Quotes about doing
page 20

“I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Understanding

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”

Freya Stark (1893–1993) British explorer and writer

The Journey's Echo (1963), p. 161 https://books.google.com/books?id=xlFbAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22There+can+be+no+happiness+if+the+things+we+believe+in+are+different+from+the+things+we+do.%22.

Happy, Happiness

“When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.”

Robert Frank (1924–2019) American photographer and filmmaker

People, Way, Feeling, Reading

“As you go through life's rich tapestry, you realize that most people you meet aren't fit to shine your shoes. It's a sad fact, but it's true. A good friend is someone who'd hide you if you were on the run for murder. How many of them do you know?”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Life, People, Sadness, Shoe

“They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Thinking

“All you have to do is to pay attention; lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Learning, Reading

“It's like if you're an astronaut and you've been to the moon, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Life

“Sometimes the only thing you could do for people was to be there.”

Terry Pratchett book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

People

“Why do you look like cheese, Beka?" Nestor asked me quietly. "We've got help."
I was too flummoxed to tell him I hadn't expected help to come so fast. Miracles aren't for the likes of me, didn't Nestor know that? Only the nobility gets them.”

Tamora Pierce book Bloodhound

Source: Bloodhound

Help

“If you can't run, then walk. And if you can't walk, then crawl. Do what you have to do. Just keep moving forward and never, ever give up.”

Dean Karnazes (1962) American distance runner

Source: Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner

“Do you think it takes true pain to experience true pleasure?”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Oh My Goth

Pain, Pleasure, Thinking

“Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. This single fact took the scientific world by storm.”

Douglas Adams Life, the Universe and Everything

Source: Life, the Universe and Everything

World, Law, Mathematics, Universe

“Mindfulness should guide all your actions and your spiritual endeavors. Whatever you do, always apply three essential points: undertake the action with the intention of doing so for the good of all beings; execute it with perfect concentration, free of attachment to concepts of subject, object, and action; and, finally, dedicate the merit you have created to the enlightenment of all beings.”

Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama

Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most

Perfection

“And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking Glass

Dreams

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“No one actually needs another person or another person's love to survive. Love is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

Source: Elsewhere

Love, Personality

“Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.”

Philip G. Zimbardo (1933) American social psychologist, author of Stanford Prison Experiment

Way, Motivation

“I manage because I have to. Because I've no other way out. Because I've overcome the vanity and pride of being different, I've understood that they are a pitiful defense against being different. Because I've understood that the sun shines differently when something changes. The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn't going to do anything.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book The Last Wish

Source: The Last Wish

Way, Change, Sun

“The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?”

Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) French philosopher

Source: Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

Men, Problem, Fight

“Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight.
Mercutio: And so did I.
Romeo: Well, what was yours?
Mercutio: That dreamers often lie.
Romeo: In bed asleep while they do dream things true.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Lie, Dreams

“Happy endings are all I can do. I wouldn't know how to write anything else.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton

Happiness

“Do you drink?"
"Of course, I just said I was a writer.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Drink

“Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

People, Evil

“Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day.”

Romain Rolland book Juan Criistobal

Gottfried to Jean-Christophe. Part 3: Ada
Jean-Christophe (1904 - 1912), Youth (1904)
Source: Jean Christophe Vol I
Context: Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day.
Context: Be reverent before the dawning day. Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years. Think of to-day. Leave your theories. All theories, you see, even those of virtue, are bad, foolish, mischievous. Do not abuse life. Live in to-day. Be reverent towards each day. Love it, respect it, do not sully it, do not hinder it from coming to flower. Love it even when it is gray and sad like to-day. Do not be anxious. See. It is winter now. Everything is asleep. The good earth will awake again. You have only to be good and patient like the earth. Be reverent. Wait. If you are good, all will go well. If you are not, if you are weak, if you do not succeed, well, you must be happy in that. No doubt it is the best you can do. So, then, why will? Why be angry because of what you cannot do? We all have to do what we can.... Als ich kann.

Thinking

“Them as can do, has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Variant: Them as can do has to do for them as can't. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.
Source: The Wee Free Men

“It's hard to explain," said Brutha. "But I think it's got something to do with how people should behave… you should do things because they're right. Not because gods say so. They might say something different another time.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

God, People, Thinking, Time

“Do you suppose she's a wildflower?”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

“You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Advice to the Youth of Mississippi (31 December 1964) http://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-9399834 Variant: You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it. Context: You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it.

