Quotes about digging

A collection of quotes on the topic of dig, digging, likeness, doing.

Quotes about digging

Richard Ramirez photo
Marilyn Manson photo
Marcus Aurelius photo

“Look within. Within is the fountain of the good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.”

VII, 59
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII

Shahrukh Khan photo

“Success makes people - people not related to you or to your field - like to take a dig at you.”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi

LeBron James photo
Sadhguru photo
Heinrich Himmler photo

“One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the S. S. men. We must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and nobody else. What happens to a Russian and a Czech does not interest me in the least. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only in so far as we need them as slaves for our culture: otherwise it is of no interest to me. Whether ten thousand Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an anti-tank ditch interests me only in so far as the anti-tank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be tough and heartless where it is not necessary, that is clear. We, Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude towards animals, will also assume a decent attitude towards these human animals. But it is a crime against our blood to worry about them and give them ideals, thus causing our sons and grandsons to have a more difficult time with them. When somebody comes up to me and says: 'I cannot dig the anti-tank ditch with women and children, it is inhuman, for it would kill them,' then I have to say: 'You are the murderer of your own blood, because if the anti-tank ditch is not dug German soldiers will die, and they are the sons of German mothers. They are our own blood….”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. We can be indifferent to everything else. I wish the S.S. to adopt this attitude towards the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians....
The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s

Vinko Vrbanić photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“There is not human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

Charles Manson photo
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just photo

“Those who make revolutions by halves do nothing but dig their own tombs.”

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader

(January 1793) [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 414]

Wangari Maathai photo

“Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.”

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist

Speech at Goldman Awards, San Francisco (24 April 2006)

Elvis Presley photo

“I'm strictly for [Adlai] Stevenson. I don't dig the intellectual bit, but I'm telling you man, he knows the most.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Elvis Presley Was Always Too Busy to Vote for President http://elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-voting.html

Nikita Khrushchev photo

“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will dig you in. We will bury you.”

Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Remark to western ambassadors during a diplomatic reception in Moscow (18 November 1956) as quoted in Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Statesman, 1953-1964, Penn State Press, 2007, (2007) by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, p. 893

George S. Patton photo

“My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either.”

George S. Patton (1885–1945) United States Army general

Speech to the Third Army (1944)
Context: When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!

Jonathan Sacks photo
Sadhguru photo
Paul Brunton photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Claude Monet photo
Anne Frank photo

“Sometimes I'm so deeply buried under self-reproaches that I long for a word of comfort to help me dig myself out again.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

David Lynch photo
Mark Twain photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Mark Twain photo
Robert Greene photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“The grave will fall in upon him who digs it.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

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

Virginia Woolf photo
Bawa Muhaiyaddeen photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Oriana Fallaci photo

“It's been four years since I spoke about Islamic Nazism, the war with the West, the cult of death, the suicide of Europe. A Europe which is no longer Europe but Eurabia, which with its softness, its inertia, its creed and its enslavement to the enemy, is digging his own grave.”

Oriana Fallaci (1929–2006) Italian writer

Sono quattr' anni che parlo di nazismo islamico, di guerra all' Occidente, di culto della morte, di suicidio dell' Europa. Un' Europa che non è più Europa ma Eurabia e che con la sua mollezza, la sua inerzia, la sua cecità, il suo asservimento al nemico si sta scavando la propria tomba.

"Il nemico che trattiamo da amico", in Corriere della Sera (15 September 2006)

Rumi photo

“If you dig a pit for others to fall into,
you will fall into it yourself.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Rumi Daylight (1990)

Aesop Rock photo

“If I had a hammer, I'd build a city on stilts so my feet would stay dry when God's wine glass tilts. If I had a shovel, I'd dig a hole in the dirt and I'll be hiding when his drunken stupor lands upon earth”

Aesop Rock (1976) American rapper

"Tugboat Complex" from the album Labor Days. Archived at " The Original Hip-Hop (Rap) Lyrics Archive http://ohhla.com/anonymous/aesoprck/rm_bside/tugboat.rck.txt," Accessed May 22, 2014.

José Saramago photo
John le Carré photo

“If you're in a hole, don't dig, they say.”

The Mission Song (2006)

Miguel Enríquez photo
Imre Kertész photo
Elon Musk photo
Ramana Maharshi photo
Henri Barbusse photo

“He who would dig right down to the truth must simplify; his faith must be brutally simple, or he is lost.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XXII - Light
Context: He who would dig right down to the truth must simplify; his faith must be brutally simple, or he is lost. Laugh at the subtle shades and distinctions of the rhetoricians and the specialist physicians. Say aloud: "This is what is," and then, "That is what must be."

Rajneesh photo

“Any mundane activity can become meditative. Digging a hole in the garden, planting new roses in the garden — you can do it with such tremendous love and compassion, you can do it with the hands of a buddha.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Hyakujo: The Everest of Zen
Context: Any mundane activity can become meditative. Digging a hole in the garden, planting new roses in the garden — you can do it with such tremendous love and compassion, you can do it with the hands of a buddha. There is no contradiction … I say unto you, your every act should be a ceremony. If you can bring your consciousness, your awareness, your intelligence to the act, if you can be spontaneous, then there is no need for any other religion: life itself will be the religion.

Rudyard Kipling photo

“I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

A Dead Statesman
Epitaphs of the War (1914-1918) (1918)
Context: I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

Billie Joe Armstrong photo
Zail Singh photo
Cheryl Strayed photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Sarah Vowell photo

“Look, it's not you. It's, and my inability to dig dirty dudes.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Demon from the Dark

Rick Riordan photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Laurie Halse Anderson photo

“I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: Twisted

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Joss Whedon photo
Khaled Hosseini photo
Warren Buffett photo
Langston Hughes photo

“I stay cool, and dig all jive,
That's the way I stay alive.
My motto,
as I live and learn,
is
Dig and be dug
In return.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"Motto"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Variant: My motto,
As I live and learn,
is:
Dig And Be Dug
In Return.

Will Rogers photo

“When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Variant: If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

Aleister Crowley photo
Abbie Hoffman photo
Henry James photo
Isobelle Carmody photo
Robert Jordan photo

“Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it?”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Rand al'Thor
(15 September 1992)

Confucius photo

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Attributed in Lillet Walters (2000), Secrets of Superstar Speakers; attributed in English sources as a "Japanese proverb" as early as 1924
Misattributed, Not Chinese

Jane Addams photo
Cassandra Clare photo
David Byrne photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Andy Warhol photo
John Steinbeck photo
Whoopi Goldberg photo
Mitch Albom photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Maya Angelou photo
Jordan Sonnenblick photo

“Chicks dig a dude who’s sporting the latest eggplant turtleneck styles.”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Margaret Atwood photo
Bob Dylan photo
Evelyn Waugh photo

“I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

Source: Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder

Stephen King photo

“Pray for rain all you like, but dig a well as you do it.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

Leo Tolstoy photo

“But in the judgments they exercise they are most accurate and just, nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses], whom if any one blaspheme he is punished capitally. They also think it a good thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if ten of them be sitting together, no one of them will speak while the other nine are against it. They also avoid spitting in the midst of them, or on the right side. Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. Nay, on other days they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the Divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit, after which they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose out for this purpose; and although this easement of the body be natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it, as if it were a defilement to them.”

Jewish War

Ernest Bramah photo

“However deep you dig a well it affords no refuge in the time of flood.”

The Story of Tong So, the Averter of Calamities
Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928)