Quotes about try
page 3

“I could make Halo. It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

Source http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20037961,00.html?cid=recirc-peopleRecirc

People, Game

“The thing is to be happy,' he said. 'No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world.”

Alice Munro (1931) Canadian novelist

Dear Life (2012)

Happiness, World

“What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what’s going on.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …

Christian Science Monitor (21 July 1971)

Nature

“Your honor, it is over now. This has never been a case of trying to get free. I didn't ever want freedom. Frankly, I wanted death for myself. This was a case to tell the world that I did what I did not for reasons of hate, I hated no one. I know I was sick or evil, or both. Now I believe I was sick. The doctors have told me about my sickness and now I have some peace.”

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile

Closing statement after trial sentencing. video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnuSl8PNYqc

Death, Hate, World, Peace

“So, in the end, have we learned anything from this look at why the world turned out the way it is, that's of any use to us in our future? Something, I think. That the key to why things change is the key to everything. How easy is it for knowledge to spread? And that, in the past, the people who made change happen, were the people who had that knowledge, whether they were craftsmen, or kings. Today, the people who make things change, the people who have that knowledge, are the scientists and the technologists, who are the true driving force of humanity. And before you say what about the Beethovens and the Michelangelos? Let me suggest something with which you may disagree violently: that at best, the products of human emotion, art, philosophy, politics, music, literature, are interpretations of the world, that tell you more about the guy who's talking, than about the world he's talking about. Second hand views of the world, made third hand by your interpretation of them. Things like that [art book] as opposed to this [transparency of some filaments]. Know what it is? It's a bunch of amino acids, the stuff that goes to build up a worm, or a geranium, or you. This stuff [art book] is easier to take, isn't it? Understandable. Got people in it. This, [transparency] scientific knowledge is hard to take, because it removes the reassuring crutches of opinion, ideology, and leaves only what is demonstrably true about the world. And the reason why so many people may be thinking about throwing away those crutches is because thanks to science and technology they have begun to know that they don't know so much. And that, if they are to have more say in what happens to their lives, more freedom to develop their abilities to the full, they have to be helped towards that knowledge, that they know exists, and that they don't possess. And by helped towards that knowledge I don't mean give everybody a computer and say: help yourself. Where would you even start? No, I mean trying to find ways to translate the knowledge. To teach us to ask the right questions. See, we're on the edge of a revolution in communications technology that is going to make that more possible than ever before. Or, if that’s not done, to cause an explosion of knowledge that will leave those of us who don't have access to it, as powerless as if we were deaf, dumb and blind. And I don't think most people want that. So, what do we do about it? I don't know. But maybe a good start would be to recognize within yourself the ability to understand anything. Because that ability is there, as long as it is explained clearly enough. And then go and ask for explanations. And if you're thinking, right now, what do I ask for? Ask yourself, if there is anything in your life that you want changed. That's where to start.”

James Burke (science historian) (1936) British broadcaster, science historian, author, and television producer

Connections (1979), 10 - Yesterday, Tomorrow and You

Life, People, Books, World

“What I hate the most in the world is injustice. Unfortunately, there is a lot of injustice in the world. Once we understood the mission that God gave us in this earth that is to sing to love, try to repeat his word, spread his word, because there is no other thing that we do but sing to love, tell people to be happy. Not to hurt each other, hit each other, kill each other.”

José José (1948–2019) Mexican singer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExtaUyCkYaY

Love, God, Hate, Happiness

“Y'all guys can't define me or define my work as a father, i'm many things i'm many things you know, yeah i'm a convicted rapist, i'm a hell raiser, i'm a father, i'm a loving father, i'm, you know, a semi- good husband, you know what i mean? What? You know i'm just a man out here trying to enjoy my, you know I was born poor I ain't never had nothing I don't know how to act but the real thing is i'm just here to be me. I do'nt care about who anyone things at this stage in my life but yeah, i'm pretty much a tyrant titan. Yeahs thats who I am.”

Mike Tyson (1966) American boxer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBqoaW2oEsU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fgawker.com%2F5256086%2Fted-nugent-is-the-new-mike-tyson%3Fautoplay%3Dtrue&feature=player_embedded
On himself

Love, Life, Guy, Hell

“I have felt the swaying of the elephant's shoulders;
and now you want me to climb
on a jackass? Try to be serious.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Mīrābāī, in “Christian Mysticism East and West: What the Masters Teach Us “, p. 122

“Those who try to make room for sex as mere casual enjoyment pay the penalty: they become shallow. At any rate the talk that reflects and commends this attitude is always shallow. They dishonour their own bodies; holding cheap what is naturally connected with the origination of human life.”

G. E. M. Anscombe (1919–2001) British analytic philosopher

Contraception and Chastity (1975)

Life, Penalty, Sex, Nature

“I note that once again there is serious talk of trying to attract tourists to this country after the war… [b]ut it is quite safe to prophesy that the attempt will be a failure. Apart from the many other difficulties, our licensing laws and the artificial price of drink are quite enough to keep foreigners away…. But even these prices are less dismaying to foreigners than the lunatic laws which permit you to buy a glass of beer at half past ten while forbidding you to buy it at twenty-ﬁve past, and which have done their best to turn the pubs into mere boozing shops by excluding children from them.
How downtrodden we are in comparison with most other peoples is shown by the fact that even people who are far from being ""temperance"" don't seriously imagine that our licensing laws could be altered. Whenever I suggest that pubs might be allowed to open in the afternoon, or to stay open till midnight, I always get the same answer: ""The ﬁrst people to object would be the publicans. They don't want to have to stay open twelve hours a day."" People assume, you see, that opening hours, whether long or short, must be regulated by the law, even for one-man businesses. In France, and in various other countries, a café proprietor opens or shuts just as it suits him. He can keep open the whole twenty-four hours if he wants to; and, on the other hand, if he feels like shutting his cafe and going away for a week, he can do that too. In England we have had no such liberty for about a hundred years, and people are hardly able to imagine it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please column in The Tribune (18 August 1944), http://alexpeak.com/twr/dwall/ "As I Please" (1943–1947)

War, Children, People, Law

“When I was coming up, trying to get to where I am now, people were so happy for me. They were rooting for me. Now that I'm on top, everyone wants to bring me down. Everyone's trying to tug at me and take my spot… A lot of people say they hate Justin Bieber who haven't even listened to my music. They just hate the idea of me.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012

Hate, Happiness, People, Music

“There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn't bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Sherry, Michael (September 10, 1989). The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon, p. 287 (from "LeMay's interview with Sherry," interview "after the war," p. 408 n. 108). Yale University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0300044140.

People, Fight

“When I see British people sitting in the court to try me, remembering that the English people are proud of that word "Fair play," I am confident that I will be blessed by God and by man also. Not only Bishop Bourget spoke to me in that way, but Father Jean-Baptiste Bruno, the priest of Worcester, who was my director of conscience, said to me: "Riel, God has put an object into your hands the cause of the triumph of religion in the world, take care, you will succeed when most believe you have lost."”

Louis Riel (1844–1885) Canadian politician

I have got those words in my head, those words of J. B. Bruno and the late Archbishop Bourget.
Address to Grand Jury (1885)

God, People, World, Religion

“Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect, which means there's no point trying to look in that direction because it won't be coming from there.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

“I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark almost blue color, and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.””

John Green book The Fault in Our Stars

A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Love, Death, War, People

“If you really look at it, I was trying to sell a dream … There was very little I could put in concrete to tell these people it was really real.”

Charles K. Kao (1933–2018) Hong Hong-British-American physicist

In an interview, April 9, 1995, about his efforts at persuading telecommunications companies to use optical fibers, as quoted by [Jeff Hecht, City of light: the story of fiber optics, Oxford University Press, 2004, 0195162552, 117]

People, Dreams

“We pride ourselves on trying to put on the best show we can and we're not afraid to say that we happen to be the best live band in the world”

Billie Joe Armstrong (1972) American singer and guitarist

Reported in Q Magazine interview - Jan 2015

World

“Then I rose, wiping the blunts ash from my clothes
then froze only to blow the herb smoke through my nose
and told my little man that i'm a go cyprose
there's some jewels in the skull that he can sell if he chose
words of wisdom from nas try to rise up above”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

