“Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you you can’t do it. You want something, go get it. Period.”

—  movie Pursuit of happiness

Last update July 17, 2023. History

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Harlan Ellison photo

“There are certain injustices in this life you’ve got to do something about. You can’t just say that you can’t fight it, or it’s too much trouble, or that you don’t have the time or the effort, or that you can’t win.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Autograph profile (2010)
Context: I go to bed angry every night, I wake up angry every morning. There are certain injustices in this life you’ve got to do something about. You can’t just say that you can’t fight it, or it’s too much trouble, or that you don’t have the time or the effort, or that you can’t win. Forget all that. Fight them all! I fight them all because you never know which one is the big one. You never know which you give up and then it will come back and bite you in the ass. You never look away from a mountain lion, you lock eyes and you don’t let him get behind you.

Darren Criss photo
Richard Nixon photo

“Do you want to make a point or do you want to make a change? do you want to get something off your chest, or do you want to get something done?”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

Campaign speech in Michigan (1968) https://books.google.com/?id=uXRx5hGm8zYC&dq="Do+you+want+to+make+a+point+or+do+you+want+to+make+a+change"&pg=PA17
1960s

John Wooden photo

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

They Call Me Coach (1972)
Variant: You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you

Gregory Benford photo

““You’ll never get it to follow orders.”
“Slaves follow orders, Colonel. You want something done a slave can’t, you don’t ask for a slave to do it.””

Gregory Benford (1941) Science fiction author and astrophysicist

Part 2 “Aleph”, Chapter 3 (p. 68)
Against Infinity (1983)

“You love someone, you've got to let something go.”

Source: A Spot of Bother

Stefan Zweig photo

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