Quotes about something
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“I've had so many incredible experiences and I've been influenced by so many people I've served, I see this as a new chapter. I'm living out something that I'm convinced is what God wants me to do, and living out God's will for me has been the joy of my life.”

Robert P. Reed (1959) American auxiliary bishop and religious servant

Bishop Robert Reed: Living God's will 'has been the joy of my life' https://thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=177278 (August 26, 2016)

Life, God, People, Joy

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Often attributed to Churchill, this thought was originally expressed by the French author Victor Hugo in Villemain (1845), as follows: You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Villemain is a brief segment taken from Hugo's Choses Vues (Things Seen), a running journal Hugo kept of events he witnessed. The original French versions of these journals were published after Hugo's death.
Misattributed

Life, Life

“They really need discipline, to be objective, to know what they really want in life. If you train with the mind of winning you always win, if you train with a weak mind, no I am just doing it for the sake of running then something is wrong somewhere.”

Samukeliso Moyo (1974) athletics competitor

Source: 43-year-old Samukeliso Moyo has no intentions of quitting running https://www.sundaynews.co.zw/43-year-old-samukeliso-moyo-has-no-intentions-of-quitting-running/

Life, Training

“Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying "I know this," we ought to say "I more or less know something more or less like this."”

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

It is true that this proviso is hardly necessary as regards the multiplication table, but knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic. Suppose I say "democracy is a good thing": I must admit, first, that I am less sure of this than I am that two and two are four, and secondly, that "democracy" is a somewhat vague term which I cannot define precisely. We ought to say, therefore: "I am fairly certain that it is a good thing if a government has something of the characteristics that are common to the British and American Constitutions," or something of this sort. And one of the aims of education ought to be to make such a statement more effective from a platform than the usual type of political slogan.
1940s, Philosophy for Laymen (1946)

Knowledge

“I have somehow something like "influence" ... In the Anti-Semitic Correspondence ... my name is mentioned in almost every issue. Zarathustra ... has charmed the anti-Semites; there is a special anti-Semitic interpretation of it that made me laugh very much.”

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

As quoted in "Idea of Anti-Semitism Filled Nietzsche With Ire and Melancholy" in The New York Times (19 December 1987) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE0D91E3EF93AA25751C1A961948260

“But if there’s something you gain, there’s also something you can lose. Therefore, I try not to showcase my personal life.”

Gong Yoo (1979) South Korean actor

Source: "Gong Yoo on becoming South Korea’s leading man" in CNN https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/28/asia/gong-yoo-talk-asia/index.html (30 August 2017)

Life, Personality

“It is always thought that he gave more than what he received, but to give something, you must have something inside.”

Rudolf Nureyev (1938–1993) Soviet ballet dancer and choreographer

Source: Gervaso, Roberto. La mosca al naso, Rizzoli Editore (1980)

“Something of its essence then transmits itself to you. You can sense how still it is, and in doing so the same stillness arises within you. You sense how deeply it rests in Being–completely at one with what it is and where it is. In realizing this, you too come to a place of rest deep within yourself.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 7

Sense

“Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something, and thereby become diminished and be less. These two movements obscure the fact that being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already within you, now.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 5

People, Fear

“Many things in your life matter but only one thing matters absolutely. It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It matters whether you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated or not educated. It matters whether you are rich or poor. It certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these things matter, relatively speaking. But they don't matter absolutely. There is something that matters more than any of those things and that is finding the essence of who your are beyond that short-lived entity, that short-lived personalized sense of self. You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 5

Life, World, Education, Peace

“I knew the moment I saw you that I loved you.

It hit me hard…although I hardly knew you,

I felt the presence of something unique and special.

My hearts cries because I know you don't feel the same way.

Wake up!

See me.

Know me.

Love me.

Don't be stupid and allow me to slip away…

like the sands of time.

