One Can Only Try Quotes & Sayings

People will always try to steal
your power. When you do well, they'll say it's only because you're rich and your parents are big shots. People who care about you will try to steal
your power, too, but they'll go about it differently. When you fail at something, they'll try to make you feel better by saying that nobody's good at
everything, and you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. They might tell you not to feel bad about screwing up a math test because math's hard for girls.
Or they'll say you shouldn't worry so much about injustice in the world because you're only one person. And even though they mean well, they'll be
making you less than what you can be. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

That's the problem with all of this. No matter how hard I try, I can't make it perfect. I can't keep it in a bottle, can't ignore reality. Chemicals are involved, the kind scientists try to synthesize and put into pill form, and they're making tremendous advances every day. They're winning the war against love. It's probably inevitable now. There are only two ways to see the world: either no one and nothing is connected to anything, or we are all a random series of carbon molecules connected to each other. Tell me if there's room for love in either of those scenarios. — Pete Wentz

Hey, bro, do you think you can put Shorty back on her chain?"
I stepped forward with my hands on my hips, only slightly intimidated to find Kaleb almost eye level with me when he was seated and I was standing.
"First of all, no one is the boss of me but me. Secondly, if you ever reference my 'chain' again, I will kick your ass." I jabbed him hard in the chest with my finger. Possibly breaking it. "And thirdly, don't call me Shorty."
Kaleb sat silently for a second, his eyes wide as he looked at Michael. "Where did you get her? Can you get me one?"
I blew out a loud, frustrated sigh and dropped down beside Michael, who didn't even try to hide his smile. "You should probably apologize to Emerson."
"I am sorry." Kaleb grinned at me. "Sorry I didn't meet you first. — Myra McEntire

What I would say is this: writing poems doesn't make you a poet. ... It is only with poetry, for some reason, that everyone wants to believe they can try their hand at it once in a while and be considered, can call themselves a poet. ... . It's a craft. It's an art. It's a skill. It is not therapy, and it is not compensation for terrible things in one's life. It is a thing in itself. You devote yourself to being an instrument of it, or you wander forever in the belief that it is a form of "self-expression." ... And I explained very clearly my opinion of what I think a poet, an artist is. Someone who puts this thing first. — Franz Wright

it is hard to find one's calling because many mistakenly believe they need to look only within to discover their passion. Although it is true that we have innate interests and talents, we often do not know what they are until we have real-life experiences. Having a wide range of experiences can help you uncover your inner passion. Try various part-time jobs and internships, or volunteer. Don't be afraid of rolling up your sleeves and diving in. While immersed in a job's reality, you will discover whether it's a good fit. Work experiences may unlock the door to a career opportunity you hadn't considered. Third, — Haemin Sunim

Do one thing every day that frightens you," Princess Mia advised her audience. "And never think that you can't make a difference. Even if you're only sixteen, and everyone is telling you that you're just a silly teenage girl - don't let them push you away. Remember one other thing Eleanor Roosevelt said: 'No one can make you feel inferior without your
consent.' You are capable of great things - never let anyone try to tell you that just because you've only been a princess for twelve days, you don't know what you're doing. — Meg Cabot

I believe that earning your living doing something you enjoy is one of the very best ways to nourish yourself. But even if you are employed at something that is not your ideal work, it is important to find ways to take as much pleasure in it as possible. Living in the present moment can make ordinary activities more interesting and joyful; you may be surprised, if you only look, at what you will find. If you try to stay connected with why you are doing what you are doing, for example, then even the parts of your life that aren't especially interesting can become more meaningful. — Nathaniel Branden

JAMIE'S SONG 'ONE HALF':

I wish you wouldn't try,
to find me where I hide.
I am fine where I reside,
So please don't follow.

I wish you wouldn't cry,
can't bear that in your eyes.
I am more than terrified.
Please say you won't go.

If I could make two of me,
you would get one half.
But there's only one of me,
and that's more than enough.

I wish you wouldn't want from me,
what I cannot give.
I wish you could be satisfied,
with what you now receive.

There is only one of me,
and I belong to her.
If I live another life,
hope you come before her. — Neha Yazmin

I personally think a lot of us feel ashamed when we try so hard to help someone, only to have that help thrown back in our face or ignored altogether, and we are doing ourselves such a disservice in feeling that way. It's important to speak up, and to talk to those closest to you so they can help you. No one who loves you will stand for you being manipulated or hurt, and you should not be ashamed to talk about it. He — Kristen Proby

Sometimes we must try to view the actions of those around us with forgiveness. We must realize that they are going on the only road they can see. Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another. — Lisa Wingate

Strange Love

Strange love, I'm experiencing a strange love
And all those funny funny things you do
They only drive me closer
And closer to you, yeah

Strange romance, they say I'll never ever ever ever have a chance
But every time I close my eyes
And try to realize it I find it harder
And harder to do

I wonder, I wonder if he ever thinks about me
And if it's so, I wanna know 'cause
Every day I love him more and more

Strange, strange affair, keep hoping that someday, one day you'll care
Enough to come into my arms so that I can give you
All my and all my, all my love, all my love, all my love, all my love
All my love, oh I just wanna give you all my love — Mary Wells

A Vietnamese saying has it that "Only those with long hair are afraid, for no one can pull the hair of those who have none." And so I try as much as possible to acquire only those things that don't extend beyond the limits of my body. — Kim Thuy

When one player is better than you, at this moment, the only thing you can do is work, try to find solutions and try to wait a little bit for your time. I'm going to wait and I'm going to try a sixth time. And if the sixth doesn't happen, a seventh. It's going to be like this. That's the spirit of sport. — Rafael Nadal

The United States is baiting China and Russia, and the final nail in the coffin will be Iran, which is, of course, the main target of Israel. We have allowed China to increase their military strength and Russia to recover from Sovietization, to give them a false sense of bravado, this will create an all together faster demise for them. We're like the sharp shooter daring the noob to pick up the gun, and when they try, it's bang bang. The coming war will be so severe that only one superpower can win, and that's us folks. This is why the EU is in such a hurry to form a complete superstate because they know what is coming, and to survive, Europe will have to be one whole cohesive state. Their urgency tells me that they know full well that the big showdown is upon us. O how I have dreamed of this delightful moment. — Henry Kissinger

You must think I'm a fool to even consider rejecting him.'
'My lady, I am a professional fool. I can say with certainty that you do not have the makings of one.'
She smirked. 'Then that's a relief.'
'Is it? Have you something against fools?'
'Not at all. Only, if I were as natural at foolishness as I am at poetry, I might try to take your position from you, and you seem so very well suited to it. — Marissa Meyer

Said Finn ... "Only remember, Clare. In a dream, what you want will come out, one way or the other. "
"So ... So I should be careful about what I want, then, right?"
"No, you can't be careful with what you want. Wanting isn't a pet who stays at your heels; it's a wild animal. You must become friendly with it. It will make an offer, and you will respond. Converse with what you want that way."
"So what should I try to want? What should I look for?"
"Never look for what you should want and desire, but what you do want and desire. You should know that from your poetry. It is the only way to 'make' true. What you desire will appear, no matter how you try to erase or recolor it."
"All right," said Clare. She turned her back on the ocean and the fire, and began to walk toward the dunes. — Katherine Catmull

No one is innocent in the tide of history. Everyone has kings and slaves in his past. Everyone has saints and sinners. We are not to blame for the actions of our ancestors. We can only try to be the best we can, no matter what our heritage, to strive for a better future for all. — Diana Peterfreund

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved. — Charlie Kaufman

Gregor grinned. "Congratulations to you, too, Miles. Your father before you needed a whole army to do it, but you've changed Barrayaran history just with a dinner invitation." Miles shrugged helplessly. God, is everybody going to blame me for this? And for everything that follows? "Let's try to avoid making history on this one, eh? I think we should push for unalleviated domestic dullness." "With all my heart," Gregor agreed. With a cheery salute, he cut the com. Miles laid his head down on the table, and moaned. "It's not my fault!" "Yes, it is," said Ivan. "It was all your idea. I was there when you came up with it." "No, it wasn't. It was yours. You're the one who dragooned me into attending the damned state dinner in the first place." "I only invited you. You invited Galeni. And anyway, my mother dragooned me." "Oh. So it's all her fault. Good. I can live with that." Ivan — Lois McMaster Bujold

I think that comics can do things movies can't and vice versa. In my opinion, you only expose their weaknesses if you try too hard at making one exactly like the other. — Lee Bermejo

When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before. — Benedict Cumberbatch

Um, yeah, it's one of the things that you kind of have to accept at the very beginning, like I'm not going to try and be super [deep?] factor and no, I can only do it this way, because that's just not how this film's going to work. Like it's got to be sort of a mesh of reality and complete unreality and you kind of have to accept that and go with it. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

