Quotes about doing
page 23

“I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

My stomach lurched. “What do you mean? How does he look at me?”

“Like you’re not a student and he’s not a teacher.”

P. C. Cast book Chosen

Source: Chosen

Way, Teachers

“I have gained this by philosophy … I do without being ordered what some are constrained to do by their fear of the law.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Fear, Law

“To THINK BIG and to use our talents doesn't mean we won't have difficulties along the way. We will—we all do. How we view those problems determines how we end up. If we choose to see the obstacles in our path as barriers, we stop trying. “We can't win,” we moan. “They won't let us win.”However, if we choose to see the obstacles as hurdles, we can leap over them. Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.Whatever direction we choose, if we can realize that every hurdle we jump strengthens and prepares us for the next one, we're already on the way to success.”

Ben Carson book Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), p. 232

People, Way, Problem, Thinking

“One of the better definitions of insanity - doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting the result to be different.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

“If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Life, Soul

“Steadfastness in believing doth not exclude all temptations from without. When we say a tree is firmly rooted, we do not say the wind never blows upon it.”

John Owen (1616–1683) English theologian

Tree

“I hope you will grow up gentle and good, and never learn bad ways; do your work with a good will, lift your feet up well when you trot, and never bite or kick even in play.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty

Hope, Way, Learning

“Neither at things, nor at people should one look. Only in mirrors should one look, for mirrors do but show us masks.”

Oscar Wilde Salome

Source: Salomé

People

“The problem is that most people spend their lives looking but not truly seeing, or, as Sherlock Holmes, the meticulous English detective, declared to his partner, Dr. Watson, “You see, but you do not observe.”

Joe Navarro (1953) Author, professional speaker, ex-FBI agent and supervisor

Source: What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People

People, Problem

“If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

XII, 17
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book XII
Context: If it is not right, do not do it, if it is not true, do not say it. For let thy efforts be

“Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Question

“Do not let anyone stop you from succeding”

Sharon M. Draper (1948) American children's writer

“Remember, do the things that you believe in, alright? This is what it's all about right now. [MTV Awards 2005]”

Green Day

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Reading

“But forgetting's not something you do, it happens to you. Only it didn't happen to me”

John Fowles book The Collector

Variant: Forgetting’s not something you do, it happens to you. Only it didn’t happen to me.
Source: The Collector

Forgetting

“The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the last date shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Books, Nature, Silence, Time

“Alas, why are my nights all thus lost? Ah, why do I ever miss his
sight whose breath touches my sleep?”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Source: Gitanjali: Song Offerings

Sleep, Night

“The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.”

Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer

Source: Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

Dependency, Happiness

“Do actions agree with words? There's your measure of reliability. Never confine yourself to the words.”

Frank Herbert book Chapterhouse: Dune

Source: Chapterhouse: Dune

“I do what I can do when I can do it.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “No harm in that. I’ve never known what to do,” said Rincewind with hollow cheerfulness. “Been completely at a loss my whole life.” He hesitated. “I think it’s called being human, or something.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Source: Sourcery

Life, Thinking, Loss

“Quite often somebody will say, 'What year do your books take place?' and the only answer I can give is, in childhood.”

Beverly Cleary (1916) American writer of children's books

Books, Childhood

“Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.”

Tim O'Reilly (1954) Irish computer programmer

Business, Money

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Art

“The figures looked more or less human. And they were engaged in religion. You could tell by the knives (it's not murder if you do it for a god).”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

God, Religion

“But then, in his lifetime, Halt had often ignored what was technically legal. Technicalities didn't appeal to him. All too often, they simply got in the way of doing the right thing.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Lost Stories

Way

“The problem in my life and other people's lives is not the absence of knowing what to do but the absence of doing it.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Problem, Life, People

“Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Deep, People, Thinking, Funny

“You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Intelligence, Freedom, Fight

“The hardest thing is to do something which is close to nothing because it is demanding all of you.”

Marina Abramović (1946) Yugoslav-American artist

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Life, Way, Reality

“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Fate, Books, Disease

“I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

People

“The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided, but NEVER hit softly.”

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

“If you’re attempting to do the work of evangelism and your life is stuffed with believers, you’ll find yourself out of work pretty quickly. What’s the point of saving the “already saved”?”

Bill Hybels (1951) American writer

Source: Just Walk Across the Room: Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith

Life

“I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Love, Wine

“I tried.
Can't do it.
Brain's empty.”

Sharon Creech Love That Dog

Source: Love That Dog

“Seek to learn constantly while you live; do not wait in the faith that old age by itself will bring wisdom.”

Solón (-638–-558 BC) Athenian legislator

Wisdom, Age, Faith, Learning

“Gentlemen, why do you not laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die.”

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

Fear, Night

“If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loudly. Do not compound mispronunciation with inaudibility”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Okay, well, let's do a little reenactment. I'm the gay-looking DiCaprio and you're Rose. You have to keep your eyes open and on my face, or you'll have to let me go and I'll turn into a huge gay Popsicle.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

“Whut's the plan, Rob?" said one of them.
"Okay, lads, this is what we'll do. As soon as we see somethin', we'll attack it. Right?"
This caused a cheer.
"Ach, 'tis a good plan," said Daft Wullie.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“Sometimes, all you had to do was exist in order to be someone's saviour.”

Keigo Higashino The Devotion of Suspect X

Source: The Devotion of Suspect X

“Reality is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average "reality" perceived by the communal eye.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

Art, Communication, Reality

“If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

§ 217
Source: Philosophical Investigations (1953)

“Life (as you call it) is an opportunity for you to know experientially what you already know conceptually. You need learn nothing to do this. You need merely remember what you already know, and act on it.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1

Life, Learning

“I started adding up all the things I couldn't do.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“JAQUES: Rosalind is your love's name?

ORLANDO: Yes, just.

JAQUES: I do not like her name.

ORLANDO: There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Love

“Every day in the United States, seventeen children are killed by gunfire. That’s about 6,000 children each year who are killed by guns, as compared, for example, with about 3,000 a year who died at the height of the polio epidemic of the 1950s. We rose up as a society to fight against polio. Why do we not act more forcefully to halt today’s even greater scourge?”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith

Children, Fight

“Do you ever suddenly find it strange to be yourself?”

Clarice Lispector book A Breath of Life

Source: A Breath of Life

“Because we are in the world, we are condemned to meaning, and we cannot do or say anything without its acquiring a name in history.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty book Phenomenology of Perception

Source: Phenomenology of Perception

World, History

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

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

Source: Alice Through the Looking Glass

“mad I cannot be, sane I do not deign to be, neurotic I am.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

Madness

“Ian Malcolm, how do you do? I do maths.”

Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park

“Every now and then I like to do as I'm told, just to confuse people.”

Tamora Pierce book Melting Stones

Source: Melting Stones

People

“It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

“This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

Death

“Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write.”

Michel Foucault book The Archaeology of Knowledge

The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), tr. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon)

“Everything you do, if not in a relaxed state will be done at a lesser level than you are proficient. Thus the tensed expert marksman will aim at a level less than his/her student.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. Be honest, but hate no one; overturn a man's wrongdoing, but do not overturn him unless it must be done in overturning the wrong. Stand with a man while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

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

The last sentence is from the 16 October 1854 Peoria speech, slightly paraphrased. No known contemporary source for the rest. It first appears, attributed to Lincoln, in US religious/inspirational journals in 1907-8, such as p123, Friends Intelligencer: a religious and family journal, Volume 65, Issue 8 (1908)
Misattributed

Hate, Parting

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

Aleister Crowley book The Book of the Law

I:40 This famous statement derives from several historic precedents, including that of François Rabelais in describing the rule of his Abbey of Thélème in Gargantua and Pantagruel: Fait ce que vouldras (Do what thou wilt), which was later used by the Hellfire Club established by Sir Francis Dashwood. It is also similar to the Wiccan proverb: An ye harm none, do what thou wilt; but the oldest known statement of a similar assertion is that of St. Augustine of Hippo: Love, and do what thou wilt.
Source: The Book of the Law (1904)

Law

“Do you know what happens when you always look before you leap?"

