Quotes about handle (570 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there's a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up…. and handle it.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Night

“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

For Team , Leadership , Good Morning , Business

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Attributed to Monroe in self-help books and on social media, this quotation is of unknown origin and date.
Misattributed

love , Life , Relationship , Hell

“People think of life as being so sacred and they feel like this is their only chance and they have to do something with their life and make an impact As far as I'm concerned, it's just a pitstop for the afterlife. It's just a little test to see how you can handle reality.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Life , People , Feeling , Thinking

“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.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Love , Life , Beauty

“Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Foreword, 'Tales of Transformation: English Translation of Tagore's Chitrangada and Chandalika', Lopamudra Banerjee, (2018). https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DQPD8F4/</span>
From Prose

Feeling

“In Tunisia the Americans had to pay a stiff price for their experience, but it brought rich dividends. Even at that time, the American generals showed themselves to be very advanced in the tactical handling of their forces, although we had to wait until the Patton Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Source: The Rommel Papers (1953), Ch. XXIII : The Sky Has Grown Dark, p. 523.

Time , Waiting

“Administration, which calls for the application of wide knowledge and many personal qualities, is above all the art of handling men, and in this art, as in many others, it is practice that makes perfect. This is one of the reasons why we should release our future engineers for practical work as early as possible; there are many drawbacks to staying too long at school.”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

Source: Henri Fayol addressed his colleagues in the mineral industry, 1900, p. 909

Men , School , Art , Knowledge

“The Police got great credit and praise in the papers for arresting the mother of 12 children one an infant on her breast and those two quiet hard working innocent men who would not know the difference a revolver and a saucepan handle and kept them six months awaiting trial and then convicted them on the evidence of the meanest article that ever the sun shone on it.”

Ned Kelly (1855–1880) Australian bushranger

Jerilderie Letter (1879)

Men , Children , Sun

“I think pressure’s healthy, and very few can handle it.”

Gordon Ramsay (1966) British chef, writer and TV presenter

Thinking

“People who are filled with hate don't know how to handle love.”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

Love , Hate , People

“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.”

Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism

Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism

History , Effort , Time

“In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us…. More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children.”

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

Children , Parent , Affliction

“I'm not very good at handling stupid people. I must admit.”

John Lydon book Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

Source: Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

People , Stupidity

“I’m to attend balls and banquets without my squire?" demanded Raoul, all innocence. "I can't handle things like requesting water to shave with, or getting my clothes pressed. I need Kel.”

Tamora Pierce Squire

Source: Squire

Water , Clothes

“If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“My boys may charge me with all they want. The main thing is, it helps them. They are not evil and no criminals. They are the products of total war, grown up on the streets of scattered towns without any education! The only thing [they] knew was to handle weapons for the Dream of [the] Reich. They were young people with a hot heart and the desire to win or to die, according to the word: right or wrong—my country!”

Joachim Peiper (1915–1976) SS officer

Letter to Willis Everett, July 4, 1946. Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 14, citing Everett Papers in note 5.

War , People , Education , Dreams

“A sensitive man is not happy as President. It is fight, fight, fight all the time. I looked forward to the close of my term as a happy release from care. But I am not sure I wasn't more unhappy out of office than in. A term in the presidency accustoms a man to great duties. He gets used to handling tremendous enterprises, to organizing forces that may affect at once and directly the welfare of the world. After the long exercise of power, the ordinary affairs of life seem petty and commonplace.”

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States

As quoted in American Magazine (September 1908)
Context: A sensitive man is not happy as President. It is fight, fight, fight all the time. I looked forward to the close of my term as a happy release from care. But I am not sure I wasn't more unhappy out of office than in. A term in the presidency accustoms a man to great duties. He gets used to handling tremendous enterprises, to organizing forces that may affect at once and directly the welfare of the world. After the long exercise of power, the ordinary affairs of life seem petty and commonplace. An ex-President practicing law or going into business is like a locomotive hauling a delivery wagon. He has lost his sense of proportion. The concerns of other people and even his own affairs seem too small to be worth bothering about.

Life , World , Exercises , Time

“There is a Point where one cannot handle the building weight of one's Troubles
and
like a Stick that snaps.
We are all human, not robots.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, February 27, 1945 "Crimea Conference" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1945/feb/27/crimea-conference#column_1294; in The Second World War, Volume VI: Triumph and Tragedy (1954), Chapter XXIII – Yalta: Finale.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Time

“We do not handle suffering. Suffering handles us.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation

Suffering

“Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.”

Judy Blume Tiger Eyes

Source: Tiger Eyes

Fear

“To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Life , Family

“We're all victims of what life deals out. It's how we handle it that's important.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Life

“I am living in the Google years, no question of that. And there are advantages to it. When you forget something, you can whip out your iPhone and go to Google. The Senior Moment has become the Google moment, and it has a much nicer, hipper, younger, more contemporary sound, doesn't it? By handling the obligations of the search mechanism, you almost prove you can keep up….

You can't retrieve you life (unless you're on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it).”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections

Life , Search , Question , Forgetting

“The corporation is the creature of government, and the people have the right to handle it as they desire; all they need pay attention to is the expediency of realizing this right in some way that shall be productive of good and not harm.”

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

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

People , Way

“My theory is that for those of us who are too weak to remain single, God gives us a spouse. For those of us who are too hung up to handle marriage, God gives us celibacy. So, pick your weakness. Pick your poison, I guess. But anyway, for those of you who do choose to be in love and stuff, go for it.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Anderson, Indiana http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/anderson-indiana-nov1695.html (November 16, 1995)
In Concert

Love , God , Marriage

“I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. Indeed, it has often seemed to me as if anyone calling for an intellectual conscience were as lonely in the most densely populated cities as if he were in a desert. Everybody looks at you with strange eyes and goes right on handling his scales, calling this good and that evil. Nobody even blushes when you intimate that their weights are underweight; nor do people feel outraged; they merely laugh at your doubts. I mean: the great majority of people does not consider it contemptible to believe this or that and to live accordingly, without first having given themselves an account of the final and most certain reasons pro and con, and without even troubling themselves about such reasons afterward: the most gifted men and the noblest women still belong to this "great majority." But what is goodheartedness, refinement, or genius to me, when the person who has these virtues tolerates slack feelings in his faith and judgments and when he does not account the desire for certainty as his inmost craving and deepest distress--as that which separates the higher human beings from the lower.”

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

Sec. 2
The Gay Science (1882)

Women , Men , People , Faith

“Gansey had once told Adam that he was afraid most people didn't know how to handle Ronan. What he meant by this was that he was worried that one day someone would fall on Ronan and cut themselves.”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

The Raven Cycle Series, The Raven Boys (2012)

People

“You don’t know how to handle anything today, because you have to go to jail to get some press or fall down drunk.”

Liza Minnelli (1946) American actress and singer

October 26, 2007. The Washington Blade.

“My uncle, it seems, had quickly instituted a prodigiously far-flung body of inquires amongst nearly all the friends whom he could question without impertinence, asking for nightly reports of their dreams, and the dates of any notable visions for some time past. The reception of his request seems to have varied; but he must, at the very least, have received more responses than any ordinary man could have handled without a secretary.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

Dreams , Question , Time , Past

“Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant’s father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Source: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Chapter 2 “Cheers in the Wirehouse” (p. 56)

Beauty , Way

“It's not about how you look, it's about how you feel. I can do more with ease and grace now at 52 than I could when I was 20. I can ride my bike 60 miles, I can handle stress, I have good muscle tone. That's what it's about. Not about being thin but about being healthy”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Telephone interview quoted by Carol Krucoff. Why Jane's Fonda Exercise;Stress-Busting Workouts and Other News About Staying in Shape. Washington Post, 13 March 1990

Feeling

“Man knows and his capacity to know depends on his biological integrity; furthermore, he knows that he knows. As a basic psychological and, hence, biological function cognition guides his handling of the universe and knowledge gives certainty to his acts; objective knowledge seems possible and through objective knowledge the universe appears systematic and predictable.”

Humberto Maturana (1928) Chilean biologist and philosopher

Source: Biology of Cognition (1970), p. 5 Introduction.

Knowledge , Universe , Appearance , Dependency

“And we’re at the very beginning stages of a very brutal and bloody conflict, of which if the people in this room, the people in the church, do not bind together and really form what I feel is an aspect of the church militant, to really be able to not just stand with our beliefs, but to fight for our beliefs against this new barbarity that’s starting, that will completely eradicate everything that we’ve been bequeathed over the last 2,000, 2,500 years. … Now that call converges with something we have to face, and it’s a very unpleasant topic, but we are in an outright war against jihadist Islamic fascism. And this war is, I think, metastasizing far quicker than governments can handle it.”

Steve Bannon (1953) American media executive and former White House Chief Strategist for Donald Trump

Third International Conference on Human Dignity https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.ph1V8aOPJz#.vhqa3rnxpW (2014)

War , People , Feeling , Thinking

“When Paul thought about his effortless rise in the hierarchy, he sometimes, as now, felt sheepish, like a charlatan. He could handle his assignments all right, but he didn’t have what his father had, what Kroner had, what Shepherd had, what so many had: the sense of spiritual importance in what they were doing; the ability to be moved emotionally, almost like a lover, by the great omnipresent and omniscient spook, the corporate personality. In short, what Paul missed was what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 6 (pp. 66-67)

Lovers , Sense , Personality

“I believe that the want of our age is not more "free" handling of the Bible, but more "reverent" handling, more humility, more patient study, and more prayer.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 37.

Age , Study

“I was once in a rig which was inducing considerable pain, and I finally just said… God, you've got it. I can't take it any more. I can't handle it. I'm just putting it entirely in your hands, and from the instant I phrased that… I felt absolutely no pain. In fact, I felt the greatest sense of comfort, not only physical comfort, but psychological warmth and comfort that I have ever felt in my life, before or since.”

Jeremiah Denton (1924–2014) American Vietnam War POW and politician

Jeremiah http://www.pbs.org/video/alabama-public-television-documentaries-jeremiah/ (2015) 34:07.

Life , God , Pain , Sense

“You [Albanians] are a separate people, just like the Persians and the Arabs, who have the same religion as the Turks. Your ancestors existed before the Romans and the Turks. Religion has nothing to do with nationality and statehood… the question of religious beliefs must be kept well in mind, must be handled with great care, because the religious feelings of the people must not be offended. These feelings have been cultivated in the people for many centuries, and great patience is called for on this question, because the stand towards it is important for the compactness and unity of the people.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Said to Enver Hoxha, on their second meeting together in March-April 1949, as quoted in Hoxha's (1986) The Artful Albanian, (Chatto & Windus, London), ISBN 0701129700
Contemporary witnesses

People , Religion , Feeling , Question

“No nineteenth-century writer could have written this nineteenth-century tale; but few twentieth-century writers could have handled its simplicities in the way this one does.”

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896–1957) Sicilian writer and prince

Martin Seymour-Smith Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975) vol. 3, p. 30.
Criticism

Way

“The Sovereignty of the Father is like a woman who is carrying a jar full of grain. While she was walking on a distant road, the handle of the jar broke, the grain streamed out behind her onto the road. She did not observe it, she had noticed no accident. When she arrived in her house, she set the jar down—she found it empty.”

Thomas the Apostle Apostle of Jesus Christ

97
Gospel of Thomas (c. 50? — c. 140?)

Distant , Housing

“When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

During the Bed-In for Peace in Montreal, Canada (1 June 1969) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oJ9w0x_dzo

Game , Fight

“I approach these questions unwillingly, as it wounds, but no cure can be effected without touching upon and handling them.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXVIII, sec. 27
History of Rome

Question

“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Lie

“The ambition for broad acres leads to poor farming, even with men of energy. I scarcely ever knew a mammoth farm to sustain itself; much less to return a profit upon the outlay. I have more than once known a man to spend a respectable fortune upon one; fail and leave it; and then some man of more modest aims, get a small fraction of the ground, and make a good living upon it. Mammoth farms are like tools or weapons, which are too heavy to be handled. Ere long they are thrown aside, at a great loss.”

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

1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)

Men , Loss

“Such laws as the franchise-tax law in this State, which the Court of Appeals recently unanimously decided constitutional -- such a law as that passed in Congress last year for the purpose of establishing a Department of Commerce and Labor, under which there should be a bureau to oversee and secure publicity from the great corporations which do an interstate business -- such a law as that passed at the same time for the regulation of the great highways of commerce so as to keep these roads clear on fair terms to all producers in getting their goods to market -- these laws are in the interest not merely of the people as a whole, but of the propertied classes. For in no way is the stability of property better assured than by making it patent to our people that property bears its proper share of the burdens of the State; that property is handled not only in the interest of the owner, but in the interest of the whole community.”

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

1900s, A Square Deal (1903)

People , Law , Way , Communication

“Chemistry without catalysis would be a sword without a handle, a light without brilliance, a bell without sound.”

Alwin Mittasch (1869–1953) German chemist

Alwin Mittasch, as cited in: Ralph Edward Oesper, "Alwin Mittasch," Journal of Chemical Education (1948), 25, 532.

Light

“There’s nothing America can’t handle if we actually look squarely at the problem. And this is work for all Americans, not just some. Not just whites. Not just blacks. If we want to honor the courage of those who marched that day, then all of us are called to possess their moral imagination. All of us will need to feel as they did the fierce urgency of now. All of us need to recognize as they did that change depends on our actions, on our attitudes, the things we teach our children. And if we make such an effort, no matter how hard it may sometimes seem, laws can be passed, and consciences can be stirred, and consensus can be built.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Bloody Sunday Speech (March 2015)

Children , Law , Feeling , Imagination

“The provision of a whole new system of electric generation emancipated industry from the leather belt and line shaft, for it eventually became possible to provide each tool with its own electric motor. This may seem only a detail of minor importance. In fact, modern industry could not be carried out with the belt and line shaft for a number of reasons. The motor enabled machinery to be arranged in the order of the work, and that alone has probably doubled the efficiency of industry, for it has cut out a tremendous amount of useless handling and hauling. The belt and line shaft were also tremendously wasteful – so wasteful indeed that no factory could be really large, for even the longest line shaft was small according to modern requirements. Also high speed tools were impossible under the old conditions – neither the pulleys nor the belts could stand modern speeds. Without high speed tools and the finer steels which they brought about, there could be nothing of what we call modern industry.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther (1930). Edison as I Know Him. Cosmopolitan Book Company. p. 15

Speed

“There's an insistence that the Being that's spoken into being through Truth is Good. This is the most profound ever. It is also the most believable idea ever. What cures in therapy is Truth. Of course, you must encounter the things that you're afraid of, but this is enacted Truth, because if you know that there's something you need to do by your own set of rules and you're avoiding it, then you're enacting a lie. You're not speaking the lie, but you're enacting it, and that's the same thing: untruth. If you can confront If I can get you to face what it is that you know you shouldn't be avoiding, then what's happening is that we're both partaking in the process of you attempting to act out your deepest truth. That improves people's lives radically. The clinical evidence for that is overwhelming. We know that if you expose people to the things that they're afraid of and are avoiding, they get better. You have to do it carefully, cautiously, and with their approval and participation. Of all the things that clinicians have established that's credible, that's #1. It's redemptive insofar as both people are telling the truth. The difference between deception and repression is very small. People can handle earthquakes and cancer and even death, but they can't handle deception. They can't handle the rug being pulled out from underneath them by people who they love and trust. This does them in. It makes them ill, it hurts them psycho-physiologically, and worse than that it makes them cynical, bitter, vicious, and resentful. And then they also start to act all that out in the world, and that makes it worse.”

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

Concepts

Love , Death , People , Truth

“From this place he removed to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in the autumn of 1816. Abraham then being in his eighth year. …though very young, was large for his age, and had an ax put into his hands at once; and from that till within his twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that most useful instrument — less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons.”

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

1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)

Age , Autumn , Season

“I want to explain my environment to those who don't come any closer to it than the records they buy or the images they see on television. People want the truth. Even if they can't handle it, they want it. I let you know that I survived nine bullets not to sell records, but because it's the truth. Every time I sit down for an interview, I'm asked, "Well, 50, how did it feel to get shot nine times?" But those stories don't hold the weight, the pain, or the hope of my experience. It just can't. This is my mindset and these are the things that go on. This is why I say the rhymes that I say. This is what happened when I was trying to get rich before I died in Southside Queens.”

50 Cent (1975) American rapper, actor, businessman, investor and television producer

Extract of From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens http://aalbc.com/reviews/50_cent_interview.htm.
Song lyrics, From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens (2005)

Pain , People , Truth , Hope

“If a painting has a soulful effect on the viewer, if it puts his mind into a soulful mood, then it has fulfilled the first requirement of a work of art. However bad it might be in drawing, color, handling, etc.”

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) Swedish painter

Quote of Friedrich's letter 8 Feb. 1809, to 'Akademiedirektor Schulz'; as cited by Helmut Bôrsch-Supan and Karl Wilhelm Jàhnig in Caspar David Friedrich: Gemâlde, Druckgraphik und bildmassige Zeichnungen (Munich: Prestel, 1973), 182-83, esp. 183; translation, David Britt - note 117 http://d2aohiyo3d3idm.cloudfront.net/publications/virtuallibrary/0892366745.pdf
1794 - 1840

Art , Color , Soul , Mood

“The power which a man's imagination has over his body to heal it or make it sick is a force which none of us is born without. The first man had it, the last one will possess it. If left to himself, a man is most likely to use only the mischievous half of the force—the half which invents imaginary ailments for him and cultivates them; and if he is one of these—very wise people, he is quite likely to scoff at the beneficent half of the force and deny its existence. And so, to heal or help that man, two imaginations are required: his own and some outsider's. The outsider, B, must imagine that his incantations are the healing-power that is curing A, and A must imagine that this is so. I think it is not so, at all; but no matter, the cure is effected, and that is the main thing. The outsider's work is unquestionably valuable; so valuable that it may fairly be likened to the essential work performed by the engineer when he handles the throttle and turns on the steam; the actual power is lodged exclusively in the engine, but if the engine were left alone it would never start of itself. Whether the engineer be named Jim, or Bob, or Tom, it is all one—his services are necessary, and he is entitled to such wage as he can get you to pay. Whether he be named Christian Scientist, or Mental Scientist, or Mind Curist, or King's-Evil Expert, or Hypnotist, it is all one; he is merely the Engineer; he simply turns on the same old steam and the engine does the whole work.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 8 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3187/3187-h/3187-h.htm#link2HCH0008
Christian Science (1907)

People , Imagination , Thinking , Evil

“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 2

Life , Appearance

“What's better: to not be afraid or to know that you can handle being afraid?”

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

Other

“I've been a Democrat my whole life. That's what makes Maude and Dorothy so believable, we have the same viewpoints on how our country should be handled.”

Bea Arthur (1922–2009) actress, singer, comedian

Interview, TV Legends, August 6, 2005

Life , Country

“Such impetuous schemes and boldness are at first sight alluring, but are difficult to handle, and in the result disastrous.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXXV, sec. 32
History of Rome

“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Macbeth, Act II, scene i.
Macbeth (1606)

“That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

As quoted in BBC interview with David Wigg (8 May 1969) http://web.archive.org/web/20080121033938/http://www.geocities.com/~beatleboy1/db1969.0508.beatles.html
Context: That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor. You know, and we are humorous, we are, what are they, Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot.

Thinking , Parting

“Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

The Enchiridion (c. 135)
Variant: Everything has two handles, one by which it may be borne, the other by which it may not.
Context: Everything has two handles, the one by which it may be carried, the other by which it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, don't lay hold on the action by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be carried; but by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you; and thus you will lay hold on it, as it is to be carried. (43).

“I consider as lovers of books not those who keep their books hidden in their store-chests and never handle them, but those who, by nightly as well as daily use thumb them, batter them, wear them out, who fill out all the margins with annotations of many kinds, and who prefer the marks of a fault they have erased to a neat copy full of faults.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

Letter to an unidentified friend (1489), as translated in Collected Works of Erasmus (1974), p. 58

Books , Lovers

“Like untuned golden strings all women are,
Which long time lie untouch'd, will harshly jar.
Vessels of brass, oft handled, brightly shine.”

Christopher Marlowe book Hero and Leander

First Sestiad
Hero and Leander (published 1598)

“Thinking about things previously and then handling them lightly when the time comes is what this is all about.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)
Context: Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige's wall there was this one: "Matters of great concern should be treated lightly." Master lttei commented, "Matters of small concern should be treated seriously." Among one's affairs there should not be more than two or three matters of what one could call great concern. If these are deliberated upon during ordinary times, they can be understood. Thinking about things previously and then handling them lightly when the time comes is what this is all about.

Thinking , Time

“It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Colour Out of Space (1927)
Context: West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentle slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs. The old folk have gone away, and foreigners do not like to live there. French-Canadians have tried it, Italians have tried it, and the Poles have come and departed. It is not because of anything that can be seen or heard or handled, but because of something that is imagined. The place is not good for imagination, and does not bring restful dreams at night.

Dreams , Imagination , Night

“When things change a lot, some guys handle the change better than others, but that doesn’t mean the guys that take longer to get the hang of things are suddenly slow drivers!”

Niki Lauda (1949–2019) Austrian former Formula 1 racing driver

Guy , Change

“I advise you to fear Allah alone, with no partner of associate. I advise you to treat the first Muhâjireen well and acknowledge their seniority. I advise you to treat the Ansār well, and show approval of those among them who do well, and forgive those among them who make mistakes. I advise you to treat the people of the outlying regions well, for they are a shield against the enemy and conduits of fay; do not take anything from them except that which is surplus to their needs. I advise you to treat the people of the desert well, for they are the original Arabs and the protectors of Islam. Take from the surplus of their wealth and give it to their poor. I advise you to treat ahl adh-dhīmmah well, to defend them against their enemies and not burden them with more than they can bear if they fulfill their duties towards the believers or pay the Jizyāh with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. I advise you to fear Allah and fear His wrath, lest you do anything wrong. I advise you to fear Allah with regard to the people, but do not fear the people with regard to Allah. I advise you to treat the people justly, and to devote yourself to looking after them and protecting them against their enemies. Do not show any favour to the rich over the poor. That will be better for your spiritual well being and will help to reduce your burden of sin, and it will be better for your Hereafter, until you meet the One Who knows what is in your heart. I instruct you to be strict with regard to the commands of Allah, His sacred limits and disobedience with all people, both relatives and others. Do not show any mercy to anyone until you have settled the score with him according to his offence. Treat all people as equal, and do not worry about who is as fault or fear the blame of the blamers. Beware of showing favouritism among the believers with regard to the fay that Allah has put you in charge of, lest that lead to injustice. Keep away from that. You are in a position between this world and the Hereafter. If you conduct your affairs justly in this world and refrain from indulgence, that will earn you faith and divine pleasure. I advise you not to let yourself or anyone else do wrong to ahl al-dhimmah. I advise you sincerely to seek thereby the Countenance of Allah and the Hereafter. I have chosen advice for you that I would offer to myself or my son. If you do as I have advised you and follow my instructions, you will have gained a great deal. If you don not accept it or pay attention to it, and do not handle your affairs in the way that pleases Allah, that will be a shortcoming on your part and you will have failed to be sincere, because whims and desires are the same and the cause of sin is Iblīs, who calls man to everything that will lead to his doom. He misguided the generations who came before you and led them to Hell, what a terrible abode. What a bad deal it is for a man to take the enemy of Allah as his friend, who calls him to disobey Allah. Adhere to the truth, strive hard to reach it and admonish yourself. I urge you by Allah to show mercy to the Muslims, honour their elderly, show compassion to their young ones and respect the knowledgeable ones among them. Do not harm them or humiliate them, and do not keep the fay for yourself lest you anger them. Do not deprive them of their stipends when they become due, thus making them poor. Do not keep them away on campaigns for so long that they end up having no children. Do not allow wealth to circulate only among the rich. Do not close your door to the people or allow the strong to oppress the weak. This is my advice to you, as Allah is my witness, and I greet you with peace.”

Umar (585–644) Second Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate and a companion of Muhammad

Umar ibn al-Khattab, Vol. 2, p. 389-390, also quoted in At-Tabqaat ul-Kabir, Vol. 3, p. 339
Last Advise

Sincerity , Forgiveness , Hell , Anger

“… I took Advanced PowerPoint last semester. You guys are always misunderestimating me. I'm totally ready to handle the big stuff.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Guy

“He'd lived long enough to know that everyone handled grief in different ways, and little by little, they all seemed to accept their new lives.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Way

“Jason's fingers itched to draw his sword. He'd met plenty of scary demigods, but he was starting to realize that Nico di Angelo--as pale and gaunt as he looked--might be more than he could handle.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Drawing

“You'll be okay. No matter what shape reality takes, you can handle it.”

Shiro Amano (1976) Japanese manga artist

Source: Kingdom Hearts, Vol. 1

Reality

“The door handle is the handshake of the building.”

Juhani Pallasmaa (1936) Finnish architect

Source: The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses

“Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.”

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

Books , Flowers , Bee

“Sometimes I wish I could walk around with a HANDLE WITH CARE sign stuck to my forehead.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

“I don't know what it is with Finnick and bread, but he seems obsessed with handling it.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

“The main affliction of our modern civilization is that we don’t know how to handle the suffering inside us and we try to cover it up with all kinds of consumption.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

Affliction , Suffering

“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Inspirational , Success , Motivational , Positive

“I know how you feel," I said. "You run into something you totally don't get, and it's scary as hell. But once you learn something about it, it gets easier to handle. Knowledge counters fear. It always has.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Fear , Feeling , Hell , Knowledge

“When you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian

Books

“While the Lord might insist that vengeance was His, no male Highlander of my acquaintance had ever thought it right that the Lord should be left to handle such things without assistance.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Fiery Cross

Source: The Fiery Cross

“Aren't you afraid of dying?
Not really. I've watched lots of good-for-nothing, worthless people die, and if people like that can do it, then I should be able to handle it.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

People

“The sign of a great man is how you handle defeat. - Old Jack”

Jeffrey Archer book Best Kept Secret

Source: Best Kept Secret

“How can you stand to have me near you?" "The only thing I can't handle is your leaving.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

“At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Uneasy Money

The Adventures of Sally (1922)
Source: Uneasy Money

Women , Age

“Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It's like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Variant: Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It’s like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss.
Source: Women

Love