Quotes about addiction

A collection of quotes on the topic of dependency, dependent, other, use.

Best quotes about addiction

Aristotle photo

“Happiness depends upon ourselves”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

An interpretative gloss of Aristotle's position in Nicomachean Ethics book 1 section 9, tacitly inserted by J. A. K. Thomson in his English translation The Ethics of Aristotle (1955). The original Greek at Book I 1099b.29 http://perseus.uchicago.edu/perseus-cgi/citequery3.pl?dbname=GreekFeb2011&getid=0&query=Arist.%20Eth.%20Nic.%201099b.25, reads ὁμολογούμενα δὲ ταῦτ’ ἂν εἴη καὶ τοῖς ἐν ἀρχῇ, which W. D. Ross translates fairly literally as [a]nd this will be found to agree with what we said at the outset. Thomson's much freer translation renders the same passage thus: [t]he conclusion that happiness depends upon ourselves is in harmony with what I said in the first of these lectures; the words "that happiness depends upon ourselves" were added by Thomson to clarify what "the conclusion" is, but they do not appear in the original Greek of Aristotle. Rackham's earlier English translation added a similar gloss, but averted confusion by confining it to a footnote.
Disputed
Variant: Happiness depends upon ourselves
Source: See http://www.mikrosapoplous.gr/aristotle/nicom1b.htm#I9 for the original Greek and Ross's translation; Thomson's translation can be viewed on Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=9SFrNWmO654C&dq=%22happiness+depends+upon+ourselves%22+aristotle&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22happiness+depends+upon+ourselves%22+.
Source: Rackham's translation of this passage is available here http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D9%3Asection%3D8

Gautama Buddha photo

“Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism
John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury photo

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.”

John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury (1834–1913) British banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath
Virginia Woolf photo

“The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

"Women and Fiction"
Granite and Rainbow (1958)
Context: The extraordinary woman depends on the ordinary woman. It is only when we know what were the conditions of the average woman's life … it is only when we can measure the way of life and the experience of life made possible to the ordinary woman that we can account for the success or failure of the extraordinary woman as a writer.

Dante Alighieri photo

“From that point
Dependent is the heaven and nature all.”

Canto XXVIII, lines 41–42 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Our body is dependent on heaven and heaven on the Spirit.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo

“Every moment before this one depends on this one.”

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Virginia Woolf photo

Quotes about addiction

Milkha Singh photo

“You can achieve anything in life. It just depends on how desperate you are to achieve it.”

Milkha Singh (1935) Indian track and field athlete

The Race of My Life: An Autobiography Milkha Singh (2013)

Lewis Carroll photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“Where should I go?" -Alice. "That depends on where you want to end up." - The Cheshire Cat.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
David Attenborough photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Jonathan Edwards photo
Erich von Manstein photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)
Context: Slavery is wrong. If Slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and Constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality — its universality; if it is wrong they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought Slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?
Wrong as we think Slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States?
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man — such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care — such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance — such as invocations of Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington did.

Alexander Herzen photo
Jacques-Yves Cousteau photo

“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …
Sylvester Stallone photo
Wangari Maathai photo
Joseph Stalin photo

“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Interview http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/cc835_44.htm with H. G. Wells (September 1937)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Jürgen Habermas photo

“[Critical social science attempts] to determine when theoretical statements grasp invariant regularities of social action as such and when they express ideologically frozen relations of dependence that can in principle be transformed.”

