Quotes about set
page 2

“The male is a biological accident: the y(male) gene is an incomplete x(female) gene, that is, has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion…. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. [1] ("y(male)" & "x(female)" spaceless in original).

Disease

“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set. Everyone can reach this love through meditation, spirit of prayer, and sacrifice, by an intense inner life.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

As quoted in Love, A Fruit Always In Season : Daily Meditations from the Words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1987) http://books.google.com/books?id=GqcnHzdPwPcC edited by Dorothy S. Hunt 1980s

Love, Life, Time, Season

“We all know that a good example is more effective than advice. So set a good example, and it won't take long for others to follow.”

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

"Give!" (26 March 1944)
Variant translation: People will always follow a good example; be the one to set a good example, then it won't be long before the others follow.
Tales from the Secret Annex

“As men, we have God for our King, and are under the law of reason: as Christians, we have Jesus the Messiah for our King, and are under the law revealed by him in the gospel. And though every Christian, both as a deist and a Christian, be obliged to study both the law of nature and the revealed law, that in them he may know the will of God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent; yet, in neither of these laws, is there to be found a select set of fundamentals, distinct from the rest, which are to make him a deist, or a Christian. But he that believes one eternal, invisible God, his Lord and King, ceases thereby to be an atheist; and he that believes Jesus to be the Messiah, his king, ordained by God, thereby becomes a Christian, is delivered from the power of darkness, and is translated into the kingdom of the Son of God; is actually within the covenant of grace, and has that faith, which shall be imputed to him for righteousness; and, if he continues in his allegiance to this his King, shall receive the reward: eternal life.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

§ 228
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)

Life, Men, God, Faith

“With what is he concerned? Drawing was at its lowest ebb; it had to be restored. Looking at these nudes, I exclaim, 'Drawing has come back again!'
As a man and painter he sets an example. 'Degas' is one of those rare masters who could have had anything he wanted, yet he scorned decorations, honors, fortune, without bitterness, without jealousy.”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Quote of Paul Gauguin, in Avant et après (1903)
1890s - 1910s

Jealousy, Drawing

“The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight…”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

"The Politics of Mass Strikes and Unions"; Collected Works 2 
Context: The modern proletarian class doesn't carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight... That's exactly what is laudable about it, that's exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers' movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation.

Books, History, Learning, Fight

“She was much ahead of her time and society in understanding the causes of its degradation and in setting up a correct approach to address them. She rightly realised that without empowering women, a society can never flourish.”

Begum Rokeya (1880–1932) Bengali feminist writer and social worker

MD. Mahmudul Hasan on an article of the - Rokeya's wake-up call to women http://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/tribute/rokeyas-wake-call-women-1327171/ Context: She was much ahead of her time and society in understanding the causes of its degradation and in setting up a correct approach to address them. She rightly realised that without empowering women, a society can never flourish. Hence, the thematic thread that runs through all her intellectual efforts is a concern for equitable gender relations – feminism.

Women, Understanding, Time

“You are the average of 5 people you surround yourself with most. If you are not happy with the current set of people around you then find your people. You have to find your tribe asap if you want to do better in life.”

Ralph Smart

Life, Happiness, People

“Many experiments with the Technology of Light are being undertaken in Russia. This is because the Space Brothers set up a community in that country 15 years ago. Russia was chosen because it was such a closed society, where commercial pressures did not affect scientific research. Today, says Maitreya, the Russians are well ahead of the rest of the world in this field. That is why Russia leads the way in calling for arms reductions.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Share International Magazine

World, Way, Communication, Light

“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief. A man who saw clearly and with open eyes and was then living could see how this miracle took place and how the whole of a society could, in a single day, be transformed. In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 22

Life, Men, People, Jealousy

“He had hardly had any pretence of the politicians. For him education was not confined to lecture halls and laboratories. Rather, it was an essential part of national survival. He always set his eyes on the objectives which are essential to the destiny of the nation.”

Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India

Times of India in: p. 347.
About Zakir Hussain, Quest for Truth (1999)

Education, Parting

“What does it mean to be crazy? To have a disorder of the mind. But "disorder" can only exist if there is some kind of pre determined "order" set in place. And who decides on order relative to the human mind? Human society. Sane and insane is a judgment based on perspective. And according to many other perspectives within this universe, it is human society that is rampant with disorder. So there is no reason to think of yourself as insane; if the very mindset of the society that determines whether you are sane or insane… is in and of itself insane!”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Thinking, Universe

“God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the place where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly "our Father's business."”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves, or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy ourselves.

P. 123
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

God, Business

“Instead of saying that “the sun rises from East”, we can easily replace the sun with Christianity. It rose from the East and set in the West.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Sun

“I've got the economy set up well for him. No facts, no consequences, they can just have a cartoon.”

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

In response to Donald Trump's election victory https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/us/politics/obama-reaction-trump-election-benjamin-rhodes.html. (November 2016) 2016

“[We are] not only prince and king, but set on such a pinnacle of dignity that we know no superior on earth.”

Henry VIII of England (1491–1547) King of England from 1509 until 1547

Source: Letter to William Benet (September 1530), quoted in J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (1968; 1971 ed.), p. 350

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Variant: So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books.
Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Love, Funny

“You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.”

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

“That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn't believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them.”

Katherine Paterson book Bridge to Terabithia

Source: Bridge to Terabithia

Life, School, Home, Parent

“The spiral is a spiritualized circle. In the spiral form, the circle, uncoiled, has ceased to be vicious; it has been set free.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Speak, Memory

Source: Speak, Memory

“The truth will set you free. Either that or it'll get you a punch in the nose.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

Truth

“I believe there is little you cannot do once you set your mind to it.”

P. C. Cast book Burned

Source: Burned

“Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.”

Terry Pratchett book Jingo

Variant: Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Source: Jingo

Life

“Set patterns, incapable of adaptability, of pliability, only offer a better cage. Truth is outside of all patterns.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Variant: All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.
Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Truth

“Try for once to justify the meaning of your existence as it were a posteriori by setting yourself an aim, a goal… an exalted and noble 'to this end.' Perish in pursuit of this and only this”

Friedrich Nietzsche Untimely Meditations

Source: Untimely Meditations

“The song I came to sing
remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing
and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true,
the words have not been rightly set;
only there is the agony
of wishing in my heart…”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Singing, Time, Heart

“whatever you fight, you strengthyen. What you resist, persists. "A New Earth":War is a mind set”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Variant: Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

War, Fight

“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group.”

Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Chicago Defender (1 April 1998)

People

“I'm currently in the middle of a depression. I couldn't really tell you what set it off, but I think it stems from my cowardice, which confronts me at every turn.”

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

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Thinking

“We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Faith, Problem

“Life will undertake to separate us, and we must each set off in search of our own path, our own destiny or our own way of facing death.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Life, Death, Way, Search

“The liberator who destroys my property is fighting to save my spirit. The teacher who clears all possessions from my path will set me free.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Teachers, Fight

“Money is like any other virus: once it has rotted the soul of the person who houses it, it sets off in search of new blood.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Money, Soul, Search, Housing

“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Life, Loss

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Love, Men

“After you've seen behind the facade of a stage set you can't take the play seriously any more. You can't go backwards and regain your ignorance; you have to move forward.”

Zeena Schreck (1963) Tantric Buddhist/Sethian

“Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

Death, Hell

“I believe in the supreme worth of the individual and in his right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

I believe that the law was made for man and not man for the law; that government is the servant of the people and not their master.

I believe in the dignity of labor, whether with head or hand; that the world owes no man a living but that it owes every man an opportunity to make a living.

I believe that thrift is essential to well-ordered living and that economy is a prime requisite of a sound financial structure, whether in government, business or personal affairs.

I believe that truth and justice are fundamental to an enduring social order.

I believe in the sacredness of a promise, that a man's word should be as good as his bond, that character—not wealth or power or position—is of supreme worth.

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free.

I believe in an all-wise and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individual's highest fulfillment, greatest happiness and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.

I believe that love is the greatest thing in the world; that it alone can overcome hate; that right can and will triumph over might.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

Love, Life, God, Hate

“Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

What Happened To Goodbye (2011)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Love, Life, People, Home

“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life, Art, Music

“The specific character of [women's] oppression cannot be explained away by equating different situations through superficial and childish simplifications[:]

It is true that both the woman and the male worker are condemned to silence by their exploitation. But under the current system, the worker's wife is also condemned to silence by her worker-husband. In other words, in addition to the class exploitation common to both of them, women must confront a particular set of relations that exist between them and men, relations of conflict and violence that use physical differences as their pretext.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

Source: Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle

Women, Men, Silence

“Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Health, Way, Parent, Time

“Not being tense but ready.
Not thinking but not dreaming.
Not being set but flexible.
Liberation from the uneasy sense of confinement.
It is being wholly and quietly alive, aware and alert, ready for whatever may come.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Dreams, Thinking, Sense

“To create, I destroyed myself; I made myself external to such a degree within myself that within myself I do not exist except in an external fashion. I am the living setting in which several actors make entrances, putting on several different plays.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Fashion

“We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we percieve that it is entirely lacking in our adversary.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Variant: We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.
Source: Human, All Too Human

“One has only to set a loved human being against the fact that we are all in peril all the time to get back a sense of proportion. What does anything matter compared to the reality of love and its span, so brief at best, maintained against such odds?”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Source: Journal of a Solitude

Love, Reality, Sense, Time

“My sun sets to rise again.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Source: Browning: Poems

Sun

“I set off, off to kill the man I love.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Love

“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

As quoted in Guitar Player (1 August 2004), and in "Pax Patter" at ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) http://www.abc.net.au/civics/rights/pax.htm Variant: When we say "War is over if you want it," we mean that if everyone demanded peace instead of another TV set, we'd have peace.

Peace, Peaceful

“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.”

