Quotes about thing
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“I see things, that's all. Write enough stories and every shadow on the floor looks like a footprint; every line in the dirt like a secret message.”

Stephen King book Bag of Bones

Source: Bag of Bones

Secret

“They believed that prediction was just a function of keeping track of things. If you knew enough, you could predict anything. That's been cherished scientific belief since Newton.'
And?'
Chaos theory throws it right out the window.”

Michael Crichton book Jurassic Park

Source: Jurassic Park

“Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.

Algernon. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.

Lady Bracknell. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Hope, Feeling

“I wandered through the streets thinking of all the things I might have said and might have done had I been other than I was.”

Erich Maria Remarque book Three Comrades

Source: Three Comrades

Thinking

“A certain amount of volatility and drama can me healthy and keep things fun and interesting if you're willing at any moment during a fight to say, 'This means nothing. I love you, let's forget about it.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

Love, Fight, Forgetting

“Man has, since the Enlightenment, dealt with things he should have ignored.”

Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director

“There are things that have to be done and you do them and you never talk about them. You don't try to justify them. They can't be justified. You just do them. Then you forget it.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Forgetting

“So quick bright things come to confusion.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

“Maybe some things aren't meant to be known. maybe there just meant to be accepted.”

Wendy Mass Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

Source: Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

“If God has shown us bad times ahead, it's enough for me that He knows about them. That's why He sometimes shows us things, you know - to tell us that this too is in His hands.”

Corrie ten Boom book The Hiding Place

Source: The Hiding Place

God, Time

“From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in.”

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

Love

“There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it.”

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

“Remember me? I'm back to my old self again. No responsibilities, no attachments, no encumbrances. I don't want to own anything, love anyone, or get too attached to people, places or things. It's a rule that seems to work well for me.”

Danielle Steel Second Chance

Source: Second Chance

Love, People

“Put a man on the brink of the abyss and - in the unlikely event that she doesn't fall into it - he will become a mystic or a madman… Which is probably the same thing!”

Apostolos Doxiadis (1953) Greek writer

Source: Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth

“My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“You’ve got to think about big things while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.”

Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) American writer

Thinking

“Like" and "like" and "like"--but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing?”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

“Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Personality

“The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Art

“You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.”

Stephen Chbosky (1970) American writer

Love, Thinking

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

“Friendships, even the best of them, are frail things. One drifts apart.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Friendship

“If you're bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things, you don't have enough goals.”

Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer

Life

“Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Thinking

“Fulfill me, make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self created suffering comes to an end.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Happiness, World, Feeling, Suffering

“See now the power of truth; the same experiment which at first glance seemed to show one thing, when more carefully examined, assures us of the contrary.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (1638); Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno à due nuove scienze, as translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio (1914)
Other quotes
Source: Discorsi E Dimostrazioni Matematiche: Intorno a Due Nuoue Scienze, Attenenti Alla Mecanica & I Movimenti Locali

Truth

“I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Girl, Time

“There is no broader way to apostasy than to reject God’s sovereignty in all things concerning the revelation of himself and our obedience…”

John Owen (1616–1683) English theologian

God, Way

“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Laughter, Light

“I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

Love, Life

“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

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

Truth, Time

“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little; it's that they know so many things that just aren't so.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

People, World

“It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Time

“We are all carrying so many things in our life and inside ourselves. Often it feels there is no place to put them down. Where do you place the questions you carry”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Source: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself

Life, Feeling, Question

“The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

“The general root of superstition : namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Sylva Sylvarum Century X (1627)
Source: The Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon
Context: It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.

Men, Memory, Forgetting

“The most important thing is not to think very much about oneself. To investigate candidly the charge; but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to retaliate by going to the other extreme -- thinking too much.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: A Writer's Diary

Thinking

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Variant: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
Source: Discours de réception, Séance De L'académie Française (introductory speech at a session of the French Academy), 24th December 1896, on Ferdinand de Lesseps' work on the Suez Canal.
Context: To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

Dreams, Motivational, Deep, Success

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

Bertrand Russell book A History of Western Philosophy

Source: A History of Western Philosophy

Age, Study

“Wait until next time," he warned. "I'll do things that'll make you lose control within seconds.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Variant: Next time I will do things to you that will make you lose controll in seconds"
-Dimitri.
Source: Last Sacrifice

Time, Waiting

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

Douglas Adams. The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. New York: Random House, 2002, 135–136.<br>Also quoted by Richard Dawkins in his Eulogy for Douglas Adams (17 September 2001) http://www.edge.org/documents/adams_index.html <br class="br">Context: If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat. Life is a level of complexity that almost lies outside our vision; it is so far beyond anything we have any means of understanding that we just think of it as a different class of object, a different class of matter; 'life', something that had a mysterious essence about it, was God given, and that's the only explanation we had. The bombshell comes in 1859 when Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species. It takes a long time before we really get to grips with this and begin to understand it, because not only does it seem incredible and thoroughly demeaning to us, but it's yet another shock to our system to discover that not only are we not the centre of the Universe and we're not made by anything, but we started out as some kind of slime and got to where we are via being a monkey. It just doesn't read well.

Cats

“I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once and cannot add up the sum.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Disappointment

“What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.”

Maya Angelou book Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Source: Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Way, Thinking, Change

“To be radical is to grasp things by the root.”

Karl Marx book Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

Source: Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)
Context: It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only be overthrown by material force, but theory itself becomes a material force when it has seized the masses. Theory is capable of seizing the masses when it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself. What proves beyond doubt the radicalism of German theory, and thus its practical energy, is that it begins from the resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the supreme being for man. It ends, therefore, with the categorical imperative to overthrow all those conditions in which man is an abased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being—conditions which can hardly be better described than in the exclamation of a Frenchman on the occasion of a proposed tax upon dogs: 'Wretched dogs! They want to treat you like men!