Source: Knowledge and Human Interests, 1971, p. 310 as cited in: Dominick LaCapra (1983) Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language. p. 170

Werner Heisenberg photo
Hayao Miyazaki photo

“Most people depend on the internet and cellphones to survive, but what happens when they stop working? I wanted to create a mother and child who wouldn't be defeated by life without them.”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

(2009) Independent News article 2009 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/hayao-miyazaki-modern-movies-are-too-weird-for-me-1678129.html
On Ponyo

Yoko Ono photo
Babur photo

“On Monday the 9th of the first Jumada, we got out of the suburbs of Agra, on our journey (safar) for the Holy War, and dismounted in the open country, where we remained three or four days to collect our army and be its rallying-point…On this occasion I received a secret inspiration and heard an infallible voice say: 'Is not the time yet come unto those who believe, that their hearts should humbly submit to the admonition of Allah, and that truth which hath been revealed? Thereupon we set ourselves to extirpate the things of wickedness…
Above all, adequate thanks cannot be rendered for a benefit than which none is greater in the world and nothing is more blessed, in the world to come, to wit, victory over most powerful infidels and dominion over wealthiest heretics, these are the unbelievers, the wicked.'In the eyes of the judicious, no blessing can be greater than this…. Previous to the rising in Hindustan of the Sun of dominion and the emergence there of the light of the Shahansha's (i. e. Babur's) Khalifate the authority of that execrated pagan (Sanga) - at the Judgment Day he shall have no friend - was such that not one of all the exalted sovereigns of this wide realm, such as the Sultan of Delhi, the Sultan of Gujarat and the Sultan of Mandu, could cope with this evil-dispositioned one, without the help of other pagans…
Ten powerful chiefs, each the leader of a pagan host, uprose in rebellion, as smoke rises, and linked themselves, as though enchained, to that perverse one (Sanga); and this infidel decade who, unlike the blessed ten, uplifted misery-freighted standards which denounce unto them excruciating punishment, had many dependents, and troops, and wide-extended lands…. The protagonists of the royal forces fell, like divine destiny, on that one-eyed Dajjal who to understanding men, shewed the truth of the saying, When Fate arrives, the eye becomes blind, and setting before their eyes the scripture which saith, whosoever striveth to promote the true religion, striveth for the good of his own soul, they acted on the precept to which obedience is due, Fight against infidels and hypocrites…
The pagan right wing made repeated and desperate attack on the left wing of the army of Islam, falling furiously on the holy warriors, possessors of salvation, but each time was made to turn back or, smitten with the arrows of victory, was made to descend into Hell, the house of perdition: they shall be thrown to bum therein, and an unhappy dwelling shall it be. Then the trusty amongst the nobles, Mumin Ataka and Rustam Turkman betook themselves to the rear of the host of darkened pagans…
At the moment when the holy warriors were heedlessly flinging away their lives, they heard a secret voice say, Be not dismayed, neither be grieved, for, if ye believe, ye shall be exalted above the unbelievers, and from the infallible Informer heard the joyful words, Assistance is from Allah, and a speedy victory! And do thou bear glad tiding to true believers. Then they fought with such delight that the plaudits of the saints of the Holy Assembly reached them and the angels from near the Throne, fluttered round their heads like moths.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Babur writing about the battle against the Rajput Confederacy led by Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar. In Babur-Nama, translated into English by A.S. Beveridge, New Delhi reprint, 1979, pp. 547-572.

Alexis Karpouzos photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
Umberto Eco photo
Neal A. Maxwell photo

“God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, he will increase our capability.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Variant: God does not begin by asking our ability, but more of our availability. When we prove our dependability, He will in crease our capability.

Albert Einstein photo

“The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to the minister of a church in Brooklyn (20 November 1950), p. 95. The minister had earlier written Einstein asking if he would send him a signed version of a quote about the Catholic church attributed to Einstein in Time magazine (see the "Misattributed" section below), and Einstein had written back to say the quote was not correct, but that he was "gladly willing to write something else which would suit your purpose". According to the book, the minister replied "saying he was glad the statement had not been correct since he too had reservations about the historical role of the Church at large", and said that "he would leave the decision to Einstein as to the topic of the statement", to which Einstein replied with the statement above.
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life. To make this a living force and bring it to clear consciousness is perhaps the foremost task of education. The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.

Marcus Aurelius photo

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.”

Variant: The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
Source: Meditations

Viktor E. Frankl photo

“In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

Source: Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning

Margaret Mead photo

“Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in Talent Development for English Language Learners: Identifying and Developing Potential (2013) by Michael S. Matthews, Ph.D. SBN-13:9781618211057
2000s
Variant: Never ever depend on governments or institutions to solve any major problems. All social change comes from the passion of individuals.