Freedom

“We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: Translations from the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

Love, Learning

“Do not yearn, O my soul, for immortal life!
Use to the utmost
the skill that is yours.”

Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet

Pythian 3, line 61-62.
Variant translation: Seek not, my soul, immortal life, but make the most of the resources that are within your reach.

Life, Soul

“No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.”

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

Evil

“You take the flotsam," I tell her, "I'll take the jetsam."
You always get the jetsam,"she says pretending to pout. "Do you ever think if poeple heard our conversations they'd lock us up?"
All the time.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Thinking, Time

“What's this?" he demanded, looking from Clary to his companions, as if they might know what she was doing there.
"It's a girl," Jace said, recovering his composure. "Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is one.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Girl, Sister

“For example, the dwarfs found out how to turn lead into gold by doing it the hard way. The difference between that and the easy way is that the hard way works.”

Terry Pratchett book The Truth

Source: The Truth

Way

“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Wendung (Turning Point), as translated by Stephen Mitchell

Heart

“When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Business, World

“In each of us there is another whom we do not know.
Carl Jung

found in David Eagleman's book: Incognito”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Books

“I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by his heroism, virtue, and honour. I think the best these men can do is not talk about themselves anymore.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: The Pargiters

Men, Thinking

“In each of us there is another whom we do not know.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“Our body begins to destroy itself from the moment it is born. We are fragile. We’re creatures of passage. All that is left of us are our actions, the good or the evil we do to our fellow humans”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book Marina

Source: Marina

Evil

“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

The Dharma Bums (1958)

Life

“I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.”

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

Effort, Childhood

“Not everything is about you," Clary said furiously.
"Possibly," Jace said, "but you do have to admit that the majority of things are.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: Not everything, Jace, is," Clary said furiously.

"Possibly," Jace said, "but you have to admit that the majority of things are.
Source: City of Glass

“What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Love, God, People, World

“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Source: Journal entry (14 October 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)

Truth

“Mother told me once that some Westonians privately criticised Dad for retreating so soon. They apparently felt it would have been more dignified to have waited a week or so before running away. I think this view misses the essential point of running away, which is to do it the moment the idea has occurred to you. Only an obsessional procrastinator would cry, “Let’s run for our lives, but not till Wednesday afternoon.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

Source: So, Anyway...

Idea, Thinking, Waiting, Cry

“I have a high pain threshold. In fact, it's more of a large and tastfully decorated foyer than a threshold. But I do get easily bored”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Pain

“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.”

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

Source: The Book of Rites

Pleasure, Music, Nature

“Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it's just another job.”

Terry Pratchett book Moving Pictures

Source: Moving Pictures

“I never take any notice to what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

People

“Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Laughter

“I need sex for a clear complexion, but I'd rather do it for love.”

Joan Crawford (1904–1977) American actress

Source: My Way of Life

Love, Sex

“I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

“Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Thinking

“The trouble with thinking was that, once you started, you went on doing it.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Thinking

“Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. I, st. 7
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

Love, Kiss

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

People, Color

“I go into solitude so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think. After a time it always seems as if they want to banish my self from myself and rob me of my soul.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Soul, Drink, Thinking, Solitude

“FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT….”

Terry Pratchett book The Shepherd's Crown

Source: The Shepherd's Crown

Death, World

“They will always tell you that you can't do what you want to do, but you can do what you want to do. You just have to believe in yourself. The system is to bring you down, but you can rise up.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth.”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

People, Truth

“The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.”

B.F. Skinner Walden Two

Source: Walden Two

“It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone’s mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

Chance

“I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“There was only one thing the perfume could not do. It could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else. So, to hell with it he thought. To hell with the world. With the perfume. With himself”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Love, World, Hell, Personality

“Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you, but do not think of that now.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Thinking

“He’d always felt he had a right to exist as a wizard in the same way that you couldn’t do proper maths without the number 0, which wasn’t a number at all but, if it went away, would leave a lot of larger numbers looking bloody stupid.”

Terry Pratchett book Interesting Times

Source: Interesting Times

Stupidity, Way

“It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Solitude

“Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.”

Michael Morpurgo book Private Peaceful

Source: Private Peaceful

Feeling

“If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

“Never let the things you can't do, stop you from doing what you can.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

“The older I get, the more I meet people, the more convinced I am that we must only work on ourselves, to grow in grace. The only thing we can do about people is to love them.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Source: All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day

Love, People

“When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not Guilty'.”

