“The world doesn’t give a damn what we feel or want. Only what we are, and what we do.”

“I want to have adventures and take enormous risks and be everything they say we are and not give a damn what anyone says.”

Dorothy Allison (1949) poet, novelist, critic

“We are not of what we feel or believe to do, we are of what we do or fail to do.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

“We do what we have to so we can do what we want to.”

Denzel Washington (1954) actor, screenwriter, director, producer

“There is a serious discrepancy between what we really wants, and what we usually do to get what we think we want. What we really want is to fill the hole inside and become complete, and what we do is look for success and growth outside.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

“Death does that: it makes everyone feel sentimental. When we stand in front of a coffin, we all see only what is good or what we want to see.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

“What did we want? We want the world smaller and bigger and just the same but advancing. We don’t know what we want.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

“We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor