. Who the fuck is going to invade the US? Really? Use your fucking heads! The only country that could invade America is America! We can afford to cut defense; we can’t afford to cut education. We cut education, in 50 years, we’ll be so stack with idiots with shitty jobs that we won’t have enough money to pay for defense!” – George Carlin
85. “Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question everything that they read… Teach them to question everything.” – George Carlin
86. “The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.” – George Carlin
87. “Life gets really simple once you cut out all the bull shit they teach you in school.” – George Carlin
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