Quotes on Would Be

The sum of evil, Pascal remarked, would be much diminished if men could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

A man sentenced to death obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty's horse to fly within the year - on the condition that if he didn't succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. "Within a year," the man explained later, "the king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. Furthermore, in a year, who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to fly." My philosophy is like that man's. I take the long-range view.

I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.

But what after all, behind appearances, is this seeming mystery? We can see that it is the Consciousness which had lost itself returning again to itself, emerging out of its giant self-forgetfulness, slowly, painfully, as a Life that is would be sentient, half-sentient, dimly sentient, wholly sentient and finally struggles to be more than sentient, to be again divinely selfconscious, free, infinite, immortal.

It would be hard to name a more certain sign of poor self-esteem than the need to perceive some other group as inferior.

There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each (inanimate) instrument could do its own work.

The whole world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young, and everlastingly harp on the fact they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution which would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curses of the world.

Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause, which secures us from the possibility of such oppression.

O Lord, if I could fly to my people and tell them of your goodness at the top of my voice, oh how many souls would be won!

So the point is, I don't have a right to tell anybody what's right or wrong about their lives. Who am I to tell you at any given moment of the day what would be right for you?

Most of us did not learn when we were young that our capacity to be self-loving would be shaped by the work we do and whether that work enhances our well-being.

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our own virtues.

The Negro. The South. These are the details. The real story is the universal one of men who destroy the souls of other men (and in the process destroy themselves) for reasons neither really understands. It is the story of the persecuted, the defrauded, the feared, and detested. I could have been a Jew in Germany, a Mexican in a number of states, or a member of any 'inferior' group. Only the details would have differed. The story would be the same.

You strayed from the way and did not return because you were ashamed. It would be more logical if you were ashamed not to return.

God being infinite beauty, the soul united to Christ draws upon himself the admiring and tender gaze of the Angels, who, were they capable of any passion, would be filled with envy at his lot.

If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.

You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I'm not writing 'The A-Team' - if there's a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder.