Quotes about going
page 2

Barack Obama photo
Joseph Campbell photo

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Variant: You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.

Katharine Hepburn photo
Jordan Peterson photo
Jim Carrey photo
Shigeru Miyamoto photo

“So you know cats are interesting. They are kind of like girls. If they come and talk to you it's great. But if you try to talk to them it doesn't always go so well.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

Source http://kotaku.com/5564576/live-from-nintendos-e3-briefing

Maryam Mirzakhani photo

“I think it's rarely about what you actually learn in class it's mostly about things that you stay motivated to go and continue to do on your own.”

Maryam Mirzakhani (1977–2017) Iranian mathematician

Maryam Mirzakhani press conference after winning Field's Medal | august 2014

Shams-i Tabrizi photo

“Being the companion of the folk of this world is fire. There must be an Abraham if the fire is not going to burn”

Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.

you
Me & Rumi (2004)

Emil M. Cioran photo
Dwayne Johnson photo
Pink (singer) photo
Elvis Presley photo

“I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in. I'm never going to make another picture I don't believe in.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

After hearing Walter Earl Brown's If I Can Dream, the song inspired on Martin Luther King Jr. that would close Elvis' comeback show in 1968, and the phrase was remarked to its producer, Steve Binder. http://elvis-tkc.com/forum2/lofiversion/index.php/t15948.html

Camille Saint-Saëns photo

“Nothing is more difficult than talking about music: if it is a prickly business for musicians, it is almost impossible for anyone else—the strongest, subtlest minds go astray.”

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist of the Romantic era

Source: “L’illusion wagnérienne”, Portraits et souvenirs, Société d’édition artistique, 1899, 206‒220

Paul Watson photo

“It's dangerous & humiliating. The whalers killed whales while green peace watched. Now, you don't walk by a child that is being abused, you don't walk by a kitten that is being kicked to death and do nothing. So I find it abhorrent to sit there and watch a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but "bear witness" as they call it. I think it was best illustrated a few years ago, the contradictions that we have, when a ranger in Zimbabwe shot and killed a poacher that was about to kill a black rhinoceros and uh human rights groups around the world said "how dare you? Take a human life to protect an animal". I think the rangers' answer to that really illustrated a hypocrisy. He said "Ya know, if I lived in, If I was a police officer in Herrari and a man ran out of Bark Place Bank with a bag of money and I shot him in the head in front of everybody and killed him, you'd pin a medal on me and call me a national hero. Why is that bag of paper more valued than the future heritage of this nation?" This is our values. WE fight, WE kill, WE risk our lives for things we believe in… Imagine going into Mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. See how far you get. You’re not going to get very far. You’re going to be torn to pieces. Walk into Jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. See how far you’re going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. And everybody will say you deserved it. Walk into the Vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. See how far you’re going to get. Not very far. But each and every day, ya know, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the Amazonia, the redwood forests of California, the rainforests of Indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws and how do we respond to that? Oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of Amazonia and redwoods of California, were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in Mecca, a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the Vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we’re committing but we won’t do that because nature is an abstraction, wilderness is an abstraction. It has no value in our anthropocentric world where the only thing we value is that which is created by humans.”

Paul Watson (1950) Canadian environmental activist
Laozi photo

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.”

Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 48, as translated by Raymond B. Blakney (1955)

Michael Jackson photo
Michael Jackson photo

“I try to do what's right for me,
But no-one sees the way I see,
And then I try to please them so,
But how far can this pleasing go?”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Destiny (1977)

Claude Monet photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Sun Tzu photo

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Variant: Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter IV · Disposition of the Army

Freddie Mercury photo

“I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time.”

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

"The Man Who Would Be Queen" in Melody Maker (2 May 1981).
Context: I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time. I think Queen songs are pure escapism, like going to see a good film - after that, they can go away and say that was great, and go back to their problems. I don't want to change the world with our music. There are no hidden messages in our songs, except for some of Brian's.

David Bowie photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Kobe Bryant photo
José Baroja photo
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.”

Variant: Do not wait: the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work 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
Context: 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.

