Quotes about anything
page 11

“Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. I, Part 4.

Men, Communication, Nature, Reality

“We Shall Naturally look round in vain the macrophysical world for acausal events, for the simple reason that we cannot imagine events that are connected non-causally and are capable of a non-causal explanation. But that does not mean that such events do not exist… The so-called "scientific view of the world" based on this can hardly be anything more than a psychologically biased partial view which misses out all those by no means unimportant aspects that cannot be grasped statistically.”

C.G. Jung book Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Source: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1960), p. 5

World, Imagination, Nature

“All our ideas are representations of the objects that affect our senses; then what can be represented by the idea of God, which is obviously an idea without an object? Isn't such an idea, or will add, as impossible as effects without causes? Isn't an idea without a prototype anything but a chimera? Some Doctors of the Church, you will continue, assure us that the notion of God is innate, and that a man already has this notion in his mother's womb. But that is wrong, you will add; every principle is a judgement, every judgement is the result of experience, and experience can be gained only through the exercise of the senses. And it thereby follows that religious principles are obviously based on nothing and are not innate at all. How, you will go on, could anyone persuade rational beings that the hardest thing to grasp was the most essential thing for them? They were terrified; and when you are terrified, you are no longer rational. Above all, they were told to distrust their reasoning; and when the brains are muddled, you believe everything and examine nothing. Fear and ignorance, you will continue, are two mainstays of any and all religions.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

God, Fear, Religion, Exercises

“It comforts me to know that anything I put my mind to, and pursue, I can achieve.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11882368/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes

“An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men.”

Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) English churchman and historian

Men, Motivational

“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.”

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

Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949) edited by Paul A. Schilpp
1940s

“When words stop meaning anything, when truth doesn’t matter, when people can just lie with abandon, democracy can’t work.”

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

Speech at political rally on November 2, 2018. Source: Obama rips hecklers: Why are the people who won the last election ‘so mad all the time?' https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/03/obama-rips-hecklers-why-are-people-who-won-last-election-so-mad-all-time/ <br class="br">2018

People, Truth, Lie, Democracy

“Use original detail in your writing. Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "Original detail". p.45
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

Life, Way

“The human being, corrupted to the root, can neither desire nor perform anything but evil.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

The Making of Martin Luther, By Richard Rex, p66
Attributed

Evil

“No man of sense can put himself and his soul under the control of names... You must consider courageously and thoroughly and not accept anything carelessly.”

Plato book Cratylus

440c–d
Cratylus

Soul, Courage, Sense

“Anyone or anything that forces me to fall asleep when I want to stay awake is considered toxic to my senses.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Sense

“Mr. Devil lived in Heaven, but it seems he didn't learn anything good there. God is love. How did the devil get so wicked, even though he lived in Heaven for many years?”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, God, Learning

“There are two ways to live a celibate life. The first is to leave everything as it is and the second is to explore everything, without neglecting anything. Those who experiment a lot have little taste in things.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Way

“I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.”

Bertrand Russell book Why I Am Not a Christian

"The Emotional Factor"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

Men, People, Religion, Thinking

“I think an Oscar nomination does open doors. I have been fortunate to have had some incredible roles since the movie. [Whether] the nomination had anything to do with that, I don’t know – I just know I am incredibly grateful to be getting the work that I am.”

Timothée Chalamet (1995) French-American Actor (1995)

Source: "Interview: Timothée Chalamet on being a young Hollywood actor" in SilverKris https://www.silverkris.com/interview-timothee-chalamet/ (13 December 2019)

Thinking

“I always had an interest in the story of everything. A little bit of an existential crisis always helps when you’re looking for a sea change. If I know anything, it’s that I never learned anything while I was talking.”

Robert Downey Jr. (1965) American actor

Source: "Robert Downey Jr. on Being an Entrepreneur: 'I Never Learned Anything While I Was Talking'" https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2021/04/02/robert-downey-jr-talks-businessman-irl (2 April 2021)

Learning, Change, Help, Sea

“If i could change one thing about the world, it'd be:
Their thinking, because nowadays their thinking has become so sick that they do not see anything other than their religion. they keep fighting and quarreling with each other in the name of religion, they all forget that there is no greater religion than humanity. I want to change their thinking so that peace and harmony prevails between them.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

World, Peace, Religion, Thinking

“The multi-dimensional aspects of water are amazing. Water contains within itself the knowing or the memory of anything it comes into contact with. This means it carries the knowing and the memory of a place and the happenings there, going back sometimes thousands of years. It is full of information… Sort of like a mirror that keeps the reflection of anything it has ever encountered.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Source: tealswan.com/quotes

Water, Memory

“How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 8

Love, Fear

“Whenever you bring your attention to anything natural, anything that has come into existence without human intervention, you step out of the prison of conceptualized thinking and, to some extent, participate in the state of connectedness with Being in which everything natural still exists.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 7

Nature, Thinking

“He that knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances of his ignorance."”

John Locke book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Source: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Book IV, Ch. 3, sec. 22

“Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords?”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: "Forced Emigration," New York Daily Tribune, 22 March 1853.