One Love
On Albums, Illmatic (1994)

Wisdom, Clothes

“If someone listens to our music, and it makes them creative, that makes me happier than anything. But with our music, we try to teach the masses of fans that not everything is as it seems.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

As quoted in Huh (10 October 1996).
1990s

Music

“I've got no time to look back, I've got no time to see
The pieces of my heart that have been ripped away from me.
And if the feeling starts to coming, I've learned to stop 'em fast
Because I don't know, if I let 'em go, they might not wanna pass.
And there's just so many people trying to get me on the phone
And there's bills to pay, and songs to play
And a house to make a home.
I guess I'm older now and I've got no time to cry.”

Iris DeMent (1961) American singer and songwriter

No Time to Cry
Song lyrics, My Life (1994)

People, Feeling, Home, Learning

“… yesterday’s enemies are in power and from there, they are trying to establish a Marxist regime.”

Jorge Rafael Videla (1925–2013) Argentinian President

As quoted in Alexei Barrionuevo (23 December 2010). "Argentina: Ex-Dictator Sentenced in Murders". The New York Times.

“I didn’t try to communicate any kind of philosophy since I am not a philosopher. I am a photographer. That’s it.”

Saul Leiter (1923–2013) American photographer

Saul Leiter: The Quiet Iconoclast (2009)

Communication

“All the colors of the world should be
Loving each other wholeheartedly,
Yes, it's alright,
Take my message to your brother and tell him twice,
Spread the word and try to teach the man
Who's hating his brother when hate won't do,
When we're all the same,
'Cause the blood inside me is inside of you.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Can You Feel It?
Triumph (1980)

Love, Hate, World, Color

“With such confusions, don't it make you wanna scream?
Your bash abusing victimize within the scheme,
You try to cope with every lie they scrutinize,
Oh, brother, please have mercy,
'Cause I just can't take it!”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

HIStory: Past, Present & Future, Book I (1995)

Lie

“In the most trying hours, through dismal nights and endless interrogations and maltreatment, during days of killing solitude in cells and close confinement, we were always sustained by the hope that all these agonies were not in vain, that there was a strong and mighty country, however far away, in which all the dreams for which we were fighting had been fulfilled. For us it was the homeland of the workers, in which labour was honoured, in which love, comradeship, and sincerity prevailed. With what joy I had felt the strength of that country as, emerging from prison in 1934, I listened in the dead of each night to Radio Moscow and heard the clock of the Kremlin tower striking the hours, and the stirring strains of the 'International.”

Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman

Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 128.
Other

Love, Dreams, Hope, Solitude

“Everything makes sense a bit at a time. But when you try to think of it all at once, it comes out wrong.”

Terry Pratchett book Only You Can Save Mankind

Only You Can Save Mankind (1992)

Thinking, Sense, Time

“After being alive, the next hardest work is having sex. Of course, for some people it isn't work because they need the exercise and they've got the energy for the sex and the sex gives them even more energy. Some people get energy from sex and some people lose energy from sex. I have found that it's too much work. But if you have the time for it, and if you need that exercise—then you should do it. But you could really save yourself a lot of trouble either way by first figuring out whether you're an energy-getter or an energy-loser. As I said, I'm an energy-loser. But I can understand it when I see people running around trying to get some.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 6: Work

People, Sex, Way, Exercises

“If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what's the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing …”

Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile

In an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC (29 November 1994)

God, Truth, Thinking, Personality

“I'm not concerned with body building; I'm just trying to make people normal human beings.”

Joseph Pilates (1883–1967) German inventor of pilates

People

“I must and will work to ensure that the new democratic South Africa has a fair chance to succeed economically as well as politically, and to try to assist in fulfilling at least a part of the dream of the oppressed and deprived when the new South Africa is born.”

Harry Schwarz (1924–2010) South African activist

Speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, April 1991.
As ambassador to the United States
Source: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-05-16/news/1991136167_1_south-africa-schwarz-frances-academy

Dreams, Chance, Parting

“I spent all of my life trying to stay away from sports and here I am in a sporting arena.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

1993-12-30 at the Great Western Forum, Inglewood, California
Stage banter

Life, Sport

“This is a second act for me, and you give me that. I wanna thank you for this. I'm so grateful and proud. I just wanna to dedicated this (the award) to anyone else out there, who is trying to get a second act, because you can do. (Speech after receiving the British Academy Film Awards for the Best Director)”

Ben Affleck (1972) American film actor, director and screenwriter

(from the video Ben Affleck wins Best Director at BAFTAs 2013, channel "Sony Pix", February 09, 2013.

“The predicament of our time is that the Rationalists have been at work so long on their project of drawing off the liquid in which our moral ideals were suspended (and pouring it away as worthless) that we are left only with the dry and gritty residue which chokes us as we try to take it down. First, we do our best to destroy parental authority (because of its alleged abuse), then we sentimentally deplore the scarcity of 'good homes', and we end by creating substitutes which complete the work of destruction. And it is for this reason that, among much else that is corrupt and unhealthy, we have the spectacle of a set of sanctimonious, rationalist politicians, preaching an ideology of unselfishness and social service to a population in which they and their predecessors have done their best to destroy the only living root of moral behaviour; and opposed by another set of politicians dabbling with the project of converting us from Rationalism under the inspiration of a fresh rationalization of our political tradition.”

Michael Oakeshott (1901–1990) British philosopher

Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (1962)

Home, Parent, Time, Drawing

“Life is funny. Life isn't categorized into comedy, drama, action, is it? So I don't know why they try to categorize everything. It drives me crazy-why it would have to be just a romantic comedy or… I want to have a little integrity, a little story, you know?”

Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States

Primetime interview (Jan 2004)

Life

“I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

From "Ragged Old Flag" on The Great Lost Performance

Love, Freedom, Country

“We live in a world of disposable music; fast-food music without any content… Music is not fireworks, music is feeling. So let's try to change this and bring music back which is really what matters.”

Salvador Sobral (1989) Portuguese singer

"Portugal's Eurovision triumph", Euronews (14 May 2017) http://www.euronews.com/2017/05/14/portugal-has-won-the-2017-eurovision-song-contest

World, Food, Music, Feeling

“Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

12 July 1942, p. 488-89
Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943

God, Suffering, Time, Help

“"What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?"
This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table.
Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've learned something about it yourself."”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Stupidity, Way, Idea, Understanding

“"Film star," "movie star" — whatever they want to try to call you is limiting, in the sense that I think an actor has to be able to play characters. To separate these things — you know: "leading man," "action hero," "character actor," stuff like that — I guess if I want to be close to anything, it would be a character actor, which is what I think an actor should be. So any of that "movie star" stuff, I just don't buy it. It just doesn't make sense to me.”

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

Quoted in "'Johnny Depp - From Hell' special," http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/From%20Hell%20Special.htm ITV (January 2002)

Star, Thinking, Sense

“A perverted people, should it attaint its liberty, is bound to lose this very soon, because it would be useless to try to impress upon such people that happiness lies in the practice of righteousness; that the reign of law is more powerful than the reign of tyrants, who are more inflexible, and all ought to submit to the wholesome severity of the law; that good morals, and not force, are the pillars of the law and that the exercise of justice is the exercise of liberty.”

Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador

As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 388
The Angostura Address (1819)

Happiness, People, Justice, Law

“I believe we shall make them rue the day they try to invade our island. No such discussion can be permitted.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Minute (1 June 1940) in response to the Foreign Office's suggestion that preparations should be made for the evacuation of the Royal Family and the British Government to "some part of the Overseas Empire", quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 449
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“In your career you have a lot of good moments and bad ones. The important thing is to have enough motivation to keep working all the days with humility and trying to be a better player than before. I am going to try to continue doing this.”