When you realize what I have…

you will know Love for the 1st time in your Life!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Love, Life, Stupidity, Way

“So many people are most miserable these days.
The reason they find it so difficult to be happy is that they always view the past to be better than it was, the present dramatically worse than it is, and the future less resolute than it will be.
The idea of happiness is foreign to them.
Is this not something that is innate because babies are born with
"tabula rasa" which refers to the epistemological idea that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. However I don't disagree with the doctrine of Innatism which holds that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge.
A smile, for instance is natural and innate!
So it is a combination of the two schools of thought.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Happiness, People, School, Smile

“I have learned that…
you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
No matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
It's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.
You can do something in an instant that will give you a heartache for life.
No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
You should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
There are people who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.
True friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance. The same goes for true love.
Just because someone doesnt love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.
No matter how good a friend someone is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
No matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.
Just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other. And just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.
We don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
You shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.
There are so many ways of falling and staying in love.
No matter how many friends you have, if you are their pillar, you will feel lonely and lost at the times you need them most.
The people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon.
Although the word "love" can have many different meanings, it loses value when overly used.
Love is not for me to keep, but to pass on to the next person I see.
There are people who love you dearly but just don't know how to show it.
Every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch-holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.
I still have a lot to learn……”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Love, Life, Friendship, People

“I'm not loving you, way I wanted to
I can't keep my cool, so I keep it true
I got something to lose, so I gotta move
I can't keep myself and still keep you too No more wasting time, you can't wait for life
We're just racing time, where's the finish line?”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Love Lockdown
Lyrics, 808s & Heartbreak (2008)

Love, Life, Way, Time

“I cry only for joy. I can see something beautiful and cry. And I'm not ashamed of it. After all, crying from joy is much better than from weakness.”

Dmitry Yazov (1924–2020) Soviet minister of defence

"Дмитрий Язов рассказал "РГ" о жизни маршала на пенсии" https://rg.ru/2013/12/05/marshal.html (4 December 2013)

Beauty, Joy, Cry

“A good sign as to whether there is free speech is, "Is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like?"”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Elon Musk talks Twitter, Tesla and how his brain works — live at TED2022 https://www.ted.com/talks/elon_musk_elon_musk_talks_twitter_tesla_and_how_his_brain_works_live_at_ted2022, April 14, 2022 (at 19:39)

“A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

As quoted in Walt Disney, Magician of the Movies (1966) by Bob Thomas p. 116

Effort, Personality

“We must decide: is life something that is happening to us or something that is happening through us? If we are part of the problem, we can also be part of the solution.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Life, Problem, Parting

“Group consciousness is something that is not widely understood, yet it is extremely powerful and can, if you are not careful, often overcome individual consciousness. If you cannot find a group whose consciousness matches your own, be the source of one. Others of like consciousness will be drawn to you.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

“The goodness of the Universe is not limited. When something "looks as if" it is running out, do not fret. This, or something better, is on its way. Sufficiency is the natural order of things. Good never runs out -- although it may change form.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Way, Nature, Universe, Change

“Whenever we judge others, it emanates from our fear, and separation. When you feel separate from everything around you, then you judge it. When you are connected to something, there is no need to judge.”

Ralph Smart

Fear, Feeling

“I could have been stronger,” she said. “I wasn’t enough to keep something so important.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

“Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers.”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

Life, Funny

“If you want to see a man come to his senses, try something like, Do you happen to carry a rubber in your wallet? Did I mention I'm not on the pill?”

Catherine Ryan Hyde (1955) American writer

Source: Pay It Forward

Sense

“Razo hopped back up and adopted a posture that said he was completely unruffled, never had been, and in fact was ready to do something manly like lift boulders or swallow live worms.”

Shannon Hale River Secrets

Source: River Secrets

“Be not simply good; be good for something.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Source: Life Without Principle

“Annabeth glared at me like she was going to punch me. But she did something that surprised me even more…

She kissed me.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Kiss

“There's something undeniable about the posture of a person trying not to acknowledge your existance”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: Every Last One

Personality

“You get towards the end of life - no, not life itself, but of something else: the end of any likelihood of change in that life. You are allowed a long moment of pause, time enough to ask the question: what else have I done wrong?”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Life, Question, Change, Time

“And for a moment, I understand that I have friends on this lonely path; that sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it.”

