Quotes about anything
page 4
“If you want anything done right you will have to see to it yourself every time.”
Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 5, p. 75 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'
Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Source: A Long Way Down
July 1890, page 320
John of the Mountains, 1938
Source: John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir
“Anything worth doing, is worth overdoing.”
Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star
“I hope you never love anything as much as I love you.”
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 73
“You can succeed at almost anything for which you have unbridled enthusiasm.”
Zen Masters : The Wisdom of Frank Zappa (2003)
Student Loans
1980s–1990s, Is Reality Optional? (1993)
Source: Is Reality Optional?: And Other Essays
“I cannot contribute anything to this world because I only have one method: agony.”
Source: On the Heights of Despair (1934)
“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.”
Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
Source: Der Sendbrief vom Liebesgott / The Letter of the God of Love
“As for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible.”
Variant: I can believe anything provided it is incredible.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent.”
Source: Girl, Interrupted
Source: Monstrous Regiment
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”
Source: The Iceman Cometh
“She's so in love with me, she doesn't know anything. That's why she's in love with me.”
“How I wish I didn't know anything about myself and this world!”
Source: On the Heights of Despair (1934)
Source: Second Chance
“Peace is such a precious jewel that I would give anything for it but truth.”
“When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.”
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010), p. 210.
Context: For many years I believed that I remembered helping my grandfather drink his whisky toddy when I was six weeks old, but I do not tell about that any more, now; I am grown old, and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying, now, and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the latter. It is sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.
“I didn't ask to be born, and I don't owe God anything.”
Source: Spring's Awakening
“The only way you get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them.”
Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany
“A woman can put up with almost anything; anything but indifference.”
“Possession of anything begins in the mind.”
Part 6 "Beyond System — The Ultimate Source of Jeet Kune Do"
Jeet Kune Do (1997)
Context: (Answering "What made you step up to making your own record?") I felt like I may not get opportunities to do this ever again, so it’s about time—it’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something—I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.
“Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else.”
Source: Wall and Piece (2005)
Speech to the House of Commons (8 June 1982) http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/60882a.htm
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
Context: From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.... If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...
“In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama on New Hampshire Primary Night (8 January 2008)
2008
Context: We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can.
Context: We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change. We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. They will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come. We've been asked to pause for a reality check; we've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can.
“You young people never say anything. And us old folks don't know how to stop talking.”
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
“When I think of all the harm [the Bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.”
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist”
Marx quoted and translated by Engels (in an 1882 letter to Eduard Bernstein) about the peculiar Marxism which arose in France 1882. Original: "Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste" http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1882/letters/82_11_02.htm#356
Original: Ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste.
Source: My Friend Leonard
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
“… don't read anything except what destroys the insulation between yourself and your experience…”
Source: The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have
Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story
“Doing anything when you're bored is veryboring. Anyway, isof being bored. Theof being bored isand”
Source: This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn
Source: Journal of a Solitude
“Resolved, never to do anything out of revenge.”
No. 14.
Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723)
“Inspiration is a word used by people who aren't really doing anything.”
Rhunon
Source: Eldest (2005)
Source: The Power of Myth
“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.”
Variant: Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
Source: Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements
Source: Malcolm X Speaks (1965), p. 111
“Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.”
Source: A Room of One's Own
Source: The Tao of Pooh
“Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!”
“[She] was made up of skin and bones and hate and crazy, and hate and crazy don't weigh anything.”
Source: I Hunt Killers
On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform (1860)
“Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself.”
Source: The Bell Jar
“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it within himself.”
As quoted in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1935) by Dale Carnegie, p. 117; also paraphrased as "You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself." Attributions are found as early as 1882.
Attributed
Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=h70_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA476&dq=You+cannot+teach+a+man+anything;+you+can+only+help+him+find+it+within+himself&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI39Gmss_gyAIVRNRjCh1Q2wGN#v=onepage&q=%22You%20cannot%20teach%22&f=false
Source: The Last Wish
“Happy endings are all I can do. I wouldn't know how to write anything else.”
Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton