Famous Quotes & Sayings

Mikhail Bakunin

By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Sometimes, the decisions have to be taken in minutes, even seconds, and there would be no time to make the right decision. We understood that this could have ended in catastrophe.

Nicholas Culpeper

If you dry the chestnut, both the barks being taken away, beat them into powder and make the powder up into an electuary with honey, it is a first-rate remedy for cough and spitting of blood.

Nicholas Hoult

I think interviews can be fine. It's just there's this terrible fear of coming off wrongly or saying something that gets taken out of context.

Nicholas D. Kristof

The photos were taken by African Union soldiers. People in Congress saw them. I thought if people could see them, there would be public outcry. No one would be able to say, We just didn't know what was going on there.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Photographs are still being taken but aren't being shown. There's one of a skeleton bound at the wrists with pants still around its ankles; if it was a woman, she was likely raped; if it was a man, he was possibly castrated.

Naomi Mitchison

Good will, that curious product of consciousness, of leisure and energy to spare and share. That thing we put out against the forces of interest. That extra thing. Religions and nations and political parties have taken it and used it as coinage, have said you must only give it in exchange for value.

Nadia Boulanger

It is nothing to succeed if one has not taken great trouble, and it is nothing to fail if one has done the best one could.

Nadine Gordimer

it's impossible to conquer all fear and loss by preparation. There are always sources of desolation that aren't taken into account because no one knows what they will be.

Naguib Mahfouz

An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.

Mitchell Zuckoff

Nathaniel Philbrick's 'In the Heart of the Sea' has rightfully taken its place as a classic for its literary merits. It has a special place in the cannibalism canon as well.

Mitt Romney

Government is taking 40 percent of the GDP. And that's at the state, local and federal level. President Obama has taken government spending at the federal level from 20 percent to 25 percent. Look, at some point, you cease being a free economy, and you become a government economy. And we've got to stop that.

Mireille Guiliano

In #‎ France we have a saying, 'Joie de Vivre,' which actually doesn't exist in the English language. It means looking at your life as something that is to be taken with great pleasure and enjoy it.

R. D. Laing

The 'data' (given) of research are not so much given as taken out of a constantly elusive matrix of happenings. We should speak of capta rather than data.

R. Buckminster Fuller

What has not been clear is that the potential of this emergency-born technology has always accrued to human's prewar individual initiatives taken in a humble but irrepressible progression of assumptions, measurements, deductions, and codifications of pure science.

Potter Stewart

We are concerned here only with the imposition of capital punishment for the crime of murder, and when a life has been taken deliberately by the offender, we cannot say that the punishment is invariably disproportionate to the crime. It is an extreme sanction suitable to the most extreme of crimes.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The notion of anarchy ...means that once industrial functions have taken over from political functions, then business transactions and exchange alone produce the social order.

Nelson Mandela

The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning.

Nelson Mandela

At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control.

Nelson Mandela

I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.

Nelson Mandela

Freedom can never be taken for granted. Each generation must safeguard it and extend it. Your parents and elders sacrificed much so that you should have freedom without suffering what they did. Use this precious right to ensure that the darkness of the past never returns.

Neko Case

I have a pathological fear of getting my picture taken.

Neil Young

And as an afterthought, this too must be told: Some people have taken pure bullshit and turned it into gold.

Mike Huckabee

I believe Donald Trump would be better for America than Barack Obama, because he understands business. Donald Trump has taken a pro- life position. He believes that we're getting shanghaied by China.

Niall Ferguson

So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.

Niccolo Machiavelli

For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.

Niccolo Machiavelli

One man should not be afraid of improving his posessions, lest they be taken away from him, or another deterred by high taxes from starting a new business. Rather, the Prince should be ready to reward men who want to do these things and those who endeavour in any way to increase the prosperity of their city or their state.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The vulgar crowd always is taken by appearances, and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar.

Niccolo Machiavelli

It is often found that modesty and humility not only do no good, but are positively hurtful, when they are shown to the arrogant who have taken up a prejudice against you, either from envy or from any other cause.

Nhat Hanh

Every step taken in mindfulness brings us one step closer to healing ourselves and the planet.

Noam Chomsky

You keep plugging away--that's the way social change takes place. That's the way every social change in history has taken place: by a lot of people, who nobody ever heard of, doing work.

Joely Richardson

It's very difficult when there are pictures taken on the red carpet. I find those things so terrifying that another persona just kicks in. I don't recognise myself.

Joely Richardson

There's still a bit of a problem, in that so many leading English roles are taken by American or French actresses.