Famous Quotes & Sayings

Louis Gossett, Jr.

I didn't know anything about acting, I didn't know anything about theater, but I was just an exceptional student at high school. I wanted to play ball; I'm going after a basketball scholarship and be a doctor. I got injured and my marks began to drop.

Brian Keith

We started slowly, but then began to put things together. We were 3-9 to begin the year, but we have gone 9-4 the rest of the way.

John Timoney

We stopped the rescue operation around 11 o'clock (Thursday) night, ... As the tide came in, the structure began to move, and other parts began to collapse again. We made the decision to pull our divers out.

Helen Scannell

We started from scratch. Immediately people began dropping things off - and they were nice things. Our goods are gently used. We are not a junkyard or garbage drop.

Leslie Cockburn

When I was at graduate school in London, I began working at NBC News, which had a thriving documentary unit.

M.I.A.

Sri Lanka is an island off the coast of India. There's two ethnicities there; one the Sinhalese, which is the majority and the government, and the minority, who are the Tamils. That's where I'm from. And my lifetime sort of began there; I spent 10 years, and I was there during when the war started and fled as a refugee to England.

Natasha Trethewey

Writing 'Native Guard,' I didn't know I was working on a single book. I began writing that book because I was interested in the lesser-known history of these black soldiers stationed off the coast of my hometown.

Natasha Tsakos

I was commissioned in 2003 to create an original show, and began developing 'Upwake.' 'Upwake' tells the story of Zero, a modern-day business man, going to work with his life in a suitcase, stuck between dream and reality and not able to decipher the two. I wanted 'Upwake' to have the same audiovisual qualities as a movie would.

Ma Jian

While I was writing 'Stick Out Your Tongue' in Beijing, the police began knocking on my door again. As soon as I finished the book, I moved to Hong Kong so that I could work undisturbed on my next novel.

Charles Dickens

There is not a manufacturer or tradesman in existence, who would not employ a man who takes a reasonable degree of pride in the appearance of himself and those about him, in preference to a sullen, slovenly fellow, who works doggedly on, regardless of his own clothing and that of his wife and children, and seeming to take pleasure or pride in nothing.

Charles Dickens

Father Time is not always a hard parent and though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigor. With such people the gray head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life.

Charles Dickens

There is nothing--no, nothing--innocent or good, that dies and is forgotten; let us hold to that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and play its part through them in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes or drowned in the deep sea.

Charles Dickens

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.

Charles Dickens

It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments.

Charles Caleb Colton

How strange it is that we of the present day are constantly praising that past age which our fathers abused, and as constantly abusing that present age, which our children will praise.

Charles Caleb Colton

Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as a hostage; often as a captive and more often as a child; but knowledge has become of age, and religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend.

Charles Caleb Colton

Gaming is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality.

Charles Caleb Colton

Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it.

Charles Caleb Colton

A semi-civilized state of society, equally removed from the extremes of barbarity and of refinement, seems to be that particular meridian under which all the reciprocities and gratuities of hospitality do most readily flourish and abound. For it so happens that the ease, the luxury, and the abundance of the highest state of civilization, are as productive of selfishness, as the difficulties, the privations, and the sterilities of he lowest.

Alan Bennett

I saw someone peeing in Jermym Street the other day. I thought, is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or is it simply someone peeing in Jermyn Street?

Aiden Wilson Tozer

Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude, where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

I have no doubt that historians will conclude that we of the twentieth century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it.

John Wilson

We want to send a very strong message ... this is not what we expect out of civilized society, ... We're going to make an example of somebody.

David Mitchell

Freedom!- is the fatuous jingle of our civilization, but only those deprived of it have the barest inkling re: what the stuff actually is.

David Graeber

It's a difficult business, creating a new, alternative civilization.

David Suzuki

More than any other time in history, the 1990s will be a turning point for human civilization.

Cesare Pavese

Generations do not age. Every youth of any period, any civilization, has the same possibilities as always.

Charles Spurgeon

Repentance and desires after holiness never be separated.