Tove Jansson photo
C.G. Jung photo
Thomas Merton photo
Anthony Robbins photo
Johnny Depp photo
John Muir photo

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Once again, this is far from Muir's style of writing. The quote does not come up in any search of John Muir's Journals or his published texts on the John Muir Exhibit website. It is most commonly put on t-shirts - never in any scholarly source.
Misattributed

Elvis Presley photo

“When things go bad, don't go with them.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Variant: When things go wrong, don't go with them.
Source: Elvis: Ultimate Gospel

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Rick Riordan photo
Khaled Hosseini photo

“I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.”

Laila, p. 395
Variant: Every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Sigmund Freud photo

“Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

As quoted in In factor of the sensitive man, and other essays (1976 edition) by Anais Nin, p.14
Attributed from posthumous publications

Noam Chomsky photo
John Lennon photo
Anne Frank photo

“I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!”

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

5 April 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Variant: I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met.

Thomas Sankara photo
Brené Brown photo

“Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Sojourner Truth photo

“I'm not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star.”

Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist
Confucius photo

“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”

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

“Go up close to your friend but do not go over to him! We should respect the enemy that is in our friend”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Tupac Shakur photo
Rodrigo Duterte photo

“I don't care If I go to hell as long as the people I serve will live in paradise.”

Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines

"Duterte: Look ma, cheap shoes no socks" http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/710288/duterte-simple-lifestyle-has-served-me-well-in-govt' (August 5 2015)

Shahrukh Khan photo
Eazy-E photo

“Somebody that's not real. They go in the studio and all of the sudden become hard, when they used to do dance music.”

Eazy-E (1963–1995) American rapper and producer

On Studio Gangsters
1990s

Kurt Cobain photo

“Jocks have completely taken over music… And just to get back at them, I’m going to start playing basketball.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in Musician (1993-10).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Marie Curie photo

“I have no dress except the one I wear every day. If you are going to be kind enough to give me one, please let it be practical and dark so that I can put it on afterwards to go to the laboratory.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

Instructions regarding a proposed gift of a wedding dress for her marriage to Pierre in July 1895, as quoted in 'Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 137

John Amos Comenius photo

“Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. … There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because, as has already been shown, the mind is without limit.”
Aristoteles hominis animum comparavit tabulae rasae, cui nihil inscriptum sit, inscribi tamen omnia possint. … Hoc interest, quod in tabula lineas ducere non licet, nisi quousque margo permittat: in mente usque et usque scribendo, et sculpendo, terminum nusquam invenies quia (ut ante monitum) interminabilis est.

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

The Great Didactic (Didactica Magna) (Amsterdam, 1657) [written 1627–38], as translated by M. W. Keatinge (1896).
Cf. Aristotle, De anima, III, 4, 430a: "δυνάμει δ' οὕτως ὥσπερ ἐν γραμματείῳ ᾧ μηθὲν ἐνυπάρχει ἐντελεχείᾳ γεγραμμένον· ὅπερ συμβαίνει ἐπὶ τοῦ νοῦ."

Ed Sheeran photo

“I'm gonna pick up the pieces,
and build a Lego house.
When things go wrong we can knock it down.”

Ed Sheeran (1991) English singer-songwriter and producer

Song lyrics, + (2011)

Joan Baez photo

“You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Daybreak http://books.google.com/books?id=Imte1JcsQ64C&q=%22You+don't+get+to+choose+how+you're+going+to+die+Or+when+You+can+only+decide+how+you're+going+to+live+Now%22&pg=PA135#v=onepage (1968)
Variant or paraphrase: You can't decide how you're going to die. Or when. What you can decide is how you're going to live now.

Babur photo

“If you desire to rule and conquer, you don't just fold your hands when things go wrong, you act.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

"History of India" at Amazing World http://www.amworld.info/india-travel/history-of-india; it is not clear in the source cited that this is a quote of Babur — it might be a comment made about him.
Disputed

Dilma Rousseff photo

“We cannot rest while Brazilians are going hungry, while families are living in the streets, while poor children are abandoned to their own fates and while crack and crack dens rule.”

Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil

First speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/dilma-rousseff-wins-brazil-president after being elected President, October 31.
2010

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo
Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“The only way there could be war is if they start it; we're not going to start a war.”

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

Declaring what he would tell Yuri Andropov, head of the Soviet Union, were he in the room; in an interview http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/120683c.htm for People magazine (12 June 1983)
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Pierre Bonnard photo

“It would bother me if my canvases were stretched onto a frame. I never know in advance what dimensions I am going to choose.”

Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) French painter and printmaker

Dita Amory, in Pierre Bonnard: The Late Still Lifes and Interiors; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009 - ISBN 978-0-300-14889-3, p. 4
Bonnard started to paint usually on an unstretched canvas

Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Al Pacino photo
Rosa Parks photo

“I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Quoted in Rita Dove, "Rosa Parks: Her simple act of protest galvanized America's civil rights revolution," http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/parks01.html Time (1999-06-14)by kurtis

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther
Misattributed

Hermann Göring photo
Michael Jackson photo
Michael Jackson photo
Heath Ledger photo
Helena Bonham Carter photo
Chris Cornell photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“Hello, I am Wanda June. Today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice-cream truck before I could have my party.”

"Wanda June"
Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)
Context: Hello, I am Wanda June. Today was going to be my birthday, but I was hit by an ice-cream truck before I could have my party. I am dead now. I am in Heaven. That is why my parents did not pick up my cake at the bakery. I am not mad at the ice-cream truck driver, even though he was drunk when he hit me. It didn't hurt much. It wasn't even as bad as the sting of a bumblebee. I am really happy here! It's so much fun. I'm glad the driver was drunk. If he hadn't been, I might not have gone to Heaven for years and years and years. I would have had to go to high school first, and then beauty college. I would have had to get married and have babies and everything. Now I can just play and play and play. Any time I want any pink cotton candy I can have some. Everybody up here is happy — the animals and the dead soldiers and people who went to the electric chair and everything. They're all glad for whatever sent them here. Nobody is mad. We're all too busy playing shuffleboard. So if you think of killing somebody, don't worry about it. Just go ahead and do it. Whoever you do it to should kiss you for doing it. The soldiers up here just love the shrapnel and the tanks and the bayonets and the dum dums that let them play shuffleboard all the time — and drink beer.

Buckminster Fuller photo

“Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.... Humanity is in ‘final exam’ as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

Will Smith photo

“I don't go to battle prepared, I know I will win it.”

Will Smith (1968) American actor, film producer and rapper
Kurt Cobain photo
Freddie Mercury photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Sunisa Lee photo

“You just can't get distracted easily. If you're having a bad day you just gotta keep going and you just can't be too hard on yourself.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

"Sunisa Lee reflects on recent success, while looking ahead to possible Olympic run" in MPR News (14 August 2021) https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/08/14/sunisa-lee-reflects-on-recent-success-while-looking-ahead-to-possible-olympic-run

Sunisa Lee photo

“My community supports me a lot. I don’t want to let them down so I go out and compete for them.”

Sunisa Lee (2003) American artistic gymnast; first Hmong American Olympic gold medalist

"Sunisa Lee reflects on recent success, while looking ahead to possible Olympic run" in MPR News (14 August 2021) https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/08/14/sunisa-lee-reflects-on-recent-success-while-looking-ahead-to-possible-olympic-run

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mckenna Grace photo

“If you're going through rough times, just stick around, cause everything has to end eventually.”

Mckenna Grace (2006) American child actress

McKenna Grace [citation needed]

“There is a God and I'm going to serve him for the rest of my life.”

Rachel Scott (1981–1999) American murder victim

Source: Letter to Mark Bodiford http://racheljoyscott.tumblr.com/post/159838052080/rachels-suicide-journal-entry-to-mark-bodiford (1998)

Kian barazandeh photo

“Good boys will go to heaven,
but bad boys will bring you to heaven.”

Kian barazandeh (1998) Actor , Model

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CdKuXqVOzcJ/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Source: exclusive interview with kian barazandeh https://starworldmagazine.com/exclusive-interview-with-kian-barazandeh/ Article Published on May 12, 2022
Source: KIAN BARAZANDEH MODA DÜNYASININ GÖZDESİ / KIAN BARAZANDEH FASHION WORLD'S FAVORITE https://dizifilmdergisi.com/kian-brazande-moda-dunyasinin-gozdesi-kian-brazande-fashion-worlds-favorite-27416-haberi/

Billie Joe Armstrong photo

“Digo, hey-oh. Let´s Go.””

Billie Joe Armstrong (1972) American singer and guitarist

Source: Multitud responde: hey-oh

Robert Frost photo

“I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.”

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1923) http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171621
Variant: And miles to go before I sleep.
Context: The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.