Rafael Nadal (1986) Spanish tennis player

http://www.wimbledon.org/en_GB/news/articles/2010-06-19/201006191276967412350.html?promo=sl_toparticles

Motivation

“I go back and forth between [being a vegan and not being a vegan]. I try lots of different things. I really feel that you need to kind of listen to your body and what your body is telling you to eat. So I was a vegan for about two years. … Well, everything with being vegan and vegetarian is a really big commitment. You have to do what you feel is best and what you believe in and what your body is telling you that it needs. I really think everyone should do what’s best for them, and what’s best for me may not be best for someone else. But like I said, you just have to do what makes you feel good.”

Lea Michele (1986) actress, singer

“Lea Michele: From Gleek to Do-Gooder,” interview with Shape (July 2012) http://www.shape.com/celebrities/interviews/lea-michele-gleek-do-gooder.

Feeling, Thinking

“I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.”

Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) English novelist and poet

15 January, 1849. As quoted in Elizabeth Gaskell The life of Charlotte Brontë (1870), p. 285

Life, Positive

“I don’t search for exactitude in portraying people. I try to give to imaginary people a kind of veracity.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Paris Review interview (1956)
Context: I don’t search for exactitude in portraying people. I try to give to imaginary people a kind of veracity. It would bore me to death to put into my novels the people I know. It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the “fronts” people assume before one another’s eyes, and the “front” a writer puts on the face of reality.

People, Search

“Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.”

Amelia Earhart book Last Flight

Letter to her husband George P. Putnam, on the eve of her last flight
Last Flight (1937)
Context: Please know that I am aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be a challenge to others.

Women, Men, Failure, For women

“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Quoted in Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine (2013) by Phillipe Mather, p. 46
Context: I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

Children, Fear, School, Motivation

“It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it!”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

2 quotes in Monet's letter to , July 15, 1864; as cited in Mary M. Gedo (2013) Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art. p. 114-15 / p. 60
1850 - 1870
Context: It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it! All this proves that one must think of nothing but them [impressions]; it is by dint of observation and reflection that one makes discoveries.

Nature

“The newspapers said,
"Say, what you're doing in bed?"
I said "We're only trying to get us some peace."”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

"Ballad of John and Yoko" (1969), referring to his "bed-in" honeymoon of March 1969.
Lyrics

Peace

“We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war — all forms of violence.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Interview on The David Frost Show (14 June 1969)
Context: We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war — all forms of violence. People just accept it and think 'Oh, they did it, or Harold Wilson did it, or Nixon did it,' they're always scapegoating people. And it isn't Nixon's fault. We're all responsible for everything that goes on, you know, we're all responsible for Biafra and Hitler and everything. So we're just saying "SELL PEACE" — anybody interested in peace just stick it in the window. It's simple but it lets somebody else know that you want peace too, because you feel alone if you're the only one thinking 'wouldn't it be nice if there was peace and nobody was getting killed.' So advertise yourself that you're for peace if you believe in it.

War, People, Peace, Way

“So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?”

Leonard Bernstein The Unanswered Question

The Unanswered Question (1976)
Context: Einstein said that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?

Beauty, Music

“I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow.”

Rajneesh (1931–1990) Godman and leader of the Rajneesh movement

Source: The Last Testament : Interviews with the World Press (1986)
Context: I would like that what I am doing is not lost. So I am trying in every possible way to drop all those things which in the past have been barriers for the revolution to continue and grow. I don't want anybody to stand between the individual and existence. No prayer, no priest... you alone are enough to face the sunrise, you don't need somebody to interpret for you what a beautiful sunrise it is... And this is my attitude: you are here, every individual is here, the whole existence is available. All that you need is just to be silent and listen to existence. There is no need of any religion, there is no need of any God, there is no need of any priesthood, there is no need of any organization. I trust in the individual categorically. Nobody up to now has trusted in the individual in such a way.

Way, Past

“Hold all and wait.
The questions that are in one’s mind will be worked out eventually without a word from the Master.
The light becomes stronger and the darkness vanishes in the reorganization of the inner man and his thinking processes and habits.
Do not make the mistake of trying to fit the teachings of ECK into the old ways of thinking.
Drop all and start over again.”