Charles Spurgeon

The more we pray, the more we shall want to pray. The more we pray, the more we can pray. The more we pray, the more we shall pray. He who prays little will pray less, but he who prays much will pray more. And he who prays more, will desire to pray more abundantly.

Charles Spurgeon

When God's mercies are coming, their footfalls are our desires to pray.

Charles Spurgeon

When you desire to be most alive to God, you will generally find sin most alive to repel you.

Alan Watts

For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.

Alan Moore

The things we do without the fear of failure and the desire for success are the purest acts we'll ever do

Alan Chambers

My beliefs and my desires have changed. They have come into alignment with who he is and who he created you to be. And that's a wonderful thing and that's what we will always offer at Exodus.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

The desire to fulfill the purpose for which we were created is a gift from God.

Aiden Wilson Tozer

With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack? Surely we are the most favored of all creatures.

Lisa Gansky

Try out lots of different options early in your career. Then watch the responses: how you feel, what the market values, what people appreciate about you. It's the only way to find work that's uniquely right for you.

John Eyler

We are pleased with the early signals this year,

Pat Scelza

We started subbing and early in the fourth quarter we had some freshmen on the field.

Curt Fredrickson

We started really well. Playing on the road isn't easy and getting a good start is so important and we really did a good job early on. We didn't maintain the intensity, but after a start like that, it is tough to keep up that level.

Jack Schrader

We started out well, executing and getting open shots in rhythm. They crawled back into it right at the end of the first half, and in the second half we got some good looks early but missed them.

Chris Renner

We struggled early on with our team trying to identify their roles. That is what the early season and midseason tournaments are for. The guys have done that.

Greg Kennett

We are looking to make it five in a row after this match. The key is to peak at the right time and to hopefully peak in the early to middle of April. There is no reason why we can't win the Valley this year.

Curtis Brown

We struggled early but otherwise, we held our own the rest of the way.

Rich Rogers

We started fixing the place up, probably in October. We put our first turkeys on the place in early December.

Marisa Miller

I was just so focused on being healthy for my baby during pregnancy, and afterward I was not in a rush to lose the weight. I really wanted to be as healthy as I could. It wasn't about getting my six-pack back. There are more important things in life than a six-pack, I realized.

Nick Woodman

I get pretty focused when I start working on something. And I drink a lot of water, way more than most people.

Condoleezza Rice

We are very focused on hoping that these negotiations do succeed,

R. Ingram

When we were 1-6, all we focused on was that we were better than that. We knew it; we just had to prove it. We've come a long way and it's great to be back to .500 and to know we'll get a home game in the tournament.

Mike Milone

We remain more student focused than anything else. That is what we try to do.

Jake Peymann

Usually I like to take a nap. I'm not sure (how it started). After a long day of school... Twenty minutes, that's about it. ... I listen to music to get focused and think about the meet or whatever it may be.

Bill Greubel

We're more than just a supplier to the trucking industry. We have always focused on helping to improve the trucking industry by offering innovative solutions, and we feel the need to do more than business-as-usual in this case. By helping to fund this specific program, we hope to make a positive difference.

Scott Squires

We're focused on this year's tough schedule. The SCIAC is really up this year. With the improvement in the league, it should be a dogfight week in and week out all the way to the end.

Andrew Wright

We're focused on the Internet community. That market today is for PCs.

Eddie Vedder

We want them to be heard for the first time when the record comes out.

Tom Renney

When you've heard from the ref once, you've kind of got to suck it up.

Tom Renney

When you've heard from the referee once that you've got to kind of suck it up and quit yapping, you should probably do that.

Charles Kuralt

You never heard anybody ask 'Elvis who?'

Ednita Nazario

It's fascinating to be in a place where no one has ever heard of me

Michelle Evans

We were at a cross-roads last week when we heard the news that Ft. Chaffee was no longer sending hurricane survivors to the area.

Dan Doherty

When we heard the news yesterday, everyone was just devastated. He made a huge impact at Pearl River in a short time 5 1/2 years.

Tom Eagleson

When we heard it was her appendix, we all thought the worst. But then, it turned out to be kidney stones.

Todd Helton

When we heard about (Barmes), we were thinking, 'That's terrible, what are we going to do,' ... Then the skipper leaves and his daughter's having seizures, and it puts it all back in perspective really quick.