Eckhart Tolle photo
Gary L. Francione photo
Jacques-Yves Cousteau photo

“All life is part of a complex relationship in which each is dependent upon the others, taking from, giving to and living with all the rest.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …
Bruce Lee photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Galileo Galilei photo

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”

Loose paraphrase of Salviati on Day 3 http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/dialogue3.html: "For when the sun draws up some vapors here, or warms a plant there, it draws these and warms this as if it had nothing else to do. Even in ripening a bunch of grapes, or perhaps just a single grape, it applies itself so effectively that it could not do more even if the goal of all its affairs were just the ripening of this one grape."
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632)

Barack Obama photo

“And the ability of citizens to organize and advocate for change -- that's the oxygen upon which democracy depends.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)

Léon Bloy photo

“Love does not make you weak, because it is the source of all strength, but it makes you see the nothingness of the illusory strength on which you depended before you knew it.”

Léon Bloy (1846–1917) French writer, poet and essayist

Auden, W.H.; Kronenberger, Louis (1966), The Viking Book of Aphorisms, New York: Viking Press.

Edward Bernays photo
Pope Francis photo

“… exclude the need for appearances: what counts is not appearances; the value of life does not depend on the approval of others or on success, but on what we have inside us.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

As quoted in "Imposition of the Ashes - Homily of pope Francis" at www.vatican.va (5 March 2014) http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/homilies/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140305_omelia-ceneri_en.html
2010s, 2014

Madhvacharya photo

“All living beings are dependent upon Vishnu for their existence.”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

Beginner’s Guide to Sri MadhvAchArya’s Life and Philosophy

Fenton Johnson photo
Ronald H. Coase photo

“A firm consist of the system of relationships which comes into existence when the direction of resources is dependent on an entrepreneur.”

Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013) British economist and author

Source: 1930s-1950s, "The Nature of the Firm" (1937), p. 393

George Orwell photo
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues photo
Albert A. Michelson photo
Norbert Wiener photo
Isaac Newton photo
Carl Panzram photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'hold office'; everyone of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1964 Memorial Edition, p. 265 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations/Profiles-in-Courage-quotations.aspx
Pre-1960, Profiles in Courage (1956)

Abraham Lincoln photo

“A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting, and when you are gone; attend to those things, which you think are important. You may adopt all policies you please, but how they are carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your cities, states and nations. All your books are going to be judged, praised or condemned by him. The fate of humanity is in his hands. So it might be well to pay him some attention.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

The origins of this quote are unknown. At least two sources can be traced back, but these sources date back to the 1940 years; long time after Lincon's death.
Source 1: The 2003 "Masonic Historiology" from Allotter J. McKowe contains on page 55 (page 55 is dated on Jan. 11, 1944) the poem " What Is a Boy? http://books.google.de/books?id=K5CHWRttt-gC&pg=PA55&dq=desk" from an unknown author. The poem reads:
:: He is a person who is going to carry on what you have started.
:: He is to sit right where you are sitting and attend when you are gone to those things you think are so important.
:: You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they will be carried out depends on him.
:: Even if you make leagues and treaties, he will have to manage them.
:: He is going to sit at your desk in the Senate, and occupy your place on the Supreme Bench.
:: He will assume control of your cities, states and nations.
:: He is going to move in and take over your prisons, churches, schools, universities and corporations.
:: All your work is going to be judged and praised or condemned by him.
:: Your reputation and your future are in his hands.
:: All you work is for him, and the fate of the nations and of humanity is in his hands. Quotes about life http://www.quotesaboutlifee.com/2012/04/best-quotes-on-life-best-sayings-on.html
:: So it might be well to pay him some attention.
Source 2: The newspaper "The Florence Times" from Florence, Alabama (Volume 72 - Number 120) contains in its Wednesday afternoon edition from October 30, 1940 a statement from a Dr. Frank Crane. The entitled "What is a Boy?" statement http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19401030&id=yx8sAAAAIBAJ&sjid=I7oEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3738,3720511 reads:
Disputed

George Orwell photo
Simón Bolívar photo

“A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

Letter from Jamaica (Summer 1815)
Context: A state too expensive in itself, or by virtue of its dependencies, ultimately falls into decay; its free government is transformed into a tyranny; it disregards the principles which it should preserve, and finally degenerates into despotism. The distinguishing characteristic of small republics is stability: the character of large republics is mutability.