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

“Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

To the Young People's Society, Greenpoint Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn (February 16, 1901).
Variant: Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.

“The undoing is almost always more difficult than the doing.”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

“We're on a hunt, Cooper. When you're on a hunt, you do whatever it takes.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

“One of my favorite album covers is On the Beach. Of course that was the name of a movie and I stole it for my record, but that doesn't matter. The idea for that cover came like a bolt from the blue. Gary and I traveled around getting all the pieces to put it together. We went to a junkyard in Santa Ana to get the tail fin and fender from a 1959 Cadillac, complete with taillights, and watched them cut it off a Cadillac for us, then we went to a patio supply place to get the umbrella and table. We picke up the bad polyester yellow jacket and white pants at a sleazy men's shop, where we watched a shoplifter getting caught red-handed and busted. Gary and I were stoned on some dynamite weed and stood there dumbfounded watching the bust unfold. This girl was screaming and kicking! Finally we grabbed a local LA paper to use as a prop. It had this amazing headline: Sen. Buckley Calls For Nixon to Resign. Next we took the palm tree I had taken around the world on the Tonight's the Night tour. We then placed all of these pieces carefully in the sand at Santa Monica beach. Then we shot it. Bob Seidemann was the photographer, the same one who took the famous Blind Faith cover shot of the naked young girl holding the airplane. We used the crazy pattern from the umbrella insides for the inside of the sleeve that held the vinyl recording. That was the creative process at work. We lived for that, Gary and I, and we still do.”

Neil Young book Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

Source: Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream

Men, World, Faith, Travel

“All that matters is what we do for each other.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“Since a time has come, Mademoiselle, when the severe laws of men no longer prevent women from applying themselves to the sciences and other disciplines, it seems to me that those of us who can should use this long-craved freedom to study and to let men see how greatly they wronged us when depriving us of its honor and advantages. And if any woman becomes so proficient as to be able to write down her thoughts, let her do so and not despise the honor, but rather flaunt it instead of fine clothes, necklaces, and rings. For these may be considered ours only by use, whereas the honor of being educated is ours entirely.”

Louise Labé (1524–1566) female French poet of the Renaissance, born in Lyon

Women, Men, Education, Law

“The sick do not ask if the hand that smoothes their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Kiss

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”

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

1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
Context: Among ourselves we differ in many qualities of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically. But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life. No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; and this is a prize open to every man, for there can be no better worth doing than that done to keep in health and comfort and with reasonable advantages those immediately dependent upon the husband, the father, or the son. There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler, for the man or the woman whose object it is throughout life to shirk the duties which life ought to bring. Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.

Business, Powerful, Back To Work, Life

“In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and mislead to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Source: Human, All Too Human

“We could mate. In a year our nestlings would be large enough to mob anyone we like… Should I begin to court you? Do you like grubs or ants better?… I will be here. In case you change your mind about mating.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children

Source: Trickster's Choice

Change

“If you do not help me," Tessa said to Jem, "I swear, I will change into you, and I will lift him myself. And then everyone here will see what you look like in a dress." She fixed him with a look. "Do you understand?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Understanding, Change, Help

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

His response when "accused of treating his opponents with too much courtesy and kindness, and when it was pointed out to him that his whole duty was to destroy them", as quoted in More New Testament Words (1958) by William Barclay; either this anecdote or Lincoln's reply may have been adapted from a reply attributed to Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund: :* Some courtiers reproached the Emperor Sigismond that, instead of destroying his conquered foes, he admitted them to favour. “Do I not,” replied the illustrious monarch, “effectually destroy my enemies, when I make them my friends?” ::* "Daily Facts" in The Family Magazine Vol. IV (1837), p. 123 http://books.google.de/books?id=aW0EAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA123&dq=destroy; also quoted as simply in "Do I not effectually destroy my enemies, in making them my friends?" in The Sociable Story-teller (1846) Disputed

Friendship, Powerful, For Friend, For Bestfriend

“When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Reply to a criticism during the Great Depression of having changed his position on monetary policy, as quoted in "The Keynes Centenary" by Paul Samuelson, in The Economist Vol. 287 (June 1983), p. 19; later in The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul Samuelson, Volume 5 (1986), p. 275; also in Understanding Political Development: an Analytic Study (1987) by Myron Weiner, Samuel P. Huntington and Gabriel Abraham Almond, p. xxiv; this has also been paraphrased as "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
Attributed

Change

“Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words--"
"You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means, use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Bird, Effort