Quotes & Sayings About Not Wanting What Others Have

When we think of a criminal, we imagine someone with criminal motives. And when we look at Eichmann, he doesn't actually have any criminal motives. Not what is usually understood by "criminal motives." He wanted to go along with the rest. He wanted to say "we," and going-along-with-the-rest and wanting-to-say-we like this were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible. The Hitlers, after all, really aren't the ones who are typical in this kind of situation
they'd be powerless without the support of others. — Hannah Arendt

You have to want to put a competitive, Stanley Cup-caliber team on the ice in contrast to wanting to hopefully someday financially break even. So you have to really balance expenses with revenue. — Henry Samueli

I can't imagine the scientists wanting me to walk into the lab and start fiddling around with some big bowl of electrons they had out. — Jim Benton

I was so in love with books from as early as I remember that it seemed a natural step to want to create them. And so I just wanted to be a writer from a very young age. And I think that the lies were just a natural side effect of me wanting to tell stories and write them down. — Marie Rutkoski

I'm a walker. I enjoy walking, which I think psychologically expresses my feelings of wanting liberation without exerting myself too much. — Janeane Garofalo

I decided to start my own label because so many people with talent come to me wanting to know how they can get in the music business. — Mary J. Blige

Motherhood is a constant battle of wanting to go to bed early so you can catch up on sleep and wanting to stay awake so you can enjoy some peace and sanity! — Tanya Masse

To me, wanting every habitable planet to be inhabited is like wanting everybody to have athlete's foot. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

So what? You act all mysterious to seem more interesting?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're always wandering off or running away," he said. "But you're a lot more
interesting when you're just being yourself you know. When you're actually here."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emma said coldly. "Where else would I be?"

"You know what I mean," he said, a rough edge to his voice. "It's like you're so busy trying not to act like your family that you've never even stopped to consider that it might not be such a bad thing."

"Well what about you?" she shot back, aware of the bitterness in her words.
"You complain about your dad not wanting you around, and then you complain when he wants you to stay home for school. You can't have it both wars."

"Well neither can you," he said. " You can't keep everyone at arms length and then expect them to be there for you when you need them. — Jennifer E. Smith

You know, wanting what you have is supposedly the secret of happiness. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

I'm convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I "should be" and what i am. My anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. It seems to begin whenever I smuggle into my mind an expectation about how I or others should be. It is the tension between my desire to control the world and the recognition that I can't. "I will be what I will be" - where is the anxiety in that ? Anxiety is the recognition that I might not reach the rung on the opinion ladder I have just set for my self. I fear death most when I am about to exceed what I believe others think of me; then death threatens to cut me off from myself, because "myself" is not yet. — Hugh Prather

Enthusiasm brings an enormous empowerment into what you do, so that all those who have not accessed that power would look upon "your" achievements in awe and may equate them with who you are. You, however, know the truth that Jesus pointed to when he said, "I can of my own self do nothing."3 Unlike egoic wanting, which creates opposition in direct proportion to the intensity of its wanting, enthusiasm never opposes. It is non-confrontational. Its activity does not create winners and losers. It is based on inclusion, not exclusion, of others. It does not need to use and manipulate people, because it is the power of creation itself and so does not need to take energy from some secondary source. — Eckhart Tolle

Before entering into any kind of intimate relationships, whether friendship, familial re-connection, or romance, the idea of "needing" or "being needed" must be eliminated. It's harmful to me and others. Need is no kind of foundation for anything. Rather, I choose to be wanted. "Want" is a deliberate choice. Wanting is not based in fear or ego (which are one in the same, I believe). Want comes from recognition of someone else's goodness and loving them for it. Being wanted is unconditional. It does not require emotional games be played, it does not require reparations be made or obligations be met. Being wanted is good, in and of itself. — Jennifer DeLucy

I used to think I'd be just like them when I grew up, but I am not. And the thing is, somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting to be like them, anyway. — Jodi Picoult

The truth a fairly important thing to hold on to when you've been pulled out of the sea after wanting to drown in it. I could've let the sea take me. I could easily be dead now, which is funny when you think of it. When I say funny, what I actually mean is weird and kind of disturbing.
When there's the loud sound of a siren screaming in your head it doesn't take too long before a feeling of not caring what happens washed over you and you become recklessly self- destructive. I used to be full of energy and happiness but I could barely remember those kinds of feelings. The cheerful, childish things I used to think had been replaced. A whole load of new realisations had begun to grow inside me like tangled weeds, and they were starting to kill me. That's why I'd make the decision that involved heading ogg to the pier on my pike in the middle of the night and cycling off it. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Our knowledge of what the richer than ourselves possess, and the poor do not, has never been more widespread. Therefore, envy, which is wanting what others have, and jealousy, which is not wanting others to have what one has, have never been more widespread. — John Fowles

There was a combination of not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, but also really not wanting to be stuck in Lord of the Rings for the rest of my life, and being desperate to kind of make sure that I could do something else with my life. — Sean Astin

