Quotes on Ifs

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

But if it matters to you, you'll be able to choose Gryffindor over Slytherin. The Sorting Hat takes your choice into account." "Really?" "It did for me," said Harry. He had never told any of his children that before, and he saw the wonder in Albus's face when he said it.

There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth living if there were no exceptions, no sunny days, no acts of random kindness.

If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask... with nothing beneath it?

If you're going to binge, literature is definitely the way to do it.

There are no conditions to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.

The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.

It is a pity that there are no big creatures to prey on humanity. If there were enough dragons and rocs, perhaps mankind would turn its might against them. Unfortunately man is preyed upon by microbes, which are too small to be appreciated.

If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.

If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.

People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.

If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever. -An-mei

If you are leaving that sorrowful place with hate and anger against men, you are worthy of compassion; if you leave it with good will, gentleness and peace, you are better than any of us.

I'm alive. When I'm eating that's all I think about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight,it will be just as good a day as any to die. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. Life is the moment we are living now.

That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today. Let us treat men and women well; treat them as if they were real; perhaps they are.

Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.

we must not blame our poor symbols if they take forms that seem trivial to us, or absurd, ... however paltry they may be; the nature of our life alone has determined their forms.

None of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to put ourselves on the same plane as God — acting as if we had no needs, as if we were not creatures, not dependent on Him.

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?