Quotes about might

A collection of quotes on the topic of might, doing, use, likeness.

Robert B. Cialdini quote: “The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”

Lois McMaster Bujold quote: “Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be.”

Suzanne Collins quote: “Once I'm on my feet I realize escape might not be so easy.”

Quotes about might

“Contrary to what some might believe, writing does not generate enjoyment or pleasure in itself, quite the opposite; And yet, I feel the need to write fiction as if I have a feeling that I will find something in the middle of my narrative journey, no matter how painful it may be.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Klairet Levy, R. Interview to José Baroja. http://letras.mysite.com/jbar050923.html

Pain, Pleasure, Feeling

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

For women, Inspirational, Deep, Success

“If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy - stick to your Scout promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Life, God, People, World

“People in general, not just girls, but people who are younger are obviously extremely impressionable. And I do think it’s important. There's obviously a lot of different body images that are thrown around in society in general. Some things look like they’re more acceptable and some things are made to feel like they’re unacceptable. So, I think it’s very important that it empowers people in general. I think that anytime you can make someone who potentially might not feel as great about themselves as they should, feel better about themselves, I think that’s always a positive thing.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

Interview with Polish website Plejada (25 November 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqJC-ZSseU&t=552

People, Feeling, Girl, Thinking

“As we tell stories about the lives of others, we learn how to imagine what another creature might feel in response to various events. At the same time, we identify with the other creature and learn something about ourselves.”

Martha C. Nussbaum (1947) American philosopher

Feeling, Imagination, Learning, Time

“So you're a tough guy
Like-it-really-rough guy
Just-can't-get-enough guy
Chest-always-so-puffed guy
I'm that bad type
Make-your-mama-sad type
Make-your-girlfriend-mad type
Might-seduce-your-dad type
I'm the bad guy, duh
I'm the bad guy”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

"Bad Guy"
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019)

Making love, Bad luck, Sadness, Madness

“At this stage, some people might advise me to focus on pleasure and avoid any kind of pain—But where can we hide from pain when it finds us unprepared?”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Pain, People, Pleasure

“The branch might seem like the fruit's origin:
In fact, the branch exist because of the fruit.”

Rumi Masnavi

Mathnawi
Teachings of Rumi (1999)

“Our love affair ended in tears but a deep bond grew out of it, and that's something nobody can take away from us. It's unreachable … All my lovers ask me why they can't replace her, but it's simply impossible.
I don't feel jealous of her lovers because. of course, she has a life to lead, and so do I. Basically, I try to make sure she's happy with whoever she's with and she tries to do the same for me.
We look after each other and that's a wonderful form of love. I might have all the problems in the world, but I have Mary and that gets me through.”

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

On his relationship with Mary Austin, as quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985).

Happiness, Tear, Problem, Lovers

“The mind might become forgetful of great deeds, but the soul does not forget anything that it considers to be beautiful and good.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul, Forgetting, Beauty

“You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.”

Mick Jagger (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Motivational

“I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music, they just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

As quoted in Melody Maker (1991-09-14).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print

Art, Music, Guy, Fight

“You could spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future but all there will ever be is what's happening here and the decisions we make in this moments which are based in either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect so we never dared the universe for it. I'm saying I'm the proof that you can ask the universe for it. My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn't believe that that was possible for him and so he made a conservative choice instead, he got a safe job as an accountant and when I was 12 years old he was let go from that safe job and our family had to do whatever we could do to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you could fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

Love, Life, Fear, Family

“Should you seek might, power, false honor, excess — seek that we would work for you to provide your temporal advantages — we will bring you as close to the throne as you wish, and then turn you over to the consequences of your folly, but our inner sanctuary remains closed to such. But should you want to learn wisdom — want to learn to make mankind more clever, better, free and happy — then be thrice welcomed by us.”

Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati

Die neuesten Arbeiten des Spartacus und Philo in dem Illuminaten-Orden (1794) pp. 9-10.

Wisdom, Learning, Falseness, Happiness

“There is something within me that might be illusion as it is often case with young delighted people, but if I would be fortunate to achieve some of my ideals, it would be on the behalf of the whole of humanity. If those hopes would become fulfilled, the most exciting thought would be that it is a deed of a Serb.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Address at the Belgrade train station (1 June 1892)

People, Hope

“I had a dream
I got everything I wanted
Not what you'd think
And if I'm being honest
It might have been a nightmare
To anyone who might care”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

"everything i wanted" · First live performance, Mexico City (12 December 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgdG91aCsPU Singles (2017 - )

Thinking, Dreams

“If someone were to harm my family or a friend or somebody I love, I would eat them. I might end up in jail for 500 years, but I would eat them.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Love, Family

“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”

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

Funny

“God created man, and finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a female companion so that he might feel his solitude more acutely.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Tel Quel (1943)

God, Feeling, Solitude

“The purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Relationship

“Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.”

Jane Addams (1860–1935) pioneer settlement social worker

World, Fear, Effort

“A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God's power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God's wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Wisdom, God, Nature, Dependency

“I might have enjoyed the company of a woman or two… Or three but that had never
stopped me from loving you.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Love

“If, I say now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange, and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods… then I would be fancying that I was wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. …this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men — that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.”

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

29a–b
Alternate translation: "To fear death, is nothing else but to believe ourselves to be wise, when we are not; and to fancy that we know what we do not know. In effect, no body knows death; no body can tell, but it may be the greatest benefit of mankind; and yet men are afraid of it, as if they knew certainly that it were the greatest of evils."
Plato, Apology

Death, Wisdom, Men, God

“Your boyfriends might be angry, my girlfriends might be blue. But no one can deny it, from now on I love you.”

Alexander Rybak (1986) Norwegian singer, actor, violinist, composer, pianist

"Funny Little World" (2009).

Love

“Success comes on God’s terms, in His time, and in His way. God only allowed me to have success after I’d been broken, after I’d stopped seeking success for myself, and after I’d come to terms with the idea that my labors for God might not ever bring me a penny. It was only after I’d lost everything that God was able to get my heart right to the point where He could trust me with success.”

Scott Cawthon (1971) American independent video game designer

God, Way, Idea, Time

“Anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best things she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing — the part of her that was clean.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 26

Children, Beauty, Parting

“I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, July 6 2001 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_18_1.MP3 2000s

“Our fear that Communism might someday take over most of the world blinds us to the fact that anti-communism already has.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

The Anti-Communist Impulse http://books.google.com/books?id=i6V2AAAAMAAJ&q=%22Our+fear+that+Communism+might+someday+take+over+most+of+the+world+blinds+us+to+the+fact+that+anti-communism+already+has%22&pg=PA4#v=onepage (1970)

World, Fear, Communication

“I think it's quite an extreme statement - it might be my ultimate attempt to put the corset to bed. But I think I've still got a bit of a sado-masochistic streak in me, because if I'm not going to be restricted by corsets and covered in lace, then I still wind up wearing an ape-mask over my face. I do wonder how I get myself in these situations!”

Helena Bonham Carter (1966) British actress

Interview on Cinema.com, 2001 http://www.cinema.com/articles/547/planet-of-the-apes-interview-with-helena-bonham-carter.phtml

Thinking

“I believe there’s some explanation for this universe, which you might call God.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Axios, season 1, episode 4 (25 November 2018)

Universe, God

“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Be Prepared in Mind by having disciplined yourself to be obedient to every order, and also by having thought out beforehand any accident or situation that might occur, so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it.

Be Prepared in Body by making yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Source: Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship

Strong

“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse… but surely you will see the wildness!”