America is a great country. We are so wealthy. But our one remaining challenge is to fulfill the potential of all our people. And the only way we can do that is to try to bring everybody together to a higher place. — Dick Gephardt

Once one recognizes the value of having difficult obstacles to overcome, it is a simple matter to see the true benefit that can be gained from competitive sports. In tennis who is it that provides a person with the obstacles he needs in order to experience his highest limits? His opponent, of course! Then is your opponent a friend or an enemy? He is a friend to the extent that he does his best to make things difficult for you. Only by playing the role of your enemy does he become your true friend. Only by competing with you does he in fact cooperate! No one wants to stand around on the court waiting for the big wave. In this use of competition it is the duty of your opponent to create the greatest possible difficulties for you, just as it is yours to try to create obstacles for him. Only by doing this do you give each other the opportunity to find out to what heights each can rise. — Zach Kleiman

Gradually it became clear that it is a fundamental error to try to give the sexual act a psychological interpretation, to attribute to it a psychic meaning as if it were a neurotic symptom. But this is what the psychoanalysts did. On the contrary: any idea occurring in the course of the sexual act only has the effect of hindering one's absorption in the excitation. Furthermore, such psychological interpretations of genitality constitute a denial of genitality as a biological function. By composing it of non-genital excitations, one denies the existence of genitality. The function of the orgasm, however, had revealed the qualitative difference between genitality and pregenitality. Only the genital apparatus can provide orgasm and can discharge sexual energy completely. Pregenitality, on the other hand, can only increase vegetative tensions. One readily sees the deep rift which formed here in psychoanalytic concepts. — Wilhelm Reich

But one cannot avenge a death, not really. One can only try to honor the memory of the dead by furthering their life's work to the best of one's ability. — Delphine Dryden

A photograph can communicate a couple things - and sometimes only one thing - very well. The more you try to say with your photograph, the greater the chance that you will say nothing at all. — David DuChemin

I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Nothing in life is easy. But that's no reason to give up. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish if you set your mind to it. After all, you only have one life, so you should try to make the most of it. — Louis Sachar

Why you frettin', Jo? You not sure?"
I inhaled my tears in order to speak. "I'm sure I want to go, but I'm not sure it's possible.Why would they accept me? And if they did, how would I pay for it? I don't want to get my hopes up only to be disappointed. I'm always disappointed."
"Now don't let fear keep you in New Orleans. Sometimes we set off down a road thinkin' we're goin' one place and we end up another. But that's okay. The important thing is to start. I know you can do it. Come on, Josie girl, give those ol' wings a try."
"Willie doesn't want me to."
"So what, you gonna stay here just so you can clean her house and run around with all the naked crazies in the Quarter? You got a bigger story than that. — Ruta Sepetys

There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man. — Alan Paton

While archetypes may emanate through us for short periods of time, in what we call numinous experience, no woman can emanate an archetype continuously. Only the archetype itself can withstand such projections such as ever-able, all giving, eternally energetic. We may try to emulate these, but they are ideals, not achievable by humans, and not meant to be. Yet the trap requires that women exhaust themselves trying to achieve these unrealistic levels. To avoid the trap, one has to learn to say 'Halt' and 'Stop the music,' and of course mean it. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

You can have compassion for someone who is suffering and try to help this person but if your relationship with mankind is only one of compassion, it is only another form of contempt and it prevents feelings like admiration, empathy which to my mind are much more positive. — Pascal Bruckner

When I read a book, I try my best, not always successfully, to let the wall crumble just a bit, the barricade that separates me from the book. I try to be involved.
I am Raskalnikov. I am K. I am Humbert and Lolita.
I am you.
If you read these pages and think I'm the way I am because I lived through a civil war, you can't feel my pain. If you believe you're not like me because one woman, and only one, Hannah, chose to be my friend, then you're unable to empathize. — Rabih Alameddine

The deep ecologists warn us not to be anthropocentric, but I know no way to look at the world, settled or wild, except through my own human eyes. I know that is wasn't created especially for my use, and I share the guilt for what members of my species, especially the migratory ones, have done to it. But I am the only instrument that I have access to by which I can enjoy the world and try to understand it. So I must believe that, at least to human perception, a place is not a place until people have been born in it, have grown up in it, have lived in it, known it, died in it
have both experienced and shaped it, as individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities, over more than one generation. Some are born in their place, some find it, some realize after long searching that the place they left is the one they have been searching for. But whatever their relation to it, it is made a place only by slow accrual, like a coral reef. — Wallace Stegner

