
“Literature is the emotional biography of a human being who has dared to write it.”
Source: Interview. Portal.ucm.cl
A collection of quotes on the topic of being, human, humanity, doing.
“Literature is the emotional biography of a human being who has dared to write it.”
Source: Interview. Portal.ucm.cl
Source: https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.”
Variant: You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice...
“I love pressure. I love being on the edge of a cliff. Yahooi.”
Other quotes, 2016
Original: (ja) プレッシャー大好き、崖っぷち大好き、ヤッホーイ。
Source: Interview with Shuzo Matsuoka, aired 28 November 2016 in 報道ステーション (Hodo Station) on TV Asahi.
Other quotes, 2014
Original: (ja) 逆境は嫌いじゃないので。弱くなってる自分がすごく嫌なんです。それは本当に嫌いですけど、でも弱いというのは強くなれる可能性があると思ってるんで。
Source: Excerpt from a press conference at the NHK Trophy 2014, held on 30 November 2014, aired the same day in ネオスポ (Neospo) on TV Tokyo and 15 December 2014 in News Every on NTV.
Variant: You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect — you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break — her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.
Annotation: Hanyu's being asked what difference it makes for him to go into the 2020 World Championships as a challenger after being the considered favorite for the title in recent years.
CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) えっと、まあ、チャレンジャーっていうことを言われますけど、でもいつも他のスケーターの良いところを追いかけてるし、他のスケーターに対してチャレンジしたいなって思ってるし、だからいつも自分はチャレンジャーだと思っていて、だから今シーズンの世界選手権でも先シーズンの世界選手権でも何も変わらないかなって思います。
The Barbican (Barbakan), "Kraków" Magazyn Kulturalny, Special Edition, 1991, p. 58-59. http://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/509488
“Being different means you are extraordinary”
“And so being young and dipped in folly, I fell in love with melancholy.”
“You never know how strong you can be until being strong is the only choice you have left.”
Source: The Rose That Grew from Concrete
“I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.”
Teacher
“I miss the comfort in being sad.”
Song lyrics, In Utero (1993)
Nahj al-Balagha
In conversation with Timothée Chalamet for i-D Magazine (2 November 2018) https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/evwwma/harry-styles-interviews-timothee-chalamet-photos
Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg
Other
Rosa Parks: My Story, p. 116, Rosa Parks and James Haskins (1992)
“With all things being equal, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.”
Variant: The simplest explanation is usually the right one
In an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC (29 November 1994)
“I never felt right being alone; sometimes it felt good but it never felt right.”
Variant: being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.
Source: Women
“By being too sensitive I have wasted my life.”
Variant: Idle youth, enslaved to everything; by being too sensitive I have wasted my life.
Source: Selected Poems and Letters
Os sentimentos que mais doem, as emoções que mais pungem, são os que são absurdos – a ânsia de coisas impossíveis, precisamente porque são impossíveis, a saudade do que nunca houve, o desejo do que poderia ter sido, a mágoa de não ser outro, a insatisfação da existência do mundo. Todos estes meios tons da consciencia da alma criam em nós uma paisagem dolorida, um eterno sol-pôr do que somos.
The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 196
Pierre Curie (1923), as translated by Charlotte Kellogg and Vernon Lyman Kellogg, p. 168
“Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.”
Dated 27 March 1942
Diary excerpts
Other
"Chimpanzees - Bridging the Gap", in Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (1996), p. 14
“I think being humble is sexy.”
1990s, MTV interview with Tabitha Soren (1995)
As quoted in Christian Jazz Artists Newsletter (February/March 2005) http://www.songsofdavid.com/CJAFebMarch2005.htm; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote.
Disputed
“Being born is a blessing in itself. You have survived, despite all the odds.”
“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
Source: Chance (1913) part II, Ch. 5
“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”
Letter to Wilhelm Fliess (15 October 1897), as quoted in Origins of Psychoanalysis
1890s
Source: Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1
“Take some exercise, try to recover the look of a human being.”
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.”
Person to person: The problem of being human: A new trend in psychology (1967)
Source: page 187.
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 22
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
She's magic https://web.archive.org/web/20090408064322/http://sundayheraldsalon.com/salon/2008/10/shes_magic.html (April 8, 2009)
Often misattributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.
Source: As quoted from “Interview with an Immoral,” Arthur Gordon, Reader’s Digest (July 1959). Reprinted in the Kipling Society journal, “Six Hours with Rudyard Kipling”, Vol. XXXIV. No. 162 (June, 1967) pp. 5-8. Interview took place in June, 1935 https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/pdf/KJ162.pdf
Context: Looking back, I think he knew that in my innocence I was eager to love everything and please everybody, and he was trying to warn me not to lose my own identity in the process. Time after time he came back to this theme. " The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."
you
Me & Rumi (2004)
“There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheik, who is an ocean for all beings.”
"The Grasses" in Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 44
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)
“The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator.”
Part II : How Language Calls to the Child, p. 121
The Absorbent Mind (1949)
The Satanic Bible (1969)
Diogenes Laërtius, vi. 27
Quoted by Diogenes Laërtius
The Last Messiah [Den sidste Messias] (1933)
Written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932).Translated as “Those Damned Nazis: Why a Workers Party?
“Those Damn Nazis: Why Are We a Workers’ Party?” https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm written by Joseph Goebbels and Mjölnir, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken, Nazi propaganda pamphlet (Munich: Verlag Frz. Eher, 1932)
1930s
GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5712889.Sitting_Bull
Attributed quotes
"everything i wanted" · First live performance, Mexico City (12 December 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgdG91aCsPU
Singles (2017 - )
“That’s the best thing about being dead. It’s like being stupid. It’s only painful for others.”
“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.”
“Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.”
As quoted in Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green