Libba Bray book Rebel Angels

Source: Rebel Angels

Understanding

“It may be that the fear contains information. Something can be interesting if you get to the other side of that fear.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

Fear

“It's when you don't need something that you tend to lose it.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“There's something evil in me that loves evil and degradation--purity's black backside! That loves honesty with a horrid love; or why have I always gone seeking it at the liar's door?”

Djuna Barnes book Nightwood

Source: Nightwood

Love, Evil

“A place like this wears down everything, and tolerance is no exception. In here, coexistence passes for forgiveness. You do not learn to like something you abhor; you come to live with it… You live and let live, and eventually that becomes enough.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Forgiveness, Learning

“Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

Idea, Learning, Reading

“Something bad was about to happen. My wife was being clever again.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Universe

“Alec muttered a retort into his coffee. It rhymed with something that sounded a lot more like "ducking glass mole.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Coffee

“You're the only girl I've seen for a long time that actually did look like something blooming.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Girl, Time

“Everything I know and I am and I have seen felt done past present past now then before now seen felt done hurt felt focus into a something beyond words beyond beyond beyond and it speaks now and it says.
Stay.
Fight.
Live.
Take it.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Past, Fight, Hurt

“It was like something you have dreaded and feared and dodged for years until it seemed like all your life, then despite everything it happened to you and all it was was just pain, all it did was hurt and so it was all over, all finished, all right.”

William Faulkner book Intruder in the Dust

Source: Intruder in the Dust

Life, Pain, Fear, Hurt

“Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.”

Jim Hightower (1943) Texas author and liberal political activist

Idea

“Great griefs exhaust. They discourage us with life. The man into whom they enter feels something taken from him. In youth, their visit is sad; later on, it is ominous.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life, Youth, Sadness, Feeling

“Do something that scares you everyday.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

“I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature. I produce my own view in the belief that it may be something like the truth.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

Truth, Nature, Suffering

“Sanity? Sorry, I don't ever remember having something like that before.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Variant: Sanity? Sorry, but I don't remember having such a useless thing in the first place.

“Rosie: What the hell was that silence?
Steph: It sounds like something I’d like. It sounded nice.
Rosie: It was.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Hell, Silence

“I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Life, Sad

“I knew if I waited around long enough something like this would happen.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Waiting

“No matter what the odds, a man does not pin his last hope for survival on something and then expect that it will fail.”

Alfred Lansing book Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Source: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage

Hope

“Is that what the wine is for? To help you think?"
"Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Truth, Nature, Thinking, Wine

“People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

People

“Yes, there is something uncanny, demonic and fascinating in her.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

“I had to do something," she said. "I couldn't just sit and wait for life to happen to me any longer.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: To Sir Phillip, With Love

Life, Waiting

“That no matter what i did, I would always be missing something else. And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn't miss meant more to me than the things I missed.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: How They Met, and Other Stories

Happiness, Way

“That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Animals

“When we turn, is there something shoved inside of us or is it more that something inside of us has been released?”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn't worth re-reading.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Books, Reading

“Sydney! Stop. Think of something else. Conjugate Latin verbs. Recite the periodic table.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Thinking

“There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”

Charlie Kaufman (1958) American screenwriter

Source: Adaptation.: The Shooting Script

People, World, Idea, Passion

“I miss her. I don't know how to live without her. There is a hole inside me that nothing fills.
If you don't find something to fill that hole, someone else will. And if someone else fills it, they own you. Forever. You'll never get yourself back.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

“Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.”

Lawrence Block (1938) American writer

“Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

Forgetting

“To invent something, all you need is imagination and a big pile of junk.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Imagination

“Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“‎You cannot correct an old person every time they say something offensive. You would never make it through Thanksgiving dinner!”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

Time, Personality

“At the end of the warehouse was a dais constructed from pallets of books: stack of vampire novels, walls of James Patterson thrillers, and a throne from about a thousand copies of something called.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Books

“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Life, Cheating

“… as long as American life was something to be escaped from, the cartel would always be assured a bottomless pool of new customers.”

