Quotes about going
page 3

Jojo Moyes photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”

The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Alice answered.

“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

Variant: One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Tove Jansson photo
Pablo Picasso photo

“Go and do the things you can't. That is how you get to do them.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Elvis Presley photo

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Another handwriten message on Elvis' King James -Bible http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2188891/Elvis-bible-containing-handwritten-notes-star-expected-fetch-thousands-auction.html
Variant: Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't going away.

Frank Zappa photo

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer
Ray Bradbury photo

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.”

Brown Daily Herald (24 March 1995)
Variant: Stand at the top of a cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.
Source: Fahrenheit 451

Charles Bukowski photo
Groucho Marx photo
Jack Kerouac photo

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

Jean Paul Sartre photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Dita Von Teese photo
C.G. Jung photo
Michael Jordan photo
Maya Angelou photo
Charles Lamb photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

No known source in Oscar Wilde's works. Earliest known example of a similar quote comes from a 2001 usenet post https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.atheism/ZadPWBw-wew/G_3tx370wpoJ (not attributed to Wilde)
Attributed to Wilde on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/15736-i-don-t-want-to-go-to-heaven-none-of-my?page=83 some time on or before January 2008.
Bears some resemblance to Machiavelli's deathbed dream https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli#Disputed.
Disputed

Hugo Grotius photo
Lee Kuan Yew photo
Elvis Presley photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”

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

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Langston Hughes photo
Maya Angelou photo
Muhammad Ali photo

“What keeps me going is goals.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
Rabindranath Tagore photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Aleister Crowley photo
Sadhguru photo

“The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…
Jim Morrison photo
Amin Maalouf photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Justin Timberlake photo
Louis Sachar photo
Edward Weston photo
Anne Frank photo

“I wish to go on living even after my death.”

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

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

John C. Maxwell photo
Yogi Berra photo

“No matter where you go, there you are”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Source: When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes

Nora Roberts photo
Groucho Marx photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Laurie Halse Anderson photo
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart photo

“A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (11 September 1778), from Wolfgang Amadé Mozart by Georg Knepler (1991), trans. J. Bradford Robinson [Cambridge University Press, 1994, ], p. 12.
Variant: A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place.

Wangari Maathai photo
Tennessee Williams photo

“People go to the movies instead of moving!”

Tom, Scene Six
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Context: Yes, movies! Look at them — All of those glamorous people — having adventures — hogging it all, gobbling the whole thing up! You know what happens? People go to the movies instead of moving! Hollywood characters are supposed to have all the adventures for everybody in America, while everybody in America sits in a dark room and watches them have them! Yes, until there's a war. That's when adventure becomes available to the masses! Everyone's dish, not only Gable's! Then the people in the dark room come out of the dark room to have some adventures themselves — Goody, goody! — It's our turn now, to go to the south Sea Island — to make a safari — to be exotic, far-off! — But I'm not patient. I don't want to wait till then. I'm tired of the movies and I am about to move!

Martin Luther photo

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

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Earliest record is in a circular letter from Hessian Church minister Karl Lotz on 5 October 1944 and modified from a quote by Johanan ben Zakai according to [Landes, Richard Allen, Heaven on Earth: The varieties of the millennial experience, USA, Oxford University Press, 2011, 978-0-19-975359-8, https://books.google.com/books?id=seS-0JTykgoC&pg=PA48, 48]

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Martin Luther / Disputed
Misattributed

Oliver Cromwell photo

“No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

Statement to Pomponne de Bellievre, as told to Cardinal de Retz in 1651; Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz (1717) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3846/3846.txt
Variant: One never rises so high as when one does not know where one is going.

Paul Newman photo

“I don't like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?”

Paul Newman (1925–2008) American actor and film director

Quoted in Paul and Joanne: A Biography of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward by Joe Morella and Edward Z. Epstein (1988), p. 157

Dylan Thomas photo

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Source: In Country Sleep, and Other Poems

Charles Manson photo
Ian Smith photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“Mary is the great mother. She is the mother. That's what Mary is. Whether she existed or not, is not the point. She exists at least as a hyper-reality. She exists as the mother. What's the sacrifice of the mother? That's easy: if you're a mother who's worth her salt, you offer your son to be destroyed by the world. That's what you do. And that's what's going to happen. He's going to be born, he's going to suffer, he's going to have his trouble in life, he's going to have his illnesses, he's going to face his failures and catastrophes, and he's going to die. That's what's going to happen, and if you're awake you know that, and then you say, 'well, perhaps he will live in a way that will justify that.' And then you try to have that happen. And that's what makes you worthy of a statue like [The Pieta]. 'Is it right to bring a baby into this terrible world?' Well, every woman asks herself that question. Some say no, and they have their reasons. Mary answers 'yes' voluntarily. Mary is the archetype of the woman who answers yes to life voluntarily. Not because she is blind. She knows what's going to happen. So, she's the archetypal representation of the woman who says yes to life knowing full well what life is. She's not naive. She's not someone who got pregnant in the backseat of a 1957 Chevy during one night of half-drunk idiocy. Not that. She does so consciously. Consciously, knowing what's to come. And then she allows it to happen, which is a testament to mothers.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Bible Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers
Concepts

