Can Do Quotes - Page 20

• The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.

  William James

  Faith, Example, May

  William James (1956). “The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, and Human Immortality”, p.176, Courier Corporation

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• One has very little influence upon one's children. Their characters are what they are and one can do nothing to change them.

  Andre Maurois

  Children, Character, Littles

  "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.

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• The worst that a man can do to himself is to do injustice to others.

  Henrik Ibsen

  Men, Injustice, Worst

  Henrik Ibsen (1905). “The Correspondence of Henrik Ibsen”

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• I attacked those Western playwrights who use their influence and affluence to preach to the world the nihilistic doctrine that life is pointless and irrationally destructive, and that there is nothing we can do about it. Until everyone is fed, clothed, housed and taught, until human beings have equal leisure to contemplate the overwhelming fact of mortality, we should not (I argued) indulge in the luxury of "privileged despair."

  Kenneth Tynan

  Indulge In, Luxury, Despair

  "Conference at Edinburgh (1963)". "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 146, 1967.

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• I have a terrible time during elections. I am way too politically involved. I absolutely never argue politics with anyone, as it makes me crazy and full of judgment and hostility. I have two very conservative friends, whom I cherish and would entrust my life to; we avoid politics like the plague. So in a certain way, it limits how completely we let ourselves know each other, but this is just the way it is and it is the best we can do. And I am secretly convinced that God is a progressive Democrat.

  Anne Lamott

  Crazy, Two, Way

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• Being interviewed is one of the most abnormal things that you can do to somebody else. It's two steps removed from the Inquisition.

  Frank Zappa

  Two, Abnormal, Steps

  Interview on Channel 4, June 1, 1983.

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• "Everything is already there in...." How does it come about that [an] arrow points? Doesn't it seem to carry in it something besides itself? - "No, not the dead line on paper; only the psychical thing, the meaning, can do that." - That is both true and false. The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Arrows, Doe, True And False

  "Philosophical Investigations" by Ludwig Wittgenstein, (§ 454), 1953.

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• By consequence I hold that no one ever did, or can do, anything for "society."... Comte invented the term altruism as an antonym for egoism, and it found its way at once into everyone's mouth, although it is utterly devoid of meaning, since it points to nothing that ever existed in mankind; This hybrid or rather this degenerate form of hedonism served powerfully to invest collectivism's principles with a specious moral sanction, and collectivists naturally made the most of it.

  Albert J. Nock

  Principles, Mouths, Way

  "Memoirs of a Superfluous Man" by Albert J. Nock, (p. 305), 1943.

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• Forgiveness is the best charity. (It is easy to give the poor money and goods when one has plenty, but to forgive is hard; but it is the best thing if one can do it.)

  Meher Baba

  Giving, Charity, Easy

  "The Everything and the Nothing". Book by Meher Baba, 1963.

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• In a democracy you cannot stop public access to that art that will most misinform the people. You cannot stop people from being misinformed. But what you can do is to educate the people to the point that they will throw the rascals out.

  Edward Albee

  Art, People, Democracy

  Edward Albee (2009). “Stretching My Mind: The Collected Essays of Edward Albee”, p.115, Da Capo Press

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• And then there is that one-man movement, Marcel Duchamp for me a truly modern movement because it implies that each artist can do what he thinks he ought to a movement for each person and open for everybody.

  Willem de Kooning

  Artist, Men, Thinking

  Willem De Kooning (1979). “Willem de Kooning: Pittsburgh International Series, October 26, 1979-January 6, 1980, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute”

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• God can do anything. He has all power in the palm of His Hand. My Body, like all other bodies, is a temporary habitation; but, My Power is eternal, all-pervasive, ever-dominant.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Hands, Body, Palms

  "Sathyam Sivam Sundaram, Volume 3 (Christmas Day Discourse, Bombay 1970)". Book by N. Kasthuri, October 21, 2014.

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• No one can understand my Mystery. The best you can do is to get immersed in it. It is no use your arguing about pros and cons; dive and know the depth; eat and know the taste.

  Sathya Sai Baba

  Taste, Depth, Use

  "Sai Baba: Man of Miracles". Book by Howard Murphet, 1971.

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• What is it in man that for a long while lies unknown and unseen only one day to emerge and push him into a new land of the eye, a new region of the mind, a place he has never dreamed of? Maybe it's like the force in spores lying quietly under asphalt until the day they push a soft, bulbous mushroom head right through the pavement. There's nothing you can do to stop it.

  William Least Heat-Moon

  Lying, Eye, Men

  "Blue Highways". Book by William Least Heat-Moon, 1982.

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• All we ever got in those [early] days was "Where are you from? Liverpool? You'll have to be in London before you can do it. Nobody's ever done it from Liverpool.

  Paul McCartney

  Done, London, Liverpool

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• The role of government has never been to plan every detail or dictate every outcome. At its best, government has simply knocked away barriers to opportunity and laid the foundation for a better future. Our people -- with all their drive and ingenuity -- always end up building the rest. And if we can do that again -- if we can continue building that foundation and making those hard decisions on behalf of the next generation -- I have no doubt that we will leave our children the America that we all hope for.

  Barack Obama

  Children, Opportunity, Government

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• No man who can do any one thing well will be able to any different thing equally well.

  John Constable

  Men, Different, Able

  From John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher, 1825.

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• I know no place at which an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a pleasanter circle of acquaintance, or find himself with a more clever set of men, than he can do at Boston.

  Anthony Trollope

  Clever, Men, Boston

  Anthony Trollope (1862). “North America”, p.16

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• What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so.

  Anthony Trollope

  Girl, Character, Men

  'Phineas Redux' (1874) ch. 3

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• The theater's much the most difficult kind of writing for me, the most naked kind, you're so entirely restricted.... I find myself stuck with these characters who are either sitting or standing, and they've either got to walk out of a door, or come in through a door, and that's about all they can do.

  Harold Pinter

  Writing, Character, Doors

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• Just keep playing, mastering as you do the step Into disorder this one meant. Don't you see It's all we can do? Meanwhile, great fires Arise, as of haystacks aflame. The dial has been set And that's ominous, but all your graciousness in living Conspires with it, now that this is our home: A place to be from, and have people ask about.

  John Ashbery

  Home, Fire, People

  John Ashbery (1985). “A Wave: Poems”, p.2, Ardent Media

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• My voice likes rock music. My problem is, I can do a lot of things, but I have to find my own voice.

  Lucy Lawless

  Rocks, Voice, Likes

  "The soulful side of a warrior princess" by Jamie Sotonoff, Daily Herald, p. 18, October 5, 2007.

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• I think it's incumbent upon me to try to be smart and make good choices and work with good people and work my ass off when I'm working with good people and I have to let everyone have their opinion afterwards. But this is what happens. You make a movie or you're on a show and then you have this experience and everyone tells you what you did. They tell you what you did. That's allowed. That's the experience of being human and subjectivity. That's it. We can only do what we'll do, and I can only do the best I can do.

  Sarah Jessica Parker

  Smart, Thinking, People

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• The miracle is that your children will love you with all your imperfections if you can do the same for them.

  Harriet Lerner

  Children, Love You, Miracle

  "Psychologist Dances Through Motherhood" by Sara Peyton, www.sfgate.com. May 05, 1998.

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• Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.

  Harriet Lerner

  Trying, Helpful, Sometimes

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