“To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. 'Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.”

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

Statement from unpublished notes for the Preface to Opticks (1704) quoted in Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (1983) by Richard S. Westfall, p. 643

Age, Nature

“One thing I can tell you is you have to be free. Come together, right now, over me.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“Conversations consist for the most part of things one does not say.”

Cees Nooteboom (1933) Dutch writer

Parting

“What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?”

William Shakespeare book The Rape of Lucrece

Source: The Rape of Lucrece

Dreams, Joy

“If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Thinking

“Things do not grow better; they remain as they are. It is we who grow better, by the changes we make in ourselves.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Change

“…she was struck by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Elizabeth Green, Chapter 15, Beth, p. 274
Variant: Sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doin them with the right people.(Elizabeth Green)
Source: 2000s, The Lucky One (2008)

People, Truth

“… the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

Truth, Change, Past

“But let me tell you this: sometimes at night, when I look up at the stars, an see the whole sky jus laid out there, don't you think I ain't rememberin it all. I still got dreams like anybody else, an ever so often, I am thinkin about how things might of been. An then, all of a sudden, I'm forty, fifty, sixty years ole, you know?
Well, so what? I may be a idiot, but most of the time, anyway, I tried to do the right thing-- an dreams is jus dreams, ain't they? So whatever else has happened, I am figgerin this: I can always look back an say, at least I ain't led no hum-drum life.
You know what I mean?”

Winston Groom Forrest Gump

Source: Forrest Gump

Life, Dreams, Star, Thinking

“Did they know - the young and fearless - what a miraculous thing it was to have all of anyone?”

Nora Roberts Vision in White

Source: Vision in White

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who seems to have the faintest conception of what I mean when I say a thing.”

Virginia Woolf book The Voyage Out

Source: The Voyage Out

Personality

“Everything that is dead quivers. Not only the things of poetry, stars, moon, wood, flowers, but even a white trouser button glittering out of a puddle in the street… Everything has a secret soul, which is silent more often than it speaks.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Secret, Soul, Star, Flowers

“All things want to float.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

“Now he knew: They were real. Who’d make up a thing like this? Okay, one of them was a cheese that rolled around of its own accord, but nobody was perfect.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

Perfection

“If all the evidence in the universe turned in favour of creationism, I would be the first to admit it, and I would immediately change my mind. As things stand, however, all available evidence (and there is a vast amount of it) favours evolution.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

Universe, Change

“Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

“Since I came to the White House, I've gotten two hearing aids, had a colon operation, a prostate operation, skin cancer, and I've been shot… damn thing is, I've never felt better.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Source: Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches

Housing

“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Variant: The secret of happiness is very simply this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile
Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

Hostility, Happiness, Secret, Personality

“The only thing I cannot resist is temptation.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“You know that the things you put it your head stay there, right?'
'Yeah. But you remember some things, don't you?'
'Yeah. You remember the things you want to forget and forget the things you want to remember.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Forgetting

“Little things comfort us because little things distress us.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Source: Pensées and Other Writings

“That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Namesake

Source: The Namesake

Books, Travel

“We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life, Study, Sincerity

“He knew you can't really be strong until you can see a funny side of things.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Variant: You can't really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Strong

“The seasons do not push one another; neither do clouds race the wind across the sky. All things happen in their own good time.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Time, Season

“I could not help feeling that they were evil things -- mountains of madness whose farther slopes looked out over some accursed ultimate abyss.”

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

Source: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror

Feeling, Mountain, Evil, Help

“Falling hard for somebody makes you do things you never thought you'd do before. Like pulling off an A in History or finally facing the truth about yourself”

Steve Kluger book Almost Like Being in Love

Source: Almost Like Being in Love

Truth, History

“The only thing that separates any one of us from excellence is fear and the opposite of fear is faith. I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for, perfection is God’s business.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

God, Fear, Faith, Business

“It's vital to remember who you really are. It's very important. It isn't a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.”

Terry Pratchett book Sourcery

Source: Sourcery

People, Idea

“Things may happen and often do to people as brainy and footsy as you”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

People

“I used to be so good at that kind of thing," Skulduggery said quietly.
"Well, my morale is certainly boosted," Valkyrie informed him.
"Really?"
"god no. That was terrible”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Playing with Fire

God

“Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

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

Envy

“I hate slick and pretty things. I prefer mistakes and accidents. Which is why I like things like cuts and bruises - they're like little flowers. I've always said that if you have a name for something, like 'cut' or 'bruise,' people will automatically be disturbed by it. But when you see the same thing in nature, and you don't know what it is, it can be very beautiful.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Hate, People, Beauty, Flowers

“Youth is the only thing worth having.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Youth

“We can do no great things; only small things with great love.(mother Teresa)”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Love, Life, Graduation, Wedding

“If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Reading

“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”

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

Weather, Beauty, Peaceful

“Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.”

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

“The main thing to do is pay attention. Pay close attention to everything, notice what no one else notices. Then you'll know what no one else knows, and that's always useful.”

Jeanne DuPrau The City of Ember

Source: The City of Ember

“Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning. Once it does, it becomes the kind of thing that makes you grab your wife around the waist and dance a jig. (150)”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Dance

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

Context: (Answering "What made you step up to making your own record?") I felt like I may not get opportunities to do this ever again, so it’s about time—it’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something—I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.

Life, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“No loss is felt more keenly than the loss of what might have been. No nostalgia hurts as much as nostalgia for things that never existed.”

Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman

Source: An Unnecessary Woman

Nostalgia, Loss, Hurt