Babur photo
Alex Jones photo

“Look, when you realize how fake it all is; the football, the basketball, the Lady Gaga, the Justin Bieber—you know, who gives you these carbon tax messages. They tell your kids they gotta love Justin Biebler [sic], and then Biebler [sic] says "hand in your guns", "pass the Cyber Security Act", and "the police state is good", and then your children are turned into a mindless vassals—who now, they look up to some twit, instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson, or looking up to Nikola Tesla, or looking up to Magellan; I mean, kids, Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated with one ship the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before they got back to Portugal! And when they got back there was only like eleven people alive of the two hundred and something crew and the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline! That's destiny! That's will! That's striving! That's being a trailblazer and explore! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! It's all there! Life is fiery with its beauty! Its incredible detail! Tuning into it! They wanna shutter your mind, talking about Justin Bieber! It's pure evil! They're taking your intellect, your soul, and giving you Michael Jordan and Bieber. Unlock your human potential! Defeat the globalists who wanna shutter your mind!—Your doorways to perception!—I wanna see you truly live! I wanna see you truly be who you are!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Alex Jones: The "Justin Biebler" Rant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMB0KyhPN8, 21 February 2011.
2011

Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Louis XIV of France photo

“I am going away, but the State will always remain.”

Louis XIV of France (1638–1715) King of France and Navarra, from 1643 to 1715

Je m'en vais, mais l'État demeurera toujours.
Mémoire sur la mort de Louis XIV (page 24), Marquis de Dangeau http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55404p,

Cristoforo Colombo photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Charles Manson photo
Drake photo

“Can't even find the perfect brush to paint what is going through my mind.”

Drake (1986) Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor

"Brand New," So Far Gone (2009)

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov photo
George Carlin photo
Ferdowsi photo

“O my son, thy lips still smell of milk, and thy heart should go out to pleasure. But the days are grave, and Iran looketh unto thee in its danger.”

Translation of Helen Zimmern http://classics.mit.edu/Ferdowsi/kings.5.rustem.html
Shahnameh

Lionel Messi photo

“Diego is Diego and for me he is the greatest player of all time. Even after a million years I am not even going to be close to Maradona. I have no intention of comparing myself with Maradona - I want to make my own history for something I have achieved.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Response to the Maradona comparisons, 2010 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/players/lionel-messi/7527633/Barcelonas-Lionel-Messi-says-he-will-never-be-as-good-as-Diego-Maradona.html

Socrates photo

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die and you to live. Which is the better, only God knows.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

42a
Plato, Apology

Leonardo DiCaprio photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“In the newspapers there is insulting and stirring up hatred. Those irresponsible daubers!
The people are on the streets -- rampaging and protesting. The magnates are sitting at the green table and calmly finish their game.
Old Europe is dying.
Well, it's a crazy world! Thrift, Horatio!
As if by a mysterious power one feels compelled to go out onto the streets. The thoughts wander outside to the stage which is portraying a drama of world history -- not an edifying one, but still a drama. It gives the earnest observer a lot to think about.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

In den Zeitungen wird gehetzt und geschimpft. Diese verantwortungslosen Schmieranten!
Das Volk ist auf der Straße, randaliert und demonstriert. Die Herren sitzen am grünen Tisch und spielen seelenruhig ihre Partie zu Ende.
Die alte Europa geht in die Binsen.
Ja, es ist eine tolle Welt! Wirtschaft, Horatio!
Man wird wie von einer geheimnisvollen Macht auf die Straße gezogen. Die Gedanken sind draußen, wo sich ein Stück Weltgeschichte abspielt -- kein erhebendes zwar, aber ein Stück. Der ernsthafte Zuschauer hat viel dabei nachzudenken.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Amos Oz photo

“Out there, in the world, all the walls were covered with graffiti: 'Yids, go back to Palestine,' so we came back to Palestine, and now the worldatlarge [sic] shouts at us: 'Yids, get out of Palestine.”

A Tale of Love and Darkness (2003).
Quoted on U.S. radio program " Fresh Air http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4195061" (December 1, 2004).

Bobby Fischer photo
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein photo

“The United States has broken the second rule of war. That is: don't go fighting with your land army on the mainland in Asia. Rule One is, don't march on Moscow. I developed those two rules myself.”

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein

Interview, 2 July, 1968; quoted in New York Times, 3 July, 1968, p. 6.

Bobby Fischer photo
Fulton J. Sheen photo
Yoko Ono photo
Emil Zátopek photo

“Are you running out of breath? Go faster!”