Charles Caleb Colton

Villains are usually the worst casuists, and rush into crimes to avoid less. Henry VIII. committed murder to avoid the imputation of adultery; and in our times, those who commit the latter crime attempt to wash off the stain of seducing the wife by signifying their readiness to shoot the husband.

Charles Dickens

I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both.

Charles Spurgeon

But you are not under a system similar to that by which the Jews were obliged to pay tithes to the priests. If there were any such rule laid down in the Gospel, it would destroy the beauty of spontaneous giving and take away all the bloom from the fruit of your liberality! There is no law to tell me what I should give my father on his birthday. There is no rule laid down in any law book to decide what present a husband should give to his wife, nor what token of affection we should bestow upon others whom we love. No, the gift must be a free one, or it has lost all its sweetness.

Alan Bradley

My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon. They were soon to emigrate to Canada, and the aerial ride was meant to be a last view of their beloved England.

Alan Bennett

Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages - just don't catch him at breakfast. Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.

Akshay Kumar

I have finally become a husband and I am genuinely enjoying every moment of it.

Chris Cleave

On our honeymoon we talked and talked. We stayed in a beachfront villa, and we drank rum and lemonade and talked so much that I never even noticed what color the sea was. Whenever I need to stop and remind myself how much I once loved Andrew, I only need to think about this. That the ocean covers seven tenths of the earth's surface, and yet my husband could make me not notice it.

David McCullough

When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, "My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.

Byron Katie

When we believe in our thoughts, when we tell ourselves a story, we suffer. 'My husband doesn't respect me.' 'I should be thinner.' Those are stories. When there's no story, there's no suffering.

Charles Caleb Colton

It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it; and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.

Charles Dickens

A multitude of people and yet solitude.

Charles Dickens

My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the people governed is, on the whole, illimitable.

Charles Dickens

Others had been a little wild, which was not to be wondered at, and not very blamable; but, he had made a lamentation and uproar which it was dangerous for the people to hear, as there is always contagion in weakness and selfishness.

Charles Dickens

Mrs. Boffin and me, ma'am, are plain people, and we don't want to pretend to anything, nor yet to go round and round at anything because there's always a straight way to everything.

Charles Dickens

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

Charles Dickens

I have heard it said that as we keep our birthdays when we are alive, so the ghosts of dead people, who are not easy in their graves, keep the day they died upon.

Charles Dickens

Some people are nobody's enemies but their own

Charles Soule

Superman/Wonder Woman, people expected, I guess, a lot of romance, or maybe something that wasnt emotionally deep. Who knows?

Alan Bradley

Liberals have always been the most fervent Imperialists.

Camille Paglia

[Sarah] Palin is solidifying her status as a bona fide American cultural heroine.

Caspar Weinberger

We must recognize that personal freedoms diminish as the welfare state grows. The price of more and more public programs is less and less private freedom.

Charley Reese

Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die.

Charles Krauthammer

Washington is the only place in the world where a gaffe is when a politician accidently speaks the truth.

Billy Joel

I'm a statistic in a system that a civil servant dominates.

Dean Acheson

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

David Ricardo

Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold... has its natural and its market price.

David Hume

Of all sciences there is none where first appearances are more deceitful than in politics.

Robert Davies

He does not see it as a racial thing,

Forrest Pearson

The whole racial thing has been downplayed, but that is what it was. It seems that everyone wants to sweep the thing under the rug.

Warren Moon

I don't want to make this a racial thing, because it shouldn't be. But it is significant because it was the first time.

Will Durst

I didn't know that was a racial epithet. I thought it was a geographical designation.

Ben Williams

I never had a racial term thrown to me the whole time I was at Ole Miss. We were progressing.

Dixie Lee Ray

No question about that, the radicals are in charge.

Anand Gopal

Unlike other Taliban groups, the Haqqanis' approach to mayhem was worldly and sophisticated: they recruited Arabs, Pakistanis, even Europeans, and they were influenced by the latest in radical Islamist thought.

Alexander Lebed

I have equal contempt for both left and right radicals.