Paul Twitchell (1909–1971) American writer

Way, Question, Thinking, Light

“It is sometimes hard to take in and comprehend, oh God, what those created in Your likeness do to each other in these disjointed days. But I no longer shut myself away in my room, God; I try to look things straight in the face, even the worst crimes, and to discover the small, naked human being amid the monstrous wreckage caused by man’s senseless deeds.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

God

“Each and every one of us has a fire that burns inside us. They can try like hell to put it out, but as long as we know in our minds who we are meant to be, they will never stand a chance.”

Andrew Biersack (1990) American singer-songwriter

Hell, Chance

“The funny part of the whole thing is that a man in this line of business has so much company. I mean his customers. If people did not want beer and wouldn't drink it, a fellow would be crazy for going around trying to sell it!”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

People, Drink, Beer, Business

“You can’t change how people feel about you, so don’t try. Just live your life and be happy.”

Ralph Smart

Life, Happiness, People, Feeling

“I cry too much and I find it strange. It must be indicative of some issue within me that I’ve yet to identify. Whether it’s crowds or whether it’s people being nice… Hospitals make me cry very, very easily. Merely entering a hospital – just sensing care, you know. People trying to help others, I find, inspires a very emotional response.”

Rowan Atkinson (1955) English actor, comedian, and screenwriter

As quoted in an interview with The Times (2011)

People, Making love, Sense, Help

“You’re not immortal, you’re not eternal and to believe otherwise is to diminish everything that you really have. Life is precious because it is short and there is nothing after it. There is no purpose and there is no destiny beyond anything you give it yourself. If you want your life to mean something try making someone else’s life meaningful.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

“Give the Devil His Due”, 1st November 2014, https://youtube.com/XbiADYVORGE

Life, Making love

“God only knows what she thought. My environment contained nothing more alien than writing or the desire to express one’s self in writing. But I never forgot the look of astonishment and bewilderment on the young woman’s face when I had finished reading and glanced at her. Her inability to grasp what I had done or was trying to do somehow gratified me. Afterwards whenever I thought of her reaction I smiled happily for some unaccountable reason.”

Richard Wright book Black Boy

Black Boy (1945)

God, Smile, Reading, Self-confidence

“Was there no sword, nothing with which to batter down these walls, this protection, this begetting of children and living behind curtains, and becoming daily more involved and committed, with books and pictures? Better burn one’s life out like Louis, desiring perfection; or like Rhoda leave us, flying past us to the desert; or choose one out of millions and one only like Neville; better be like Susan and love and hate the heat of the sun or the frost-bitten grass; or be like Jinny, honest, an animal. All had their rapture; their common feeling with death; something that stood them in stead. Thus I visited each of my friends in turn, trying, with fumbling fingers, to prise open their locked caskets. I went from one to the other holding my sorrow — no, not my sorrow but the incomprehensible nature of this our life — for their inspection. Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends, I to my own heart, I to seek among phrases and fragments something unbroken — I to whom there is not beauty enough in moon or tree; to whom the touch of one person with another is all, yet who cannot grasp even that, who am so imperfect, so weak, so unspeakably lonely. There I sat.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Bernard, section IX
The Waves (1931)

Love, Life, Death, Hate

“When we try to help people, we have to be aware: are we doing it for them, or are we doing it because we want their approval?
If you're doing it for them, just be there with them, and for them, in a space of love.”

Anita Moorjani (1959) writer

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDA8mkhAvV5/

“Stop trying to heal yourself; fix yourself; even awaken yourself. Stop trying to Fast-Forward the movie of your life Let go of 'letting go'. Healing is not a destination.
Your pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your longings, your fearful thoughts: they are not mistakes, and they are not asking to be 'healed'. They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly in the loving, healing arms of present awareness.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

“Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”

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

Star, Sense, Universe, Motivational

“What is the purpose of our lives?
Life's purpose is to be happy.
We have no guarantee what will happen in the future, but we live in hope.
This is what keeps us trying and going.
If we can't enjoy the simple things in life;
We are missing the meaning of life.
Don't give up.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, Happiness, Hope, Future

“Don't try to rush things: for the cup to run over, it must first be filled.”

Antonio Machado (1875–1939) Spanish poet

“We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying.”