This praise, though far from fulsome, gave me pleasure and that is to my shame. But there was something in him, some power of spirit, that made me want to please him. Perhaps, it occurs to me now, it was no more than the intensity of his wish. Men are distinguished by the power of their wanting. What this one wanted became his province and his meal, he governed it and fed on it from the first moment of desire. Besides, with the perversity of our nature, being tested had made me more desire to succeed, though knowing the enterprise to be sinful. — Barry Unsworth

You are not angry when you don't get what you want, because your wanting it was simply a preference, not a necessity. You therefore have no fear associated with the possibility of not getting it. Hence, no anger. You are not angry when you see others doing what you don't want them to do, because you don't need them to do or not do any particular thing. Hence, no anger. You are not angry when someone is unkind, because you have no need for them to be kind. You have no anger when someone is unloving, because you have no need for them to love you. You have no anger when someone is cruel, or hurtful, or seeks to damage you, for you have no need for them to behave any other way, and you are clear that you cannot be damaged. You do not even have anger should someone seek to take your life, because you do not fear death. — Neale Donald Walsch

When we use these words and we talk about plants having a strategy to do this or wanting this or desiring this, we're being metaphorical obviously. I mean, plants do not have consciousness. But, this is a fault of our own vocabulary. We don't have a very good vocabulary to describe what others species do to us, because we think we're the only species that really does anything. — Michael Pollan

Happiness is wanting what you have. — Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

I always tell Asian actors, especially Filipinos wanting to break into Hollywood, to study, study and study and show their best. I haven't stopped studying. There's an abundance of roles, and all you have to do is prove to them that you are good for the role. — Reggie Lee

Jimmy suspected him of wanting to make Grandmaster, not because it meant anything but just because it was there. — Margaret Atwood

Have I added to their building blocks, shoring them up with strength and their own magnificence? Have I shown them enough color? Did I let them have enough ice cream and leave them alone enough without my anxieties? How can we know which is the right way? We have to go with our inner instincts and the feeling in our bones. But I can contribute to their growing cells, show them some foods that are better than others, walk with them, and encourage their own tastes. I can teach them to love and appreciate food, help them treat their bodies like gold, listen to them wanting more or less. The rest I have to trust. — Tessa Kiros

It means what you are, wanting what you want and going after it without a sens od shame. People are slaves to rules. — Milan Kundera

To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Everything we have today that's cool comes from someone wanting more of something they loved in the past. Action figures, videogames, superhero movies, iPods: All are continuations of a love that wanted more. — Patton Oswalt

Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money. — Joseph Sobran

How do you resign yourself to something that will never be? You stop wanting just that thing. You go numb. Or you kill the agent of desire. — Jenny Holzer

The longer you stay in the job that you do the more you learn about what those around you do. As an actor I've always nosed around apologetically about: "oh wouldn't it be interesting if I could do that?" I can't imagine not wanting to do this everyday. — Jason Bateman

They hurt each other without wanting to, just because each represented to the others the cruel and demanding necessity of their lives. — Albert Camus

I have a very genuine care for individuals; I have a very genuine sense of the power of individuals to make a difference, a very genuine belief that people matter, a very genuine belief of wanting the very best for individuals. — Gail Kelly

The trouble with wanting to do the right thing is that frequently the right thing today is the wrong thing for tomorrow, or the wrong thing for the people who are standing between you and your perfect, platonic future. — Seanan McGuire

The whole 'American Idol' way of looking at things is the antithesis of what I grew up with. There are a whole lot of kids wanting to be famous now, whereas if I'd even mentioned that word to one of my teachers, I would have got into a whole load of trouble. — Harry Connick Jr.

You don't have to get in or out of a position all at once. Avoid the temptation of wanting to be completely right. — Jack D. Schwager

All the things that happen to people in the industry today, the actors, what they have to put up with, all the people wanting to know every single moment of their lives - I think it's really sad. — Tab Hunter

The whole idea of everybody wanting to be somebody new was an important insight in terms of liking God — Donald Miller

I wanted to earn a living wage and to see something nice about me in the 'New York Times.' I wanted my mother to be proud. I wanted all the things you want and also feel silly for wanting. I wanted readers to say they'd enjoyed something of mine - to see my photo in magazines where I'd seen photos of other writers. — David Lipsky

It started off for me as just wanting to be an actor and sort of resenting in a weird way being expected to write as well as be a comedian and an improviser. And then you think about it for a minute, and I smartened up and realized that the only way to sustain a career is to generate your own material. Or to be in control of your career as best you can. And in allowing yourself to do that it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. And then you're like "Oh, producing is a thing." — Rob Corddry

When I was a kid, I would do stupid things on my bike. I'd jump any ramp, I'd jump over people, I'd jump over things - always crashing, never hurting myself badly but always wanting to take physical risks. — Eric Bana

I never knew anything other than wanting to be an entrepreneur. I tried my first business when I was 6 years old, and I started another business when I was 8. I don't think I knew anything besides that. — Daymond John

When I'm working, I have a hard time switching off, and when I'm not working, I have a hard time thinking of ever wanting to work again. — Natalie Massenet