Life, Money, Way, Housing

“Do you really need to mentally label every sense perception and experience? Do you really need to have a reactive like/dislike relationship with life where you are in almost continuous conflict with situations and people? Or is that just a deep seated mental habit that can be broken? Not by doing anything, but by allowing this moment to be as it is.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 7

Life, People, Sense

“A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Introduction

Truth, Sense, Teachers, Help

“Don't think that life no longer holds anything beautiful for you: face the problems and enjoy the moments, focusing your attention exclusively on what makes you feel alive.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Non pensare che la vita non riservi più nulla di bello per te: affronta i problemi e goditi gli attimi, concentrando la tua attenzione esclusivamente su ciò che ti fa sentire vivo.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Beauty, Feeling, Problem

“I don't regret anything in my life…
and this makes some people so upset.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, People

“I never compare myself to others.
I never use my family's name to acquire anything.
I want people to like and look at what I have personally accomplished …on my own, and the person I am as a result.
I have always been the best in every field I have chosen.
I feel confident that I shall succeed beautifully in any endeavor I put my mind to.
I realize that this may sound conceited, but it is more a confidence.
However when I put my heart and soul into anything,
the positive outcomes yield overall
superlative results.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

People, Family, Feeling, Soul

“Have you ever been really scared and then your muscles relaxed? Being scared is just one relaxation of muscles, an orgasm is the contraction and relaxation of muscles over and over. then afterward, you are really sensitive to touch. your toes are tingly, heart rate is really high, you're all hot, you cant focus on anything other than the feelings coursing through your body.
its all warm, wet, hot, a sensory overload really.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Feeling, Heart

“They say people in your life are seasons
And anything that happens is for a reason The devil is alive, I feel him breathin'
Claiming money is the key, so keep on dreamin'
And put them lottery tickets just to tease us”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Heard 'Em Say
Lyrics, Late Registration (2005)

Life, Money, People, Feeling

“God lives in “want” of nothing. Anything God wants, God can have. Yet God does have desires. It is God’s desire that fuels the engine of creation. It is Divine Desire that powers the universe.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God, Universe

“Thinking does not change anything, only actions.”

Ralph Smart

Thinking, Change

“She couldn't have found anything nastier to say if she had thought it out with both hands for a fortnight.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Busman's Honeymoon

Source: Busman's Honeymoon

“There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

According to Ruskin scholar George P. Landow, there is no evidence that this quotation or its variants can be found in any of Ruskin's works.
[Landow, George P., A Ruskin Quotation?, VictorianWeb.org, 2007-07-27, http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ruskin/quotation.html, 2013-01-07]
Disputed

World, Law, Personality

“Now they broke my toothbrush, I don't own anything.”

Lee Child book Bad Luck and Trouble

Source: Bad Luck and Trouble

“I never learned anything at all in school and didn't read a book for pleasure until I was 19 years old.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Pleasure, Books, School, Learning

“But surely we are not allowed…"
"Allowed?" I counters. "We're allowed to do anything in this world until someone says we ain't allowed and that someone can back it up.”

L.A. Meyer (1942–2014) American writer

World

“It was the year they fell into devastating love. Neither one could do anything except think about the other, dream about the other, and wait for letters with the same impatience they felt when they answered them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Dreams, Thinking, Waiting

“The mind-blowing, ridiculous sex which was the stuff of both poetry and porn - so unlike anything else I had ever experienced before.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

Sex

“I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I?”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

“Why should I tell you everything about how I feel when you never tell me anything?”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Feeling

“‎Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

“Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“I did not want to be anything, and naturally I did not want to turn myself into a mere profession: all I ever wanted was to be myself.”

Thomas Bernhard (1931–1989) Austrian writer

Source: Gathering Evidence

Nature

“It's hard to love a woman and do anything.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Love

“How easy I was. Like a limpet I attached myself to anything, anyone who showed me the least attention.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

“Man has come to dominate the planet thanks to two essential traits. One is intelligence. The other has been the absolute willingness to kill anyone and anything that gets in his way.”

Stephen King book Cell

Source: Cell

Way, Intelligence

“But those with an evil heart seem to have a talent for destroying anything beautiful which is about to bloom.”

Cynthia Rylant (1954) American author of children's books and librarian

Source: Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Beauty, Evil, Heart

“And what about the piranhas?”
“I doubt the fishies’ll snack on anything critical.” He leaned in to murmur at her ear, “They only go for small prey.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Pleasure of a Dark Prince

“What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool?

You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

Source: The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's

People

“If there was anything I learned from John the Baptist, it was that the sooner you confess a mistake, the quicker you can get on to making new and better mistakes.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Learning

“I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.”

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

Men, Evil, Time, Fight

“You can spend your whole life building a wall of facts between you and anything real.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Life

“If you stare long enough at anything, you will start to find similarities. The word “coincidence” exists in order to stop people from seeing meaning where none exists.”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

People

“You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Source: Blood Meridian (1985), Chapter II
Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
Context: A man’ s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.

