Quotes on Ifs

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

If you're looking to become an entrepreneur then don't waste your time going to university or business school - just get on and do it.

Small-scale fisheries should not be favoured over large-scale operations ebcause of romantic notions of rugged small operators battling both the elements and anonymous corporations. [They ought to be supported] because of the scientific evidence available to confirm the common-sense inference that local fishers, if given privileged access, will tend to avoid trashing their local stocks, while foreign fishers do not have such motivation.

What if someone gave a war and Nobody came?

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

This is where you see the truth of entertainment, because it is not edited. You see it on stage as it is happening. Even if we fall down or forget our words, it's a part of live entertainment.

If lyrics sold then truth be told/I'd probably be just as rich and famous as Jay-Z.

If you must say yes, say it with an open heart. If you must say no, say it without fear.

If you want to be happy, try only to please God, not people.

I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

When Berkshire buys common stock, we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business.

If we allow the celebrity rock-star model of leadership to triumph, we will see the decline of corporations and institutions of all types. The twentieth century was a century of greatness, but we face the very real prospect that the next century will see very few enduring great institutions.

If you will not have death unto sin, you shall have sin unto death. There is no alternative. If you do not die to sin, you shall die for sin. If you do not slay sin, sin will slay you.

If we must have a tyrant, let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher's cleaver.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens... if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly... to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it?

However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?

Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life....My precept is, do something, my sister, do good if you can; but at any rate, do something.

One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.

The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.