Quotes about doing

page 5

“I remember the time an older man asked me when I was young, "Do you know what you are doing now?" I thought it was some kind of trick question.
Tell me," I said.
You are building your memories," he replied, "so make them good ones.”

“There was no need to do any housework at all. After four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.”

“If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.”

“I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.”

“Normal people do not create art.”

“She heard him mutter, 'Can you take away this grief?'
'I'm sorry,' she replied. 'Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.”

“The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.”

“Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?”

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

“Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

“Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable.”

“The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.”

“I'm retiring because there are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.”

“I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.”

“Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.”

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”

“Do you not see the Madonna always beside the tabernacle?”

“I would never do anything just for spite.”

“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”

“You can't make your kids do anything. All you can do is make them wish they had. And then, they will make you wish you hadn't made them wish they had.”

“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.”

“I am doing things that are true to me. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.”

“The first thing a man will do for his ideal is lie”

“The victim should have the right to end his life, if he wants. But I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope.”

“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”

“Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations, and innocent vanities, and irony itself-- do these things go out with life? Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him?”

“Dignity and love do not blend well, nor do they continue long together.”

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

“You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.”

“Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic liberalisation. I do not believe that if you are libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury, therefore you will succeed.”

“Every once in a while she'll get worked up and cry like that. But that's ok. She's letting her feelings out. The scary thing is not being able to do that. Then your feelings build up and harden and die inside. That's when you're in big trouble.”

“Don't tell me what I'm doing; I don't want to know.”

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

“The first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful is why do I think it's not beautiful. And very shortly you discover that there is no reason.”

“When I see someone who just follows their dream and succeeds, and just does basically what they want to do and doesn't have to answer to anyone, obviously not harming anyone, that's great.”

“Your soul doesn't care what you do for a living - and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you are being while you are doing whatever you are doing.”

“I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

“I think the thing to do is to enjoy the ride while you're on it.”

“Do what you have to do, to do what you want to do.”

“I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.”

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

“Never do anything yourself that others can do for you.”

“Whatever happiness and peace that one knows in one's life is generally so fragile that it is always subservient to the external situation. So most of your lives go in trying to manage a perfect external situation which is just impossible to do. No human being is ever capable of creating a perfect external situation because the outside situation will never be hundred percent in your control, no matter how powerful a human being you are. So yoga focuses on the inner situation. If you can create a perfect inward situation, no matter what the external situation, you can be in perfect bliss and peace.”

“Have courage and do not fear the assaults of the Devil. Remember this forever; it is a healthy sign if the devil shouts and roars around your conscience, since this shows that he is not inside your will.”

“I just hope I don't become so blissful I become boring. I think I'll always be neurotic enough to do something weird.”

“"What do you do from morning to night?" "I endure myself."”

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

“Once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. He said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.” So, sometimes with art, it is important
just to look.”

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

- Chinese proverb”

“I've got so much work to do today, I'd better spend two hours in prayer instead of one.”

“Son, are you happy?
I don't mean to pry,
but do you dream of Heaven?
Have you ever wanted to die?”

“Not responding is a response - we are equally responsible for what we don't do.”

“To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.”

“Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.”

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

“Fingerprints are like values--you leave them all over everything you do”

“We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.”

“Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it… it's just easier if you do.”

“Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is an act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannons, all of which are highly authoritarian means. And the victorious party must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Cannot we, on the contrary, blame it for having made too little use of that authority? Therefore, one of two things: either that anti-authoritarians don’t know what they are talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion. Or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the cause of the proletariat. In either case they serve only reaction.8 This”

“there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late”

“I've got a stele we can use. Who wants to do me?"
"A regrettable choice of words," muttered Magnus.”

“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.”

“Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along.”

“Your calling isn’t something that somebody can tell you about. It’s what you feel. It is the thing that gives you juice. The thing that you are supposed to do. And nobody can tell you what that is. You know it inside yourself.”

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.”

“You're responsible for yourself. You messed up your life, and it's up to you to fix it. No one else is going to do it for you -- for any of you.”

“Good is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it, truth never breaks through except through the sacrifice of those who spread it.”

“Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.”

“All I’m trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.”

“Whatever is destined not to happen will not happen, try as you may. Whatever is destined to happen will happen, do what you may to prevent it. This is certain. The best course, therefore, is to remain silent.”

“Evil will win if good people do nothing.”

“You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing.”

“In terms of experience, we want to make this (referring to the self) very pleasant. We want this to be blissful, ecstatic. But, as I said before, even being ecstatic is not goal by itself. If you are blissful by your own nature, then the important thing is that you are no more the issue. There are other issues in this existence; we can look at those. But if you are an issue, what other issue will you take in your hands? You will not touch anything. When I am enough trouble myself, why do I want to take on this one or that one? When I am no more an issue, now I am willing to dig into the whole existence and see what it is all about.”

“Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.”

“To Stay Focused in Life:

You can't know everyone
You can't do everything
You can't go everywhere

We have to pick and choose between good and a little bit better.”

“The most important thing you do in your life is to die.”

“But knowing what I don’t want to do doesn’t help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don’t have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That’s my problem now. I can’t find the image.”

“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.”

“Do you know what it’s like to like someone so much you can’t stand it and know that they’ll never feel the same way?”

“If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.”

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

“Failure is a reality; we all fail at times, and it's painful when we do. But it's better to fail while striving for something wonderful, challenging, adventurous, and uncertain than to say, " I don't want to try because I may not succeed completely.”

“Each day is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to Him.”

“I do not evolve, I AM.”

“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages. As a precaution to ever committing major acts of evil it is our solemn duty never to do what we're told, this is the only way we can be sure.”

“Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
without your clothes
And everybody knows”

“Only dumb people try to impress smart people. Smart people just do what they do.”

“You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.”

“Because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good.”

“Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”

“Do you understand? Man needs entertainment simply to hide his madness. If he was perfectly sane, he would not need entertainment. He could just sit and watch this bamboo grow. He does not really need entertainment.”

“Unless you do the right things, the right things will not happen to you.”

“You do realize as you grow older that almost nobody knows what they are talking about.”

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”

“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.”

“We do what we have to so we can do what we want to.”

“Don't you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour - but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands - and who knows what to do with it?”