Quotes about doing
page 2

C.G. Jung photo

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.”

CW 12, par. 126 (p 99)
Psychology and Alchemy (1952)
Context: People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls. Thus the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come.

Etty Hillesum photo
Paul McCartney photo
Kurt Cobain photo

“I am not well read, but when I do read, I read well.”

Source: Journals (2002), p. 124

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Graham Greene photo
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman photo

“If we had remained in Pakistan, it would be a strong country. Again, if India had not been divided in 1947, it would be an even stronger country. But, then, Mr. President, in life do we always get what we desire?”

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh

Speaking about the break up of Pakistan with Nigerian leader Yakubu Gowon. http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2009/08/02/tribute.htm
Quote, Other

Selena Gomez photo
Michael Prysner photo
Basava photo

“The rich
Will make temples for Siva
what shall I, a poor man, do?
My legs are pillars,
the body the shrine,
the head the cupola of gold,
Listen, O! Lord:
Standing things shall fall,
that which moves shall stay”

Basava (1134–1196) a 12th-century Hindu philosopher, statesman, Kannada Bhakti poet of Lingayatism

[Chekki, Danesh A., Religion and Social System of the Vīraśaiva Community, http://books.google.com/books?id=x7JZMy1qntgC&pg=PA48, 1 January 1997, Greenwood Publishing Group, 978-0-313-30251-0, 48–]

Jacque Fresco photo

“Truly free people do not need to be told they are free.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
Billie Eilish photo
Freddie Mercury photo

“I'm possessed by love — but isn't everybody? Most of my songs are love ballads and things to do with sadness and torture and pain.
In terms of love, you're not in control and I hate that feeling. I seem to write a lot of sad songs because I'm a very tragic person. But there's always an element of humour at the end.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in "I am the Champion" by Nick Ferrari in The Sun (19 July 1985) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_07-19-1985_-_The_Sun.

Matka Tereza photo

“If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway!”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

This is a variant or paraphrase of The Paradoxical Commandments, by Kent M. Keith, student activist, first composed in 1968 as part of a booklet for student leaders, which had hung on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta, India, and have sometimes become misattributed to her. The version posted at his site http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com begins:
Misattributed
Context: People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

Helen Keller photo

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Edward Everett Hale in a statement published in A Year of Beautiful Thoughts‎ (1902) by Jeanie Ashley Bates Greenough, p. 172; <!-- and perhaps as early as an edition of Ten Times One is Ten (1870) by Hale--> This has been misattributed to Keller in published works since at least 1980. Keller and Hale were good friends, and letters to Hale can be found in her youthful autobiography The Story of My Life (1902). In 1910 Keller dedicated her poem "The Song of the Stone Wall" to Hale who had died in 1909.
Misattributed
Variant: I am only one, but I am one. I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do.

Karl May photo
John Wayne photo
George Orwell photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Bruce Lee photo
Pablo Neruda photo

“I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees.”

Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.
"Every Day You Play" (Juegas Todos las Días), XIV, p. 35.
Variant: I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

Helen Keller photo
Maya Angelou photo

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Shared on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MayaAngelou/posts/10150251846629796, July 4, 2011

Harriet Tubman photo
Hannah Arendt photo
Brené Brown photo

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Variant: I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
Source: Rising Strong

P. W. Botha photo

“We do not know what tomorrow will bring. We are not prophets. This is a step in the dark. We can only proceed into the future with faith.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

As prime minister, introducing the 4th Amendment to the Constitution Bill, 23 May 1980, which envisaged a tricameral corporate federation. Cited in The Star, and Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1987, PW Botha in his own words, p. 27

Freddie Mercury photo
Meryl Streep photo

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.”

Meryl Streep (1949) American actress

Misattributed to Meryl Streep (and widely disseminated on the Internet as of August/September 2014), this quote is allegedly a translation of a text by the author José Micard Teixeira, the original of which begins (in Portuguese): "Já não tenho paciência para algumas coisas, não porque me tenha tornado arrogante..."
Misattributed

Alyson Hannigan photo

“I just don't feel the need to swallow all the time, I only do it because I have to, because, like, saliva's gross or something, but I don't see it that way. It's just spit, what's the big deal? I really don't care.”

Alyson Hannigan (1974) American actress

When asked why she doesn't swallow her saliva very often after being asked if she was sick and she said she wasn't.

Raphael photo
Ahmad Shah Massoud photo
Otto von Bismarck photo

“They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow (Schlaukopf) of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to do with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

Talking to Gyula Andrássy in Salzburg on 18 September 1877. As quoted in Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question. A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics (1935) by Robert William Seton-Watson, p. 224 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=5CPVAAAAMAAJ&q=fox; "Schlaukopf" is translated elsewhere as "clever dick" or "smart aleck."

With deal (instead of do) with a pirate, in Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy's influence on Habsburg foreign policy during the Franco-German War of 1870-1871 (1979) by János Decsy, p. 21 http://books.google.de/books?id=JtUhAAAAMAAJ&q=111

„Man behandelt mich wie einen Fuchs, wie einen Schlaukopf erster Klasse. Die Wahrheit aber ist, qu'avec un gentleman je suis toujours gentleman et demi, et que quand j'ai affaire à un corsaire, je tâche d'etre corsaire et demi"
:Eduard von Wertheimer: Graf Julius Andrássy. Sein Leben und seine Zeit. Vol. III. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1914 pp. 42-43 http://books.google.de/books?id=2skhAAAAMAAJ&q=demi
1870s

Protagoras photo

“As touching the gods, I do not know whether they exist or not, nor how they are featured; for there is much to prevent our knowing: the obscurity of the subject and the brevity of human life.”

