Quotes about want

A collection of quotes on the topic of want, doing, people, likeness.

Quotes about want

Andrzej Majewski photo

“If you do not want it to rain, always carry an umbrella.”

Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer

Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

Bob Marley photo

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician
Lil Peep photo

“Runnin' away from you takes time and pain And I don't even want to So, I'm gettin' high all week without you Poppin' pills, thinkin' about you”

Lil Peep (1996–2017) American rapper

Song U Said, Album: Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 1

Yuzuru Hanyu photo
Chester Bennington photo
Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“I don't have a hero in particular that I want to be, but I like watching anime, and I quite like to win in a dramatic way.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2017
Original: (ja) 自分の中で特にこれになりたいというのはないけど、アニメとかは好きだし、なんかとにかく劇的に勝ちたいという気持ちはすごくあります。
Source: Hanyu at the men's free press conference at the Rostelecom Cup 2017, as quoted in フィギュアスケートマガジン 2017-2018 シーズンスタート B.B.MOOK 1391 (Figure Skate Magazine, 2017-2018 season's start issue), released on 31 October 2017, ISBN 978-4583625294.

Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“More than anything else, I want to make every day count now. I want to make every single normal day, every ice show, every practice and every competition count. That's what I have been thinking about the most since the day of the earthquake.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Page: 165.
Blue Flame
Original: (ja) 今はとにかく、一日一日を大事にしたいと思う。何気ない日常の一日一日、アイスショーの日々、練習の日々、試合の日々をすべて大切にしたい。そんなことを、あの日を境により強く感じるようになりました。

Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“I am me. No more, no less than Yuzuru Hanyu. I want to be myself and do what I can do to the full at the Olympics as well.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Other quotes, 2013
Original: (ja) 僕は僕。羽生結弦以上でも、以下でもない。ありのままの自分が出来る事を、五輪でもしっかりやりたい。
Source: Interview after Japanese Nationals 2013, as quoted in the Japanese magazine Sports Graphic Number, issue no. 846, released on 30 January 2014.

Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“I managed to win twice, but the Olympics are something special. The Olympic Games are what every athlete and figure skater wants to win. Winning them makes you a true champion.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Quote from an article on the Olympic Channel https://www.olympicchannel.com/en/stories/news/detail/yuzuru-hanyu-coy-cryptic-beijing-olympic-2022-chen-ankle/, published 3 April 2019. (Retrieved 11 September 2020)
Other quotes, 2019

Hatake Kakashi photo
Tom Hiddleston photo
Ella Fitzgerald photo
Robert Baden-Powell photo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You can close your eyes to the things you don't want to see, but you can't close your heart to the things you don't want to feel.”

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

Also attributed to Chester Bennington (singer of Linkin Park)

Osamu Dazai photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

First attibution is to Ralph Bergstresser who claims to have heard this from Tesla in a conversation "following an experience with the Maharaja's son".
Disputed
Source: Coments From The Inventor of the Purple Harmony Plates http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_universalenergy02.htm,

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Tyler Joseph photo
Rick Riordan photo
Jane Goodall photo
Johnny Depp photo
Jane Goodall photo
John Lennon photo

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Variant: When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

Michael Jackson photo
Will Rogers photo
Keanu Reeves photo
Kurt Cobain photo

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Variant: Wanting to be someone else is the waste of who you are

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Neil Perry character
Context: Modified passage from the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau. Full citation:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Megan Marie Hart photo

“I can't tell you how many directors have decided that Donna Anna wants to be raped by Don Giovanni and is in love with him, even though she has never seen him before.”

Megan Marie Hart (1983) American opera singer

American soprano Megan Marie Hart on the male perception of iconic female characters in opera.
Source: https://www.middleclassartist.com/post/excluded-penalized-indebted-harassed-a-study-of-systemic-discrimination-against-women-in-opera?curator=MusicREDEF

Hamis Kiggundu photo

“The difference between where you are now and where you want to be is your reasoning capacity and actions.”

Hamis Kiggundu (1984) Ugandan business magnate, Internet entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author

Quoted from his first book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Success_and_Failure_Based_on_Reason_and_Reality, "Success and Failure Based on Reason and Reality" https://www.amazon.co.uk/SUCCESS-FAILURE-BASED-REASON-REALITY/dp/9970983903/ on Amazon, (July 2018)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Dolly Parton photo

“If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

Variant: The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!

Claude Monet photo

“I want to paint the way a bird sings.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Variant: I would like to paint the way a bird sings.
Source: Monet By Himself

Osamu Dazai photo
Vladimir Putin photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.”

Variant: He who would live must fight. He who doesn't wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.
Source: Mein Kampf

Charles Bukowski photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Oprah Winfrey photo

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Variant: Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

Neale Donald Walsch photo

“The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out Who You Are, seek to determine Who You Want to Be.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Variant: The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want to Be.

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.”

Variant: The real man wants two different things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Tupac Shakur photo
John Lennon photo

“War is over… If you want it.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Jordan Peterson photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“Do not try to rescue someone who does not want to be rescued, and be very careful about rescuing someone who does want to be rescued.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Sophie Scholl photo

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.”