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

Horse, Painting

“Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

Fear

“Never ask an elf for help; they might decide your better off dead, eh?”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Source: Eldest

Help, Dead

“What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Introduction, as translated by H. B. Nisbet (1975)
Variant translation: What experience and history teach is this — that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
Pragmatical (didactic) reflections, though in their nature decidedly abstract, are truly and indefeasibly of the Present, and quicken the annals of the dead Past with the life of to-day. Whether, indeed, such reflections are truly interesting and enlivening, depends on the writer's own spirit. Moral reflections must here be specially noticed, the moral teaching expected from history; which latter has not unfrequently been treated with a direct view to the former. It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate the soul, and are applicable in the moral instruction of children for impressing excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples and states, their interests, relations, and the complicated tissue of their affairs, present quite another field. Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this, that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the Past. The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the life and freedom of the Present.
Lectures on the History of History Vol 1 p. 6 John Sibree translation (1857), 1914
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

History, Learning

“Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind.”

Mick Jagger (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Dreams

“Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone,
I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.
I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Life

“I want to go to sleep and not wake up, but I don't want to die. I want to eat like a normal person eats, but I need to see my bones or I will hate myself even more and I might cut my heart out or take every pill that was ever made.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Hate, Sleep, Heart, Personality

“We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Children, People, World, Parent

“If you could not accept the past and its burden, there was no future, for without one there cannot be the other, and […] if you could accept the past you might hope for the future, for only out of the past can you make the future.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men (1946)

Hope, Past, Future

“I am often asked why men don’t get as worked up as they might about women—particularly poor women—having to use their bodies as prostitutes. Because most men unconsciously experience themselves as prostitutes every day—the miner, the firefighter, the construction worker, the logger, the soldier, the meatpacker—these men are prostitutes in the direct sense: they sacrifice their bodies for money and for their families.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part II: The Glass Cellars of the disposable sex, p. 233.

Women, Men, Money, Family

“Originally, I wanted a machine that would cost $100. My idea was to spend nothing on the console technology so all the money could be spent on improving the interface and software. If we hadn't used NAND flash memory [to store data such as games and photos] and other pricey parts, we might have succeeded.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

On Wii Source: November 16, 2006 Business Week interview http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2006/tc20061116_750580.htm

Money, Photo, Game, Idea

“Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.”

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) French poet

Christopher Logue's poem "Come to the Edge" from New Numbers (London: Cape, 1969) pp. 65-66. It was originally written for a poster advertising an Apollinaire exhibition at the ICA in 1961 or 1962, and was titled "Apollinaire Said"; hence it is often misattributed to Apollinaire (Source: Quote…Unquote Newsletter, July 1995, p. 2).
Misattributed

“Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumor of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 1.

War, Success

“I wish sometimes that I had twenty bodies, that at twenty places at once I might publish the saving name of Jesus.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Two: Over the Treaty Wall. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982, 362).

“I hope that Cezanne will still be here and that he will join us, but he is so shy, so afraid of meeting new people, that I am afraid that he might let us down, even though he wants very much to meet you. How sad it is that this man hasn't had more patronage in his life! This is a true artist who has come to doubt himself far too much. He needs to be cheered up, so e was quote touched by your article.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in a letter from Giverny to Gustave Geffroy, 23 November 1894; as cited in: P. Michael Doran (2001), ‎Art Conversations with Cézanne, p. 3
1890 - 1900

Life, People, Sadness, Hope

“No matter what happens, keep smilin', but if you wanna commit suicide, skydivin' is the best option, jump outta the plane with no parachute, and maybe when you're fallin' you might have some regrets, but don't you think about it, you and I know that it's worth it.”

E.M.S (1995) Nigerian rapper, singer and record producer

Hidden (2017)

Thinking, Suicide

“May the men who hold the destiny of peoples in their hands, studiously avoid anything that might cause the present situation to deteriorate and become even more dangerous. May they take to heart the words of the Apostle Paul: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." These words are valid not only for individuals, but for nations as well. May these nations, in their efforts to maintain peace, do their utmost to give the spirit time to grow and to act.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

The Problem of Peace (1954)

Men, People, Peace, Effort

“I am mindful of human weakness, and I reflect upon the might of Fortune and know that everything that we do is exposed to a thousand chances.”