Hate is a draining bottomless pit from whence nothing good or of any value can come. Try to eat a balanced diet. Guys only want one thing. — Christopher Meloni

This pen: this is nothing less than the driving of nails. Nails driving out my habits of discontent and driving in my habit of eucharisteo. I'm hammering in nails to pound out nails, ugly nails that Satan has pierced through the world, my heart. It starts to unfold, light in the dark, a door opening up, how all these years it's been utterly pointless to try to wrench out the spikes of discontent. Because that habit of discontentment can only be driven out by hammering in one iron sharper. The sleek pin of gratitude. I — Ann Voskamp

One percent of people will always be honest and never steal," the locksmith said. "Another one percent will always be dishonest and always try to pick your lock and steal your television. And the rest will be honest as long as the conditions are right - but if they are tempted enough, they'll be dishonest too. Locks won't protect you from the thieves, who can get in your house if they really want to. They will only protect you from the mostly honest people who might be tempted to try your door if it had no lock". — Dan Ariely

I think I can say without fear of inaccuracy that description is my strong point. Possibly this fact is central to my feeling excluded and so on in what might be called "the scene." There appears to be a particular divide in literature that has "description" and all it implies, as its focus. Some people hate "fancy writing," and just want to "cut to the chase," and so on. This attitude deeply irritates me. If you can't try and take words to their limit in the field of literature, then where can you? I actually think that variety is good, but it's usually the enemies of "fancy writing" who also seem to deplore variety and believe that there's only one way to write - without adverbs etc. etc. — Quentin S. Crisp

When we so fear the dark that we demand light around the clock, there can be only one result: artificial light that is glaring and graceless and, beyond its borders, a darkness that grows ever more terrifying as we try to hold it off. — Parker J. Palmer

If we live in our oneness-heart, we will feel the essence of all religions, which is love of God. But if we live in the mind, we will only try to separate one religion from another and see how their ideologies differ. It is the heart that can have a true intuitive understanding of the height and breadth of all religions. It is the heart that sees and feels the inner harmony and oneness of all religions. — Sri Chinmoy

She heard a crash from the galley as soon as she pulled it open. Peering down the hallway, she saw Wolf hunkered over a counter, holding a tin can.
Stepping into the galley's light, Scarlet saw that the can was labeled with a picture of cartoon-red tomatoes. Judging from the enormous dents in its side, Wolf had been trying to open it with a meat tenderizer.
He glanced up at her, and she was glad that she wasn't the only one red faced. "Why would they put food in here if they were going to make it so hard to open?"
She bit her lip against a weak smile, not sure if it was from pity or amusement. "Did you try a can opener? — Marissa Meyer

A city finds its life through the humans who inhabit it. When they go, what is truly left? Just silent stones, witnesses to the history but mute in its telling, remaining thus while slowly turning to rubble. It saddens me that life's moments are thus lost, that one cannot experience the past in the same rich vibrancy as the present. You live the moments and then relegate them to memory, now just two-dimensional shadows, pictures without depth, stripped of their purest emotion, their tactile connections no longer accessible. You try to recall, but can bring back only a fraction of the event lived. The rest is gone, never to be as full and complete as it was in that one place at that one time. That was what I thought as I studied these stone remains; that all the tangible things experienced here abide somewhere in time, but can never again be wholly re-animated, now just ghosts imbedded in the crumbling walls and in the fading memories of those who once lived here. — Michael Puttonen

Every deal can be closed. Every prospect can become a buyer. Every no can turn into a yes. In any market. In any economy. There is always an angle. There is always another attempt. There is no law against how much you can prospect, or how many times you can try to close a deal. There are more than enough ideas and millions of resources and billions of people out there to make any dream that you want, a reality. The only mental chain that will ever imprison you in a life of scarcity, is a belief that there is not enough, or that there is not a way to make what you want possible.