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing (1972)

Knowledge, Sun

“if you set your goals ridiculously high and its a failure, you will fail above everyone elses success”

James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director

Failure, Success

“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

Fear, Hope

“If you set to work to believe everything, you will tire out the believing-muscles of your mind, and then you'll be so weak you won't be able to believe the simplest true things.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

“I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

Life

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Forgiveness, Depressing

“I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it.”

Louis Sachar (1954) American writer of children's books

Life

“We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Way, Thinking

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

“Monkey bar," Annabeth said. "I'm great at these." She leaped onto to the first rung and start swinging her way across. She was scared of tiny spiders, but not of plummeting to her death from a set of monkey bars. Go figure.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Death, Way

“In Genua, someone set out to make dreams come true. Remember some of your dreams?”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

Dreams

“I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.”

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

People

“Only someone who (like the Intuitionist) denies that the concepts and axioms of classical set theory have any meaning could be satisfied with such a solution, not someone who believes them to describe some well-determined reality. For in reality Cantor's conjecture must be either true or false, and its undecidability from the axioms as known today can only mean that these axioms do not contain a complete description of reality.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics

Reality, Falseness

“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it was, and always will be yours. If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

Love

“Give me strength, not to be better than my enemies, but to defeat my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself. Give me strength for a straight back and clear eyes, so when life fades, as the setting sun, my spirit may come to you without shame.”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

Life, Sun

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don't need to escape from.”

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

Life

“Nothing sets a Christian so much out of the devil's reach than humility.”

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

“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

“You might want to lie down. I find that helps when the crushing sense of horrible realization sets in.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Magnus to Maia, pg. 274
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Lie, Sense, Help

“Comfort can be a dangerous thing. You stick around home all the time where it’s safe and nothing ever changes, and before you know it, you get set in your ways and you quit learning, you quit changing, you don’t grow anymore.”

Frank E. Peretti book Monster

Source: Monster

Way, Home, Learning, Change

“I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)
Context: These military tribunals have, decidedly, a most singular idea of justice.
This is the plain truth, Mr. President, and it is terrifying. It will leave an indelible stain on your presidency. I realise that you have no power over this case, that you are limited by the Constitution and your entourage. You have, nonetheless, your duty as a man, which you will recognise and fulfill. As for myself, I have not despaired in the least, of the triumph of right. I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.

Truth, Justice, Light

“Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Truth

“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”

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

1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Imagination, Knowledge, Science

“It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.
I admire you, beloved, for the trap you've set. It's like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.”

Frank O'Hara book Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Source: Meditations in an Emergency

Beauty, Appearance, Reading

“This I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without a positive hump, may marry whom she likes.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 4. Compare: "I should like to see any kind of a man, distinguishable from a gorilla, that some good and even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of", Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Professor at the Breakfast Table; "The whole world is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfalls for the capture of men by women", Bernard Shaw, Epistle Dedicatory to Man and Superman.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Truth

“If you love someone, you must be prepared to set them free.”

Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone

Source: The Winner Stands Alone

Love

“He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all over the world, even in the strangest settings – probably even on polar expeditions.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain

People, World, Music

“Sustaining faith is what sets you through those dark nights of the soul when you don’t know where to go or what to do, and it seems that you can’t last another day…but because of your faith in God, you do.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God, Faith, Soul, Night

“You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life.”

Joanne Harris book Blackberry Wine

Source: Blackberry Wine

Life, Hope

“Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000); here, Lee was reciting lines he wrote for his short lived role on the TV series Longstreet.
Context: Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Water

“It seemed to me,' said Wonko the Sane, 'that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane.”

Douglas Adams book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.”

Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer

As quoted in Hard-to-Solve Cryptograms (2001) by Derrick Niederman, p. 96

Men, Sun

“I know it's not thematically in tune with my new job and all, but I find it effective. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day," I say. "But set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. Tao of Pratchett. I live by it.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Life

“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym‎ [O Demônio e a srta Prym] (2000), p. x; this has also been misquoted as "A moment is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny."
Context: When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.

Life, Courage, Change, Courageous

“Politics is a matter of choices, and a man doesn't set up the choices himself. And there is always a price to make a choice. You know that. You've made a choice, and you know how much it cost you. There is always a price.”

Robert Penn Warren book All the King's Men

Source: All the King's Men

“We haven’t met for many years, said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be.
"Five years next November."
The automatic quality set us all back at least another minute.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“Vimes struggled to his feet, shook his head and set off after it. No thought was involved. It is the ancient instinct of terriers and policemen to chase anything that runs away.”

Terry Pratchett book Feet of Clay

Source: Feet of Clay

“When everything seems to be set to show me off as intelligent, the fool I always keep hidden takes over all that I say.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: We Are Many

Fools, Intelligence

“But death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man’s best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Life, Death, Heart, Forgetting

“The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.”

Bertolt Brecht book Life of Galileo

Source: Life of Galileo (1939)

Wisdom, Error, Science

“Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears.”

Gillian Anderson (1968) American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer

Excerpt from the foreword in Girl Boss: Running the Show Like the Big Chicks http://www.gilliananderson.ws/transcripts/99_00/99girlboss.shtml, by Stacy Kravetz (1999) 1990s

Fear, Perseverance, For women