Norman Ornstein

Radicals don't care about the institutions. They are looking for an ideological crusade. Traditions don't matter.

Dana Rohrabacher

I support this war on terror and the war on radical Islam.

Helena Norberg-Hodge

As signs of climate instability increase, radical and rapid action is becoming ever more urgent.

Daniel D. Palmer

The advancement of all sciences, especially where there has been such a radical change, have been attended with persecution.

Ambrose Bierce

RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.

Alphonse de Lamartine

Radicalism is but the desperation of logic.

Charles Dickens

I'm awful dull, but I hope I've beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!

David Shapiro

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to assume that their president, hostile to the principles that formed the nation and determined to act with malice toward its inhabitants by suppressing their rights and enabling its enemies to prosper in their attempts to destroy it, must be confronted, a rational response for the nation is to encumber itself no more with such a president and reject his authority and the acolytes who carry out his wishes.

David McCullough

You have to have wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue to preserve your rights and liberties.

David Korten

In a world of increasing inequality, the legitimacy of institutions that give precedence to the property rights of 'the Haves' over the human rights of 'the Have Nots' is inevitably called into serious question.

Catherine Ashton

In the EU you have half a billion people who share a common belief in democracy, in rights, in the kind of economic life we want.

Madeleine Albright

Our strategic dialogue with China can both protect American interests and uphold our principles, provided we are honest about our differences on human rights and other issues and provided we use a mix of targeted incentives and sanctions to narrow these differences.

Ai Weiwei

For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law. By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.

Ai Weiwei

Liberty is about our rights to question everything.

Bob Menendez

We should seek international support for our mutual objectives abroad, in promoting freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, and also the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.

David Sedaris

If you stepped out of the shower and saw a leprechaun standing at the base of your toilet, would you scream, or would you innately understand that he meant you no harm?

Roman Gutierrez

We still saw some of our inexperience today. That will be the case, but there were still some steps of improvement.

Bo Burnham

I saw a giraffe with a short neck That was sad Or a deer

Audrey Meadows

Fans always ask, What did the bedroom look like? All they ever saw was Alice or Ralph going in and out.

Arnold Bennett

Saw Washington Monument. Phallic. Appalling. A national catastrophe.

Deborah Harkness

You do angry. I just saw it. And you left at least one hole in my carpet to prove it.

Dennis Hopper

I wanted to be an actor. I decided when I was very young, when I first saw movies, that I wanted to be an actor.

Bill Murray

If you walk up to some random person on the street, grab them by the shoulder, and say 'Did you just see what I saw?!', you'll find that no-one wants to talk to you.

Carol Leifer

There were very few women comics when I started out doing stand-up. But I always saw that as a great advantage.

Charles Dickens

A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

Charles Dickens

Anything that makes a noise is satisfactory to a crowd.

Charles Dickens

Surprises, like misfortunes, seldom come alone.

Charles Dickens

Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock.

Chris Cornell

The words you say never live up to the words in your head.

Louise Erdrich

It was enough just to sit there without words.

David Hume

The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomena, is probably the true one.

Edward Everett Hale

I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

Carlos Castaneda

Do you know at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire?

Alan Watts

Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work.

Alan Clark

Give a civil servant a good case and he'll wreck it with clichés, bad punctuation, double negatives, and convoluted apology.

Alan Bennett

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.

Alan Ayckbourn

A gentleman ... sleeps at his work. That's what work's for. Why do you think they have the SILENCE notices in the library? So as not to disturb me in my little nook behind the biography shelves.

Al Kaline

You've got to get good habits of working hard so that when that play comes up during the regular season that you're able to complete it and do it the right way.

Akio Morita

Japanese people tend to be much better adjusted to the notion of work, any kind of work, as honorable.

Chloe Sevigny

I do a dance-based cardio workout infused with circuit training, and emphasizing strength and alignment.

Dave Chappelle

If I put forth a legitimate effort, then I feel like, if that doesn't work out, that's all I can do.

Dave Chappelle

I always take a relationship to the next level. If that works out, I take it to the next level after that, until I finally reach that level when it becomes absolutely necessary for me to leave.