Scipio Africanus (-235–-183 BC) Roman general in the Second Punic War

Context: I am mindful of human weakness, and I reflect upon the might of Fortune and know that everything that we do is exposed to a thousand chances. But, just as I should admit that I were acting with arrogance and violence if, before I had crossed over to Africa, I were to reject you when you were voluntarily withdrawing from Italy and, while your army was already on shipboard, you were coming in person to sue for peace, so now, when I have dragged you to Africa, resisting and shifting ground as we almost came to blows, I am under no obligation to respect you. Therefore, if to the terms upon which peace was formerly about to be made, as it seemed, you are adding some kind of compensation for the ships loaded with supplies that were taken by force during the armistice, and for violence done to my envoys, I have reason to bring it before the council. But if that addition also seems too severe, prepare for war, since you have been unable to endure a peace [bellum parate, quoniam pacem pati non potuistis]. Reply to Hannibal's attempt to set terms for peace, prior to the Battle of Zama, as quoted in Livy. Books XXVIII-XXX With An English Translation (1949), Book 30, Ch. 31 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0159%3Abook%3D30%3Achapter%3D31 Variant translation: I am aware of the frailty of man, I think about the power of fortune, and I know that all our actions are at the mercy of a thousand vicissitudes. Now I admit that it would have been arrogant and headstrong reaction on my part if you had come to sue for peace before I crossed to Africa, and I had rejected your petition when you were yourself voluntarily quitting Italy, and had your troops embarked on your ships. But, as it is, I have forced you back to Africa, and you are reluctant and resisting almost to the point of fighting, so that I feel no need to show you any consideration. Accordingly, if something is actually added to the terms on which it seems probable that a peace could be concluded — some sort of indemnity for the forceful appropriation of our ships, along with their cargoes, during truce and for the violation of our envoys — then I have something to take to my council. But if you consider even that to be excessive, prepare for war, for you have found peace intolerable. Hannibal's War : Books Twenty-one to Thirty by Livy, as translated by John Yardley (2006), p. 600 Prepare to fight — for, evidently, you have found peace intolerable. Let us make war, since evidently, you have found peace intolerable.

Chance

“It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), Ch. 6
Context: It is just as much a matter of chance that I am still alive as that I might have been hit. In a bomb-proof dugout I might have been smashed to atoms, and in the open survive ten hours' bombardment unscathed. No soldier survives a thousand chances. But every soldier believes in Chance and trusts his luck.

Chance

“People who respect nothing dread fear. It is upon fear, therefore, that I have built up my organization. But understand me correctly, please. Those who work with me are afraid of nothing. Those who work for me are kept faithful, not so much because of their pay as because they know what might be done with them if they broke faith.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Fear, Faith, People, Understanding

“Here is a story of latifundia and death squads, masters and slaves, patriarchs and subordinated women, self-enriching capitalists and plundered provinces, proﬁteering slumlords and urban rioters. Here is a struggle between the plutocratic few and the indigent many, the privileged versus the proletariat, featuring corrupt politicians, money-driven elections, and the political assassination of popular leaders. I leave it to the reader to decide whether any of this might resonate with the temper of our own times.”

Michael Parenti book The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome

Introduction
The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome (2003)

Money, Time, Self-confidence, Death

“I fear lies more than death. Simply, because even the ideas of heaven and hell might fall within its domain.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Hell, Idea, Fear, Death

“You might not have been my first love, but you were the love that made all the other loves irrelevant.”

Rupi Kaur (1992) Canadian poet

Source: milk and honey

Love

“Staring at him the
way she might stare at a beloved place she
was not sure she would ever see again, trying
to commit the details to memory, to paint
them on the backs of her eyelids that she
might see it when she shut her eyes to sleep.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Way, Sleep, Memory, Painting

“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”

Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker

For Team, Moving On

“A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Business, Happiness

“In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Religion

“George looked at her for a long moment. Finally he replied, "And why do you find it so hard to think someone might like you and want to do things for you?”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

Thinking

“If I let myself really understand another person, I might be changed by that understanding. And we all fear change. So as I say, it is not an easy thing to permit oneself to understand an individual”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Source: On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Fear, Understanding, Change, Personality

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

Decision, Animals, Happiness

“Friends: not one. Just a few acquaintances who imagine they feel something for me and who might be sorry if a train ran over me and the funeral was on a rainy day.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Feeling, Imagination, Training

“There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book Confessions

Source: Confessions

Time

“The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.”

