If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
Paul NewmanRead
It's kind of like those little electric bumper cars where you drive around and see if you can hit the other guy. That's exactly what the country is like now. You no longer have the sense of community. Of loyalty. It's lost its sense of group. It has nothing to do with leadership.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the loss of community and loyalty in society.
Paul Newman compares contemporary society to electric bumper cars, suggesting that interactions have become superficial and competitive rather than cooperative and communal. He stresses that this breakdown of shared values, such as loyalty and a sense of belonging, is a serious concern and is not merely a leadership issue, but a deeper societal problem.
Themes
CommunityLoyaltySocietyValuesConnection
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on social change, one might quote Newman to emphasize the loss of community in modern life.
More from Paul Newman
All quotes →Twenty-five years ago I couldn`t walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don`t ask me about my movies and they don`t ask me about my salad dressing because they don`t know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.
Paul NewmanRead
A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.
Paul NewmanRead
I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.
Paul NewmanRead
Dreams without movement are delusions, escapes, kid’s play. You have to put your feet into your dreams if they’re ever going to be reality. The dreamers we know and love today are the ones who worked the hardest
Paul NewmanRead
I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too, I don't look at it as philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community.
Paul NewmanRead
Similar quotes
The trouble is, I can't find a part of myself where you're not important. I write in order to be worth your while and to finance the way I want to live with you. Not the way you want to live. The way I want to live with you. Without you I wouldn't care. I'd eat tinned spaghetti and put on yesterday's clothes. But as it is I change my socks, and make money, and tart up Brodie's unspeakable drivel into speakable drivel so he can be an author too, like me.
Tom StoppardRead
Thank you for leaving us alone but giving us enough attention to boost our egos.
Mick JaggerRead
You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.
Milan KunderaRead
It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream and struggle.
Shane ClaiborneRead
I'm not sure if resilience is ever achieved alone. Experience allows us to learn from example. But if we have someone who loves us-I don't mean who indulges us, but who loves us enough to be on our side-then it's easier to grow resilience, to grow belief in self, to grow self-esteem. And it's self-esteem that allows a person to stand up.
Maya AngelouRead
All of my peers died of AIDS, and I have no one to celebrate my past or my journey, or to help me pass down stories to the next generation. We lost an entire generation of storytellers with HIV.
David MixnerRead