Emil Zátopek (1922–2000) Czech Olympic long-distance runner

Life credo

Donald J. Trump photo

“We need law and order. If we don't have it, we're not going to have a country. … We need law and order in our country.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, September, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman photo

“Sir, you will see that they want to place the word ‘East Pakistan’ instead of ‘East Bengal’. We have demanded so many times that you should use Bengal instead of Pakistan. The world Bengal has a history, has a tradition of its own. You can change it only after the people have been consulted. If you want to change it, then we have to go back to Bengal and see whether Bengalis will accept it.”

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

Speaking to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in Karachi in 1955 during a debate on whether to adopt the One Unit scheme in Pakistan and divide the country into two provinces- East and West Pakistan. http://www.albd.org/autoalbd/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=44
Quote, Other

Quentin Tarantino photo

“Sure, Kill Bills a violent movie. But it's a Tarantino movie. You don't go to see Metallica and ask the fuckers to turn the music down.”

Quentin Tarantino (1963) American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor

Quentin Tarantino on media criticisms of violence in his movies.

Fabio Lanzoni photo
Mikhail Bakunin photo
Cannonball Adderley photo
Don Tregonning photo

“With tennis, they say it's a social sport you can play from six to 60 - they should say 90, your friendships go on forever.”

Don Tregonning (1928) Australian professional tennis player and coach

Source: "Life on the court" https://www.medibank.com.au/bemagazine/life-on-the-court/ (January 5, 2014)

Avril Lavigne photo

“She wants to go home, but nobody's home. It's where she lies, broken inside.”

Avril Lavigne (1984) Canadian singer-songwriter and actress

"Nobody's Home" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eLfvdeInFg (2004)

Magic Johnson photo
Pablo Neruda photo

“It is time, love, to break off that sombre rose,
shut up the stars and bury the ash in the earth;
and, in the rising of the light, wake with those who awoke
or go on in the dream, reaching the other shore of the sea which has no other shore.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Es la hora, amor mío, de apartar esta rosa sombría,
cerrar las estrellas, enterrar la ceniza en la tierra:
y, en la insurrección de la luz, despertar con los que despertaron
o seguir en el sueño alcanzando la otra orilla del mar que no tiene otra orilla.
La Barcarola Termina (The Watersong Ends) (1967), trans. Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 500).

George Best photo

“If you'd given me the choice of going out and beating four men and smashing a goal in from thirty yards against Liverpool or going to bed with Miss World, it would have been a difficult choice. Luckily, I had both.”

George Best (1946–2005) British footballer

In the book The Afterlife by Paul Morley " http://footyfactor.com/tag/the-afterlife", Footy Factor (April 23, 2009).

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman photo

“This may be my last message. From today Bangladesh is independent. I call upon the people of Bangladesh wherever you are and with whatever you have, to resist the occupation army. Our fight will go on till the last soldier of the Pakistan Occupation Army is expelled from the soil of independent Bangladesh. Final victory is ours. Joy Bangla!”

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

The Declaration of Independence on the night of 26th March, 1971. The declaration was made minutes before his arrest by the Pakistan Army. http://www.albd.org/autoalbd/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=44 http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=93650 http://web.archive.org/web/20110719125113/http://www.albd.org/autoalbd/images/stories/compile/2006/dia/dia_letter.jpg
Quote, Other

Elvis Presley photo

“Love me tender, love me sweet,
Never let me go.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

"Love Me Tender" (1956), the lyrics of this song are credited to Presley and co-writer Vera Matson, but were primarily written by Matson's husband, Ken Darby, who when asked why he credited his wife as co-writer with Presley replied "Because she didn't write it either."
Disputed

Richard Matheson photo

“What you don’t understand yet is that we’re going to stay alive. We’ve found a way to do that and we’re going to set up society again slowly but surely.”

Ruth in her letter to Robert
Ch. 19
I Am Legend (1954)
Context: I’m writing this note, though, because I want to save you if I can.
When I was first given the job of spying on you, I had no feelings about your life. Because I did have a husband, Robert. You killed him.
But now it’s different. I know now that you were just as much forced into your situation as we were forced into ours. We are infected. But you already know that. What you don’t understand yet is that we’re going to stay alive. We’ve found a way to do that and we’re going to set up society again slowly but surely. We’re going to do away with all those wretched creatures whom death has cheated. And, even though I pray otherwise, we may decide to kill you and those like you.

Neil Armstrong photo

“I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges.”

Neil Armstrong (1930–2012) American astronaut; first person to walk on the moon

Apollo mission press conference (1969); ABC World News http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/neil-armstrong-man-moon-dead/story?id=12325140&page=2#.UE0Vm67hdjw; also quoted in Of a Fire on the Moon (1970) by Norman Mailer, <!-- p. 46-47 --> and in First Man: The Life of Ronnie Petch the bender (2005) by James R. Hansen<!-- p. 399 -->
Context: I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul … we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

Mikhail Lermontov photo
Randy Pausch photo