She reached out and touched his hand before hurrying toward the door.

"You hardly ever make the jump.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Key of Light

“I don't know. It's been terribly hard for me. How do I know you won't do it again?'
'Nobody is ever quite sure of what they will do. You aren't sure what you might do.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

“You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“I waited for my thighs and butt to uncramp. Of course, they didn't know the loosening rule. They were screaming things like *Are you crazy? Do you know we're thirty-five years old? Sit down and feed us a Twinkie!”

P. C. Cast book Divine By Mistake

Source: Divine By Mistake

Waiting

“Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night. Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machines, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs? Be the answer what it will, to-day's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

People, Age, World, Fear

“Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion

Men, God, Fear, Justice

“Now I am silent, hate
Up to my neck,
Thick, thick.
I do not speak.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition

Hate

“Have strength in yourself always. think and remember not just what you should do, but also what you want to do. (Ageha, Basara, Vol. 13)”

Yumi Tamura Manga artist

Source: Basara, Vol. 13

Thinking

“When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”

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

Children, Way

“A loser doesn’t know what he’ll do if he loses but talks about what he’ll do if he wins and a winner doesn’t talk about what he’ll do if he wins but knows what he’ll do if he loses.”

Eric Berne (1910–1970) Canadian psychiatrist

“Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.”

Donald Ervin Knuth Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About

Foreword to the book A=B http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~wilf/AeqB.html (1996) <br class="br">Source: Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About

Art, Understanding, Science

“How do you expect to communicate with the ocean, when you can’t even understand one another?”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Source: Solaris

Communication, Understanding

“I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? You've lived your life. No point wishing you could change it.”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Life, Change

“I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.”

Helene Hanff book 84, Charing Cross Road

Source: 84, Charing Cross Road

Love, Hate, Books, Reading

“Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

Men

“It is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people… Think of things in themselves.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own

People, Dreams, Thinking

“Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

“In truth, how much time do any of us really have?”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Telling Christina Goodbye

Truth, Time

“I do believe in the power of story. I believe that stories have an important role to play in the formation of human beings, that they can stimulate, amaze and inspire their listeners.”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

“Love is not liking somebody. Anyone can do that. Love is loving things that sometimes you don't like.”

Ajahn Brahm (1951) Buddhist monk

Love

“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

A New Earth (2005)
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Art, Music

“Take a note: it usually works better if you wait until I do something stupid before getting mad at me.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Stupidity, Waiting, Madness

“All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Sense

“You see, Doctor, God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew… God doesn't make the world this way. We do.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

God, Fate, World, Dogs

“Sustaining faith is what sets you through those dark nights of the soul when you don’t know where to go or what to do, and it seems that you can’t last another day…but because of your faith in God, you do.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God, Faith, Soul, Night

“But do we really live? To live without knowing what life is - is that living?”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life

“There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me.”

Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)

Love, Life, Hate, Time

“The thing all writers do best is find ways to avoid writing.”

Alan Dean Foster (1946) American fiction writer

Way

“Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams — they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do — they all contain truths”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Source: Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times

Truth, Religion, Water

“Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear.”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

Fear

“Do you think there’s anything to eat in this forest?”
“Yes,” said the wizard bitterly, “us.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

Thinking

“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late. - Lee Iacocca”

Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American businessman

Waiting

“If you must err, do so on the side of audacity.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

No published occurrence of such an attribution has yet been located prior to one in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre — Band 3 http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2411/pg2411.html by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Variant: Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

Inspirational, Motivational, Deep, Leadership

“I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: A Thousand Mornings

Love, Dependency, Sea

“The past could always be annihilated. Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was inevitable.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Past, Future, Forgetting

“Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only people who can’t get into it do that.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Lady Bracknell, Act III
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)