Douglas Adams book Last Chance to See

Source: Last Chance to See

“I guess my life hasn’t always been happy, or easy, or exactly what I want. At a certain point, I just have to try not to think too much about certain things, or else they’ll break my heart.”

Jonathan Franzen (1959) novelist

Life, Happiness, Thinking, Heart

“The future is there," Cayce hears herself say, "looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become. And from where they are, the past behind us will look nothing at all like the past we imagine behind us now.”

William Gibson book Pattern Recognition

Source: Pattern Recognition

Imagination, Sense, Past, Future

“I do my best to please everybody, far more than they'd ever guess. I try to laugh it all off, because I don't want to let them see my trouble.”

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

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

“Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am!”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Biff
Source: Death of a Salesman (1949)

Fools, Waiting

“When we talk of "exploring the mystical," we are not trying to dig into creation, because if you dig into creation, it will only get more complex. It will not bring clarity; it will only bring more complexity. That is why the yogis looked in a different direction. We looked inward. If you look inward, a different dimension opens up. Now instead of things getting more complex, you get to clarity. It is because of this that we say that those who look inward have a third eye. They see things that others cannot see. They have brought a new clarity to life.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Of Mystics & Mistakes

Life

“I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.”

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

People

“As if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.”

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

Love, Feeling

“Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live. Do not try to change people; they are only messengers telling you who you are. Revalue yourself and they will confirm the change.”

Neville Goddard (1905–1972) American author and lecturer

Source: Your Faith is Your Fortune

People, World, Change

“Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

Love

“But you ain't part of it, are you?" said Granny conversationally. "You try, but you always find yourself watchin' yourself watchin' people, eh? Never quite believin' anything? Thinkin' the wrong thoughts?”

Terry Pratchett book Maskerade

Source: Maskerade

People, Parting

“It’s more difficult to create the problem than to solve it. All the person trying to solve the problem has to do is always respect the problem’s creator.”

Keigo Higashino The Devotion of Suspect X

Source: The Devotion of Suspect X

Problem, Personality

“You have an amazing ability to depress me sometimes, you know that?"
"I try my best.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“You were trying to tell me something and I was trying to tell you something else. We didn't trust each other and that was reason enough to make each of us right.”

Elliot Perlman (1964) Australian writer

Source: The Reasons I Won't Be Coming

“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

“If you try to view yourself through the lenses that others offer you, all you will see are distortions; your own light and beauty will become blurred, awkward, and ugly. Your sense of inner beauty has to remain a very private thing.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Beauty, Sense, Light

“I don't know the rules of grammar. If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language.”

David Ogilvy (1911–1999) Advertising executive

People

“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

People, Sleep

“How can you spend hours every day trying in small ways to figure out who you are, then have a near-stranger give you a sentence of yourself that says it better than you ever could?”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Way

“People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

God, People, World, Fools

“I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

“well, i don't know about you but I'm going to try everything! War, women, travel, marriage, children, the works. […]. I want to know about things, what makes them work!”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Women, Marriage, War, Children

“Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Money

“Anyway, if you stop tellin' people it's all sorted out afer they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Variant: If you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive.
Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

People, Dead

“Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.”

Ramana Maharshi (1879–1950) Indian religious leader

Abide as the Self

Pain, World, Shoe

“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

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

Change

“In an instant he became aware that the tourist was about to try his own peculiar brand of linguistics, which meant that he would speak loudly and slowly in his own language.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

“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

“I must learn more about these people―try to understand them, put myself in their place. No, instead I am so busy keeping my head above water that I scarcely know who I am, much less who anyone else is.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

People, Understanding, Business, Learning

“You may not like what's happening, but just accept it, and let's try to live together. Even if you feel angry, let's be patient and endure, let's try to live together. I've realized that this is the only way forward.”

Hayao Miyazaki (1941) Japanese animator, film director, and mangaka

Way, Feeling

“We were going to kill ourselves in trying to kill each other.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

“Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Life, Drink, Wine

“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. Also quoted by Richard Dawkins in his Eulogy for Douglas Adams (17 September 2001) http://www.edge.org/documents/adams_index.html 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

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Paris Review interview (1958)
Context: Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don’t know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.

Dreams

Quotes about try page 3

Quotes about try
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