Marvin Minsky photo

“The "laws of thought" depend not only on the property of brain cells, but also on how they are connected.”

Source: The Society of Mind (1987), Ch.2
Context: The "laws of thought" depend not only on the property of brain cells, but also on how they are connected. And these connections are established not by the basic, "general" laws of physics... To be sure, "general" laws apply to everything. But, for that very reason, they can rarely explain anything in particular.... Each higher level of description must add to our knowledge about lower levels.

Morihei Ueshiba photo

“Depending on the circumstance, you should be: hard as a diamond, flexible as a willow, smooth-flowing like water, or as empty as space.”

Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969) founder of aikido

The Art of Peace (1992)
Context: Techniques employ four qualities that reflect the nature of our world. Depending on the circumstance, you should be: hard as a diamond, flexible as a willow, smooth-flowing like water, or as empty as space.

Barack Obama photo

“Every one of us is equal. Every one of us has worth. Every one of us matters. And when we respect the freedom of others -- no matter the color of their skin, or how they pray or who they are or who they love -- we are all more free. Your dignity depends on my dignity, and my dignity depends on yours.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: Every one of us is equal. Every one of us has worth. Every one of us matters. And when we respect the freedom of others -- no matter the color of their skin, or how they pray or who they are or who they love -- we are all more free. Your dignity depends on my dignity, and my dignity depends on yours. Imagine if everyone had that spirit in their hearts. Imagine if governments operated that way. Just imagine what the world could look like -- the future that we could bequeath these young people.

Buckminster Fuller photo

“I am convinced that human continuance depends entirely upon: the intuitive wisdom of each and every individual”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)
Context: I am convinced that human continuance depends entirely upon: the intuitive wisdom of each and every individual... the individual's integrity of speaking and acting only on the individual's own within-self-intuited and reasoned initiative... the individual's never joining action with others as motivated only by crowd-engendered-emotionalism, or a sense of the crowd's power to overwhelm, or in fear of holding to the course indicated by one's own intellectual convictions.

Sukirti Kandpal photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“I come forward as the supporter of that great interest which is the only solid basis of the social fabric, and, convinced that the sound prosperity of this country depends upon the protected industry of the farmer, I would resist that spirit of rash and experimental legislation which is fast hurrying this once glorious Empire to the agony of civil convulsion.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Address to the electors of Buckinghamshire (12 December 1832), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 225

Benjamin Disraeli photo
Tom Lehrer photo

“Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.
Introduction to "We Will All Go Together When We Go"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)

Henry David Thoreau photo
Plato photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo
George Eliot photo
Hannah Arendt photo

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”

Source: On the subject “alternate facts”. Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.

Ernest Hemingway photo
Susanna Tamaro photo
Upton Sinclair photo

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American novelist, writer, journalist, political activist

Source: I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935), ; repr. University of California Press, 1994, p. 109.
Context: I used to say to our audiences: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Jimmy Carter photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Bram Stoker photo
Oscar Wilde photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
Susan B. Anthony photo

“I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Speech in San Francisco (July 1871)<!-- also quoted in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, p. 276 -->
Variant: Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.

C.G. Jung photo
Eckhart Tolle photo

“What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Virginia Woolf photo
Derek Landy photo
Hannah Arendt photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Corrie ten Boom photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Chapter V Applied Idealism http://www.bartleby.com/55/5.html
1910s, Theodore Roosevelt — An Autobiography (1913)

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
George Soros photo
W.B. Yeats photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Blaise Pascal photo