Protagoras (-486–-411 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

Opening lines of Concerning the Gods (DK 80 B4).
Variant translation: "As to the Gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or that they do not exist, or if they do, what they are like."

Zayn Malik photo

“Give me your body and let me love you like I do
Come a little closer and let me do those things to you
This feeling will last forever, baby, that's the truth
Let me be your man so I can love you”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

Let Me for his partner on young people not knowing what to come in the future if it is too faraway into the future
Song lyrics

Joseph Goebbels photo
Eminem photo

“My middle finger won't go down, how do I wave?”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"Role Model" (Track 9).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Josef Mengele photo

“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”

Josef Mengele (1911–1979) Nazi officer and physician

As quoted in Surfing the Tao : A Revolution of Free Will (2004) by Angela V. Michaels
Variant: The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.

Sophie Scholl photo

“I pity people who can't find laughter or at least some bit of amusement in the little doings of the day. I believe I could find something ridiculous even in the saddest moment, if necessary. It has nothing to do with being superficial. It's a matter of joy in life.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

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

Sappho photo

“Shimmering,
iridescent,
deathless Aphrodite,
child of Zeus, weaver of wiles,
I beg you,
do not crush my spirit with anguish, Lady,
but come to me now…”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

Stanley Lombardo translations, Frag. 1

Xenophon photo

“When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.”

Bk. 1, ch. 6; as translated by Henry Graham Dakyns in Cyropaedia (2004) p. 29.
Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC
Context: That... is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.

Kobe Bryant photo
Freddie Mercury photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Attributed to Goethe by popular British novelist Marie Corelli in her essay "The Spirit of Work" as published in The Queen's Christmas carol : an anthology of poems, stories, essays, drawings and music / by British authors, artists and composers in 1905 by The Daily Mail of London.
Attributed to Goethe by William Hutchinson Murray, in his book The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951), this has been shown to be a misattribution at "German Myth 12: The Famous 'Goethe' Quotation", Answer.com http://german.about.com/library/blgermyth12.htm and "Popular Quotes: Commitment", Goethe Society of North America http://www.goethesociety.org/pages/quotescom.html
Misattributed
Variant: Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Malcolm X photo
Bruce Lee photo
Sergei Rachmaninoff photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
B.F. Skinner photo
John Wesley photo

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you ever can.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Variant Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can.
In the sermon titled "The Use of Money" Wesley said, "Employ whatever God has entrusted you with in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree . . . to all men." This sermon is in the collection titled "Wesley's Standard Sermons." They are called "standard" because all Methodist preachers were instructed to read them and use them in interpreting the Christian faith.
Disputed
Variant: Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.
Source: According to Richard Heitzenrater, Professor of Church History and Wesleyan Studies at Duke Divinity School, there is no evidence that John Wesley ever wrote the rule that is attributed to him.

Marcus Aurelius photo
Marilyn Monroe photo
Thomas Merton photo

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Variant: Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone we find it with another.
Source: Love and Living

Jennifer Aniston photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo

“There’s a loneliness that only exists in one’s mind. The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is blink.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Variant: The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.

Kurt Cobain photo

“I’m worse at what I do best.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Variant: I´m worse at what I do best and for this gift I feel blessed.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. photo

“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: P.S. I Love You

Dolly Parton photo

“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

Variant: If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.

Neale Donald Walsch photo
A.A. Milne photo
John Quincy Adams photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Erwin Rommel photo

“When there's no clear option, it's better to do nothing.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II
Andrea Dworkin photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Napoleon Hill photo

“Do not wait; the time will never be "just right."”

Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 127

Barack Obama photo
Robert Greene photo
George Orwell photo

“We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

This has commonly been attributed to Orwell but has not been found in any of his writings. Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/ found the earliest known appearance in a 1993 Washington Times essay by Richard Grenier: "As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." The absence of quotation marks indicates Grenier was using his own words to convey Orwell's opinion; thus it may have originated as a paraphrase of his statement in "Notes on Nationalism" https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwelnat.htm (May 1945): "Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf." There are also similar sentiments expressed in an essay which Orwell wrote on Rudyard Kipling, quoting from one of Kipling's poems: "Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep." In the same essay Orwell also wrote of Kipling: "He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."
Misattributed

H.P. Lovecraft photo
Marina Abramović photo
Marilyn Manson photo
Robert Baden-Powell photo
George Orwell photo
Richard Bach photo

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Maria Montessori photo
Isaac Newton photo

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 330

John Dewey photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“It's only terrorism if they do it to us. When we do much worse to them, it's not terrorism.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

Jim Carrey photo
Ayrton Senna photo

“Racing, competing, is in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I've been doing it all my life. And it stands up before anything else.”

Ayrton Senna (1960–1994) Brazilian racing driver

Interview at the 1989 Australian Grand Prix, November 1989 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6brLntJE8s

Katie McGrath photo
Zayn Malik photo

“[his answer to 'do you have a twin sister?] He’s quite influential, that Rodger. He’s done a couple of songs on the new album. He’s off fishing today.”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

As 'guy who has a twin sister' on 2017-03-20, https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/03/zayn-malik-interview-the-times-quotes