God, Evil

“would never make up anything like that.”
"That's because Aaron doesn't say anything that requires words of more than one syllable.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

“She is, above all else, tired; she wants more than anything to return to her bed and her book. The world, this world, feels suddenly stunned and stunted, far from everything.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Source: The Hours

Books, World, Feeling

“Anything there is that I can do for you, I will do for you; anything there is that I cannot do, I will learn to do.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Learning

“Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Parting

“Love doesn't mean anything if you're not willing to make a commitment, and you have to think not only about what you want, but about what he wants. Not just now, but in the future.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Jo, Chapter 23, p. 192
Source: 2009, Safe Haven (2010)

Love, Thinking, Future

“When you bring consciousness to anything, things begin to shift.”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

“Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Food

“If you have ever said, "I didn't get anything out of worship today," you worshiped for the wrong reason. Worship isn't for you. It's for God.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

God

“When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible.”

Salman Rushdie book The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

Hope

“The mind of man is capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage--who can tell?--but
truth--truth stripped of its cloak of time.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Truth, Fear, Rage, Time

“Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Love, Courage, Strong

“God has invested entirely too much in you for you to be comfortable in anything less than you were created to be.”

T.D. Jakes (1957) American bishop

God

“I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.
Brian Fitzgerald, talking about his children.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Variant: Goldfish get big enough only for the bowl you put them in. Bonsai trees twist in miniature. I would have given anything to keep her little. They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.
Source: My Sister's Keeper

Children, For Parents

“a person can get used to anything if given enough time”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Time, Personality

“If your friend is sick and dying, the most important thing he wants is not an explanation; he wants you to sit with him. He's terrified of being alone more than anything else. So, God has not left us alone.”

Lee Strobel (1952) American writer

God

“It was really true, there was no longer anything about him that could interest me. He wasn't even a fragment of the past, he was only a stain, like the print of a hand left years ago on a wall.”

Elena Ferrante book The Days of Abandonment

Source: The Days of Abandonment

Past

“I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.”

William Saroyan book The Human Comedy

Source: The Human Comedy (1943)
Context: Death is not an easy thing for anyone to understand, least of all a child, but every life shall one day end. But as long as we are alive, as long as we are together, as long as two of us are left, and remember him, nothing in the world can take him from us. His body can be taken, but not him. You shall know your father better as you grow and know yourself better. He is not dead, because you are alive. Time and accident, illness and weariness took his body, but already you have given it back to him, younger and more eager than ever. I don't expect you to understand anything I'm telling you. But I know you will remember this — that nothing good ever ends. If it did, there would be no people in the world — no life at all, anywhere. And the world is full of people and full of wonderful life.

Life, People, World, Understanding

“Listening doesn't mean trying to understand. Anything, however trifling, may be of use one day. What matters is to know something that others don't know you know.”

Umberto Eco book The Prague Cemetery

Source: The Prague Cemetery

Understanding

“Why should I tell you everything about how I feel when you never tell me anything? It's like banging my head on a wall, except at least if I were banging my head on a wall, I'd be able to make myself stop. - Jace Wayland.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Jace and Clary, pg. 244
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
Context: "I wish I could hate you. I want to hate you. I try to hate you. It would be so much easier if I did hate you. Sometimes I think I do hate you and then I see you and I-"
"And you what?"
"What do you think? Why should I tell you everything about how I feel when you never tell me anything. It's like banging my head on a wall, except at least if I were banging my head on a wall, I'd be able to make myself stop."

Feeling

“As I said, I wish I could say it was easy. It wasn't, but it wasn't hard either. But without a strong reason or purpose, anything in life is hard.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Life, Strong

“Calvin's Dad: It's going to be a grim day when the world is run by a generation that doesn't know anything but what it's seen on TV.
p100”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Something Under the Bed Is Drooling
Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

World

“Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Stupidity, Night

“I’m not sentimental about anything. Life flows by, and you flow with it or you don’t. Move on and move out.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Life

“Some people don't understand that it is the nature of the eye to have seen forever, and the nature of the mind to recall anything that was ever known.”

Alice Walker book The Temple of My Familiar

Source: The Temple of My Familiar

People, Understanding, Nature

“The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.”

Dashiell Hammett book The Thin Man

Source: The Thin Man

People, Lie, Fools, Thinking

“I can only assume that there’s only one thing more frustrating than not being able to find someone, and that’s not being found. I would want someone to find me, more than anything.”

Cecelia Ahern book A Place Called Here

Source: A Place Called Here

“Life doesn't do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Life

“It really kind of sucked to be close to someone for so long and then suddenly not be anything anymore.”

Cecily von Ziegesar book Reckless

Source: Reckless

“Mothers can forgive anything! Tell me all, and be sure that I will never let you go, though the whole world should turn from you.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jo's Boys

Source: Jo's Boys

World, Forgiveness, Mother's Day, For Mother

“Don't do anything that goes against your conscience, even if your country says so.”

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

Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949) edited by Paul A. Schilpp
1940s
Variant: Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Country