“If you do not want it to rain, always carry an umbrella.”
Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer
Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)
A collection of quotes on the topic of want, doing, people, likeness.
“If you do not want it to rain, always carry an umbrella.”
Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer
Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)
Chester Bennington (1976–2017) American singer-songwriter
Also attributed to Johnny Depp.
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 (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 (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 (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) <br class="br">Other quotes, 2019
Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement
“Dreaming of the person you want to be is wasting the person you already are.”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
Jack Handey (1949) American comedian
Saturday Night Live (1993)
Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician
Also attributed to Chester Bennington (singer of Linkin Park)
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". <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Source: Coments From The Inventor of the Purple Harmony Plates http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_universalenergy02.htm,
“I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God's help I shall succeed.”
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
“You can close your eyes if you want. Some things are less scary.”
Tyler Joseph (1988) American singer-songwriter and record producer
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist
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 (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer
On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)
“I believe in love at first sight. You want that connection, and then you want some problems.”
Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician
“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
movie Dead Poets Society
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 (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 (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)
“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!
“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
“Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.”
Vladimir Putin (1952) President of Russia, former Prime Minister
Adolf Hitler book Mein Kampf
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
“This I want to believe implicitly: Man was born for love and revolution.”
Osamu Dazai book The Setting Sun
Source: The Setting Sun
Ali book Nahj al-Balagha
Nahj al-Balagha
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 (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.
“I did not wanted to become the victim, so became the bully.”
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor
Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Variant: The real man wants two different things: danger and play. Therefore he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
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.
Jesse Owens (1913–1980) American track and field athlete
As quoted in "Owens pierced a myth" http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016393.html (2005), by Larry Schwartz, ESPN SportsCentury
“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
“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.
“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.”
Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist
Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author
1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
“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
Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor
It is what it is, I tend not to do that. <br class="br"> Interview with British GQ (September 2013) http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/one-direction-gq-covers-interview
Scott Cawthon (1971) American independent video game designer
Jeffrey Dahmer (1960–1994) American serial killer, cannibal and necrophile
In an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC (29 November 1994)
“If you want to make history, you have to do historic things.”
Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player
“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 book Mein Kampf
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.
“I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees.”
Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
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)
“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
“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
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
Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer
On the lightening of his skin.
Televised Interview with Oprah Winfrey (1993)
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 (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) <br class="br">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.
“I never tried to prove anything to someone else. I wanted to prove something to myself.”
Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player
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. <br class="br"> 1974 Larry King Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVOPkGAtt48
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–]
“Worrying is like praying for something you don't want.”
Robert Downey Jr. (1965) American actor
Source: Biography
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.
“Really try to follow what it is that you want to do and what your heart is telling you to do.”
Jennifer Aniston (1969) television and film actress from the United States
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.