Robert B. Cialdini (1945) American social psychologist

Source: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Sad, Heartbreaking, Love, Way

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
(on Ernest Hemingway”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“Alan, you seem to think we won't like you unless you do things just like everyone else. Have you ever thought we might like you because you're different?”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

Thinking

“Shh," he said. "Look."
"Where?"
"Can't you see'um?" he whispered. "All the Terabithians standing on tiptoe to see you."
"Me?"
"Shh, yes. There's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arrving today might be the queen they've been waiting for.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Source: Bridge to Terabithia

Beauty, Girl, Waiting

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Also quoted in "Stephen Hawking warns over making contact with aliens" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8642558.stm at BBC News (25 April 2010). Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking (2010) Context: If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans. … We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.

Life, Intelligence

“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”

William Shakespeare Measure for Measure

Source: Measure for Measure

Fear

“Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It's too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew.”

Christopher Logue (1926–2011) Poet, screenwriter, actor

Originally written for a poster advertising an Apollinaire exhibition at the ICA in 1961 or 1962, and there titled "Apollinaire Said". The poem is therefore often misattributed to Guillaume Apollinaire. (Source: Quote…Unquote Newsletter, July 1995, p. 2).
Source: "Come to the Edge", from New Numbers (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969) pp. 65-66.

“All the seven deadly sins are peccadilloes but without three of them, Pride, Lust, and Sloth, poetry might never have been born.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pale Fire

Source: Pale Fire

“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking into the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comforable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

War, Way, Intelligence, Sea

“Calm —indeed the calmest— reflection might be better than the most confused decisions”

Franz Kafka book The Metamorphosis

Source: The Metamorphosis

Decision

“She was ready to deny the existence of space and time rather than admit that love might not be eternal.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Mandarins

Source: The Mandarins

Love, Time

“How strange! This bed on which I shall lie has been slept on by more than one dying man, but today it does not repel me! Who knows what corpses have lain on it and for how long? But is a corpse any worse than I? A corpse too knows nothing of its father, mother or sisters or Titus. Nor has a corpse a sweetheart. A corpse, too, is pale, like me. A corpse is cold, just as I am cold and indifferent to everything. A corpse has ceased to live, and I too have had enough of life…. Why do we live on through this wretched life which only devours us and serves to turn us into corpses? The clocks in the Stuttgart belfries strike the midnight hour. Oh how many people have become corpses at this moment! Mothers have been torn from their children, children from their mothers - how many plans have come to nothing, how much sorrow has sprung from these depths, and how much relief!… Virtue and vice have come in the end to the same thing! It seems that to die is man's finest action - and what might be his worst? To be born, since that is the exact opposite of his best deed. It is therefore right of me to be angry that I was ever born into this world! Why was I not prevented from remaining in a world where I am utterly useless? What good can my existence bring to anyone? … But wait, wait! What's this? Tears? How long it is since they flowed! How is this, seeing that an arid melancholy has held me for so long in its grip? How good it feels - and sorrowful. Sad but kindly tears! What a strange emotion! Sad but blessed. It is not good for one to be sad, and yet how pleasant it is - a strange state…”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Stuttgart. After 8th September 1831.
Source: "Selected Correspondence Of Fryderyk Chopin"; http://archive.org/stream/selectedcorrespo002644mbp/selectedcorrespo002644mbp_djvu.txt

Life, Children, People, Lie

“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn't hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 2

People, Cars, Silence

“It is too dangerous for me to put these things into words. I am afraid they might then become gigantic and I be no longer able to master them.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

“Maybe it's just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows — maybe even tomorrow.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Love, Home, Appearance

“Because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Hope, Heart

“But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“I cannot say whether I will still be doing geometry ten years from now. It also seems to me that the mine has maybe already become too deep and unless one finds new veins it might have to be abandoned. Physics and chemistry now offer a much more glowing richness and much easier exploitation. Also, the general taste has turned entirely in this direction, and it is not impossible that the place of Geometry in the Academies will someday become what the role of the Chairs of Arabic at the universities is now.”

Joseph Louis Lagrange (1736–1813) Italian mathematician and mathematical physicist

Letter to d'Alembert (1781) cited in R. Laubenbacher, D. Pengelly: Mathematical Expeditions: Chronicles by the Explorers (1999) Springer, pp. 233–234.

Universe

“Once the computers got control, we might never get it back. We would survive at their sufferance. If we're lucky, they might decide to keep us as pets.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Life Magazine (20 November 1970), p. 68

Suffering

“He who upholds Truth with all the might of his power,
He who upholds Truth the utmost in his word and deed,
He, indeed, is Thy most valued helper, O Mazda Ahura!”

Zoroaster Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism

Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 31, 22.
The Gathas

Truth

“A fool is always troublesome, a man of sense perceives when he pleases or is tiresome; he goes away the very minute before it might have been thought he stayed too long.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

2
Les Caractères (1688), De la société et de la conversation

Fools, Sense

“Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind — that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.”

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

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), p. 69

Faith, Distant, Christ

“Around 1945, daily life might have been hard, but the reputation of Disney was at its highest. The voices of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck had stabilized, Snow White and Bambi were huge hits and had received a number of international prizes. It really was like the brightness of a rising sun. And then Japanese children after the war had no choice but to face the flood of Disney comics that accompanied the brainwashing of “American democracy.””

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

That was their merit as propaganda against the Japanese. Tezuka Osamu and American Comics http://www.tcj.com/tezuka-osamu-and-american-comics/, (1973), as quoted by Ryan Holmberg, The Comics Journal, Jul 16, 2012.

Life, War, Children, Democracy

“Learning is to a man as the leaves and branches are to a tree, and it can be said that he should not be without it. Learning is not only reading books, however, but is rather something that we study to integrate with our own way of life.
One who is born into the house of a warrior, regardless of his rank or class, first acquaints himself with a man of military feats and achievements in loyalty, and, listening to just one of his dictums each day, will in a month know 30 precepts. Needless to say, if in a year he learns 300 precepts, at the end of that time he will be much the better.
Thus, a man can divide his mind into three parts: he should throw out those thoughts that are evil, take up those ideas that are good, and become intimate with his own wisdom… I would honor and call wise the man who penetrates this principle, though he lacks the knowledge of a single Chinese character. As for those who are learned in other matters, I would avoid them regardless of how deep their knowledge might be. That is how shallow and untalented this monk is.”

Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period

William Scott Wilson, ‎Gregory Lee. Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, 1982. p 95

Life, Wisdom, Books, Way

“It makes it easier to get happiness. I do believe in a material world to a certain extent. I think material happiness is quite an important step before you look for spiritual happiness. There are people who think the other way round. They might also be right. But in the kind of education and the world where I have grown up, and we all are growing up, a certain level of consumerism become a reality. (as an answer to the question: Do you think that money can buy happiness?)”

Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality

From interview with Rajeev Masand

Money, People, World, Education

“The main thing missing from cartoons is today that old cartoons were cartoony. They did things you can't do in any other medium. Today's cartoons are very conservative and are more like live action. The characters look the same in every frame of the damn cartoon. The old cartoons squashed, stretched, and did crazy expressions. They were imaginative and crazy. A lot of cartoons aren't imaginative, they just say things. It might as well be radio. There is no point in having anything to look at in modern cartoons. But you can't say that about every cartoon. Genndy Tartakovsky's cartoons are beautiful. The closest thing now to what I'm saying is SpongeBob but even that doesn't go very far. It's like a conservative version of Ren & Stimpy.”

John Kricfalusi (1955) Canadian animator

Daniel Robert Epstein (Oct 12, 2004), " John Kricfalusi, interview http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/John%20Kricfalusi/", SuicideGirls, retrieved 2011-03-01

Beauty, Imagination

“This book raises issues that might not be apparent from the table of contents.
It sketches some of the difficulties faced by our civilization — a civilization which might be perhaps described as aiming at humanness and reasonableness, at equality and freedom; a civilization which is still in its infancy, as it were, and which continues to grow in spite of the fact that it has been so often betrayed by so many of the intellectual leaders of mankind. It attempts to show that this civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or "enclosed society," with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man. It attempts to show that the shock of this transition is one of the factors that have made possible the rise of those reactionary movements which have tried, and still try, to overthrow civilization and to return to tribalism.”

Karl Popper book The Open Society and Its Enemies

Introduction; part of this has sometimes been paraphrased : Our civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or 'closed society', with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

Books, Birth, Freedom

“I did, however, pass by one young girl, and she was like a goddess who came down from heaven. She was walking alone, in her bathing suit, with her luscious blonde hair blowing in the wind. I couldn’t help but slyly admire her beauty as we passed by each other. I was scared. I was scared that she might view me as nothing but an inferior insect who’s presence ruins her atmosphere. Her beauty was intoxicating! And then, just as we passed each other, she actually looked at me. She looked at me and smiled. Most girls never even deigned to look at me, and this one actually looked at me and smiled. I had never felt so euphoric in my life. One smile. One smile was all it took to brighten my entire day. The power that beautiful women have is unbelievable. They can temporarily turn a desperate boy’s whole world around just by smiling.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 19, Longing

Life, Women, World, Smile

“On that day all the gods looked down from heaven upon the ship and the might of the heroes, half-divine, the bravest of men then sailing the sea.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book I. Preparation and Departure, Lines 547–549 (tr. R. C. Seaton)

Men, God, Sea

“Adam was created righteous, acceptable, and without sin. He had no need from his labor in the garden to be made righteous and acceptable to God. Rather, the Lord gave Adam work in order to cultivate and protect the garden. This would have been the freest of all works because they were done simply to please God and not to obtain righteousness. … The works of the person who trusts God are to be understood in a similar manner. Through faith we are restored to paradise and created anew. We have no need of works in order to be righteous; however, in order to avoid idleness and so that the body might be cared for an disciplined, works are done freely to please God.”

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

Source: The Freedom of a Christian (1520), pp. 73-74

God, Faith, Personality

“When you looked into my eyes,
I stood there like I was hyp-notized.
You sent a feeling to my spine,
A feeling warm and smooth and fine.
But all I could do were stand there paralyzed.
When we kissed, ooh what a thrill,
You took my hand and, ooh baby, what a chill.
I felt like grabbin' you real tight,
Squeeze and squeeze with all my might.
But all I could do were stand there paralyzed.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Paralyzed, written by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley (1956)
Song lyrics

Feeling, Kiss, Baby

“Heaven, to keep its beauty,
cast them out, but even Hell itself would not receive them
for fear the wicked there might glory over them.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto III, lines 40–42 (tr. Mark Musa).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Fear, Beauty, Hell

“No man who aims at making his life an harmonious whole, pure, complete, and harmless to others, can endure to gratify an appetite at the cost of the daily suffering and bloodshed of his inferiors in degree, and of the moral degradation of his own kind. I know not which strikes me most forcibly in the ethics of this question the injustice, the cruelty, or the nastiness of flesh-eating. The injustice is to the butchers, the cruelty is to the animals, the nastiness concerns the consumer. With regard to this last in particular, I greatly wonder what persons of refinement—aye, even of decency—do not feel insulted on being offered, as a matter of course, portions of corpses as food! Such comestibles might possibly be tolerated during sieges, or times of other privation of proper viands in exceptional circumstances, but in the midst of a civilised community able to command a profusion of sound and delicious foods, it ought to be deemed an affront to set dead flesh before a guest.”

Anna Kingsford (1846–1888) English physician, activist and feminist

Addresses and Essays on Vegetarianism (1912); quoted in Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb by Rod Preece (Routledge, 2002), p. 344 https://books.google.it/books?id=Mf6TAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA344.

Life, Food, Feeling, Communication

“If I may, and if I might
Lay me down, weeping.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Do Re Mi
Song lyrics, Posthumously released (post-1994)