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.
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A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.
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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.
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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
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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.
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