Sophie Scholl (1921–1943) White Rose member

As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, Ch. 4 : Artisans of Hope: Stepping into God's Kingdom Story, p. 63; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote. It is also used in <i> The White Rose </i> (1991) by Lillian Garrett-Groag, a monologue during Sophie's interrogation.
Disputed
Context: The real damage is done by those millions who want to "survive." The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don't want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won't take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don't like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honor, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It's the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you'll keep it under control. If you don't make any noise, the bogeyman won't find you. But it's all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

Keanu Reeves photo
Billie Eilish photo
Paul Walker photo
Jesse Owens photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“Where should I go?" -Alice. "That depends on where you want to end up." - The Cheshire Cat.”

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

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Osamu Dazai photo
Michael Jordan photo

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Variant: Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.

Richard Branson photo
Tennessee Williams photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Thomas Sowell photo

“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)

Leonardo DiCaprio photo

“School, I never truly got the knack of. I could never focus on things I didn't want to learn.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Selena Gomez photo
Harry Styles photo

“Some of them are funny. Some of them are ridiculous. Some of them are annoying. I don't want to be one of those people that complains about the rumours. I never like it when a celebrity goes on Twitter and says, "This isn't true!"”

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

It is what it is, I tend not to do that.
Interview with British GQ (September 2013) http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/one-direction-gq-covers-interview

Michael Jackson photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”

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

“While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open effrontery comes out as the Jewish race.”

1920s, Zweites Buch (1928)
Source: Mein Kampf
Context: Jewry is a Folk with a racial core that is not wholly unitary. Nevertheless, as a Folk, it has special intrinsic characteristics which separate it from all other Folks living on the globe. Jewry is not a religious community, but the religious bond between Jews; rather is in reality the momentary governmental system of the Jewish Folk. The Jew has never had a territorially bounded State of his own in the manner of Aryan States. Nevertheless, his religious community is a real State, since it guarantees the preservation, the increase and the future of the Jewish Folk. But this is solely the task of the State. That the Jewish State is subject to no territorial limitation, as is the case with Aryan States, is connected with the character of the Jewish Folk, which is lacking in the productive forces for the construction and preservation of its own territorial State.

Pablo Neruda photo

“I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees.”

Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.
"Every Day You Play" (Juegas Todos las Días), XIV, p. 35.
Variant: I want
To do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

Oprah Winfrey photo

“If a man wants you, nothing can keep him away. If he doesn't want you, nothing can make him stay.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Marilyn Monroe photo

“I'm not interested in money, I just want to be wonderful.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

As quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 41

Rosa Parks photo
Louis Zamperini photo
Stephen King photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Meryl Streep photo

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.”

Meryl Streep (1949) American actress

Misattributed to Meryl Streep (and widely disseminated on the Internet as of August/September 2014), this quote is allegedly a translation of a text by the author José Micard Teixeira, the original of which begins (in Portuguese): "Já não tenho paciência para algumas coisas, não porque me tenha tornado arrogante..."
Misattributed

Selena Gomez photo
Michael Jackson photo
Dmitri Shostakovich photo

“What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in "serious" music.”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

From an article in Sovetskoye Iskusstvo, November 5, 1934; translation from Laurel Fay Shostakovich: A Life (2000) p. 77.

Jane Goodall photo

“Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

" An Interview with Jane Goodall https://web.archive.org/web/20100920074838/http://www.idausa.org:80/essays/goodallinterview.html", In Defense of Animals (date unknown)
Context: Researchers find it very necessary to keep blinkers on. They don't want to admit that the animals they are working with have feelings. They don't want to admit that they might have minds and personalities because that would make it quite difficult for them to do what they do; so we find that within the lab communities there is a very strong resistance among the researchers to admitting that animals have minds, personalities and feelings.

Kobe Bryant photo
Kobe Bryant photo
Jacque Fresco photo

“Competition is dangerous, socially offensive, considered right and normal, because you are brought up to that value system. What kind of competition did Jesus have? What kind of competition is there in your body? Suppose your brain said, "I'm the most important organ!" And the liver said, "I am. And I want a Free Enterprise system!"”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

You'd rot away in a month if every organ of your body went out for itself.
1974 Larry King Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVOPkGAtt48

Nicholas II of Russia photo

“I am not prepared to be Tsar. I never wanted to become one. I know nothing of the business of ruling. I even have no idea how to talk to the ministers.”

Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918) Emperor of All the Russias, Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland By the Grace of God

As quoted in [Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: From Alexander II to the abdication of Nicholas II, https://books.google.com/books?id=wGp4M2DzfMQC&pg=PA341, 1995, Princeton University Press, 0-691-02947-4, 341–]

Robert Downey Jr. photo

“Worrying is like praying for something you don't want.”

Robert Downey Jr. (1965) American actor

Source: Biography

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Harriet Tubman photo
George Orwell photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife… Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment…”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)
Context: While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.

Tove Jansson photo
Jennifer Aniston photo
David Lynch photo

“Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.”

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

Introduction, p. 1
Catching the Big Fish (2006)
Source: Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
Context: Ideas are like fish.
If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper.
Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They're huge and abstract. And they're very beautiful.

Marilyn Monroe photo
Mick Jagger photo