Thomas Pynchon book Inherent Vice

Source: Inherent Vice

Life

“You might think you made a new world or a new self, but your old self is always gonna be there, just below the surface, and if something happens, it'll stick its head out and say 'Hi.' You don't seem to realize that. You were made somewhere else.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

World, Thinking

“You'se something tuh make uh man forgit to git old and forgit tuh die.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

“When a man says he does not want to speak of something he usually means he can think of nothing else.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Thinking

“Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something more, and that Something More is what life is really all about.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Spelling Tuesday.
Source: The Tao of Pooh (1982)

Life, Way

“Thomas Raith: An errand is getting a tank of gas or picking up a carton of milk or something. It is not getting chased by flying purple pyromaniac gorillas hurling incendiary poo.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: The Dresden Files, Blood Rites (2004)

Flying

“There is always something to miss, no matter where you are.”

Patricia MacLachlan book Sarah, Plain and Tall

Source: Sarah, Plain and Tall

“When you hate someone you used to love, and you think he's done something awful - he probably has.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Love, Hate, Thinking

“Sometimes it feels as if everything in life is just
something we haul into the grave.”

Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!

Source: Hey Nostradamus!

Life, Feeling

“I'm after something far more esoteric than a virginal shag. Though, if you'd like, darlin', I'm certainly up for the task.”

Alyson Nöel book Shadowland

Source: Shadowland

“Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything. Be brave enough to dare to be loved. Be something more than man or woman. Be Tandy.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Love, Courage, Strong

“Emma, your granddad’s on the line,” says Artemis, putting her hand over the receiver. “Something about the night bus and he’ll never trust you again?”

Sophie Kinsella book Can You Keep a Secret?

Source: Can You Keep a Secret?

Night

“When you say something really unkind, when you do something in retaliation your anger increases. You make the other person suffer, and he will try hard to say or to do something back to get relief from his suffering. That is how conflict escalates.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames

Suffering, Personality, Anger

“What's with all the running, anyway? I mean, I realize the importance of stamina and all that, but shouldn't I be moving on to something with a little hitting? They're still killing me in group practice.”
"Maybe you should hit harder.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

“I will kill him.”

“Erra’s eyebrows rose. “You’d have to go through me first.”

I shrugged. “I have to do something for a warm-up.”

She laughed softly. “That’s the spirit. I do think you might be my favorite niece.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Thinking

“If you care about something enough, it’s going to make you cry. But you have to use it. Use your tears. Use your pain. Use your fear. Get mad. Arnold, get mad.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Pain, Fear, Tear, Cry

“Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Crossing

Source: The Crossing

Knowledge

“How was it possible to miss something you no longer wanted?”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Americanah

Source: Americanah

“You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.”

John Irving book The World According to Garp

Source: The World According to Garp

“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality.”

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher

"The Sublime and the Good", in the Chicago Review, Vol. 13 Issue 3 (Autumn 1959) p. 51.
Source: Existentialists and Mystics Writings on Philosophy and Literature

Love, Art, Reality

“A Mark that spoke of loss was still a Mark, a remembrance. You could not lose something you never had.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Loss

“Never memorize something that you can look up.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: Never memorize something that you can look up.

“… the finest act of seeing is necessarily always the act of not seeing something else.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

“I want something else. I'm not even sure what to call it anymore except I know it feels roomy and it's drenched in sunlight and it's weightless and I know it's not cheap. Probably not even real”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Variant: I want something else. I’m not even sure what to call it anymore except I know it feels roomy and it’s drenched in sunlight and it’s weightless and I know it’s not cheap. It’s probably not even real.
Source: House of Leaves

Feeling

“A scar is not always a flaw. Sometimes a scar may be redemption inscribed in the flesh, a memorial to something endured, to something lost.”

Dean Koontz book The Good Guy

Source: The Good Guy

Memory