This chapter is going to awaken and stir up a monster of influence and achievement inside you. This monster works by being totally aware of all the resources that you have at your disposal, and not being afraid to any means to influence. "

Excerpt From: "Unlimited Influence: Sell Any Idea One On One - Chapter: Gun To Your Head — Jonathan DeCollibus

But my point, Mattie - if I have a point, Mattie - is this: kind of try to live up to the best that's in you. If you give your word to people, let them know that they're getting the word of the best. If you room with some dopey girl at college, try to make her less dopey. If you're standing outside a theater and some old gal comes up selling gum, give her a buck if you've got a buck - but only if you can do it without patronizing her. That's the trick, baby.' -Last Day of the Last Furlough — J.D. Salinger

Don't let others control who you should be, or try to make you do what you don't want to. It will eat away at your soul. Believe it or not, you are the maker of your own destiny. You are the only one who can make choices for yourself. Even when others are doing it now, it's cause you have chosen to allow them too. — Lola Lola

We children of public school age can do much to aid in the promotion of peace. We must try to train ourselves and those about us to live together with one another as good neighbors for this idea is embodied in the great new Charter of the United Nations. It is the only way to secure the world against future wars and maintain an everlasting peace. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The man who knows must discharge a function. The one who does not, cannot arrogate one to himself; he can only try to do so. — Idries Shah

Only when we try to understand one another's suffering can we begin to bring each other joy. — Jim Stovall

Now, ideals, conventions, even truth itself, are continually changing things so that the milk of one generation may be the poison of the next. The young Americans of my time have seen one of these transformations with their own eyes, and for this reason they will not make the initial mistake of trying to teach their children too much. Before a man is thirty he has already accumulated, along with a little wisdom, a great quantity of dust and rubbish in his mind, and the difficulty is to let the children profit by what is wise without unloading the dust and rubbish on them too. We can only try to do better at it than the last generation did - when a generation succeeds in doing it completely, in handing down all its discoveries and none of its delusions, its children shall inherit the earth. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Seeing the possibilities: It would be much easier to let go of outcomes if every choice turned out well. And why shouldn't it? In the one reality there are no wrong turns, only new turns. But the ego personality likes things to be connected. Coming in second today is better than coming in third yesterday, and tomorrow I want to come in first. This kind of linear thinking reflects a crude conception of progress. Real growth happens in many dimensions. What happens to you can affect how you think, feel, relate to others, behave in a given situation, fit into your surroundings, perceive the future, or perceive yourself. All these dimensions must evolve in order for you to evolve. Try to see the possibilities in whatever happens. — Deepak Chopra

This process of being mature in an anxious organisation has been likened to learning to sail against the wind; and as any sailor will tell you, this requires concentration and tolerating some tension as the wind pressures the vessel to let it take over the controls. Good skippers know how to tolerate sufficient tension to keep a steady course. They don't try to overpower their vessel with too much sail in order to get to the finish line faster, as they know this will inevitably knock them backwards. They also know not to panic and retreat to the safe harbour of familiarity. They focus on their key tasks of setting the course and letting the crew know their intensions so that each person can get on with focusing on their own tasks. There's only one path to growing this ability: through patient, thoughtful perseverance in the midst of experience ... no short cuts to be found. — Jenny Brown

All of this is such a long and dark and untellable story (untellable as all stories are). Meanwhile, one can only hold onto what is tangible and look at one's fingers, try to look into someone's eyes, and write down the sentences that are spoken, so that something is said by which one can begin to glimpse what really happened. — Ingeborg Bachmann

Loneliness is something that finds us all when we think about it and when we're by ourselves when we don't want to be. It creeps up when we desperately feel like we need someone special but can't seem to find anything more than a friend that wishes they could help. Sometimes a friend cannot be found when your willing to settle for one. Sometimes it passes quickly, and sometimes it sticks around to try to drive us to insanity. Its like a creature lying in wait to take us at our weakest moment, but only toying with us when we give up to it. In the end it always passes. There is always something to appreciate and someone to cheer us up. We adapt and overcome. Life is a gift with much more to it than a passing emotion. All around us are beautiful things to console us. Life is much more than one feeling. It is as great as we let it be. — Joshua Hartzell

The world has changed. It's gotten better. It's gotten worse. After all these years, Jenna's words still echo is my head, 'just as one problem is solved, a new one is created.' The work never ends. If there's one thing you can always count on in this world, it is change. I don't fear it the way I used to. I try to be read for it. One day, maybe, all the changes will be only for the good. I can dare to dream. I can always hope for more. — Mary E. Pearson

I have been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly ... I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely, and I think piety forbids me to try. — Marilynne Robinson

When I travel around the globe, I try as hard as I can to represent the NBA and the game of basketball to the best of my abilities. I get to go around the world and not only share the game but also my philanthropic work. Building a hospital in the Congo is one of the proudest achievements of my life. — Dikembe Mutombo

Her heart
is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or better than that, die for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think well of. And she says, that lady rich and beautiful that I can never come near, 'Only put me in that empty place, only try how little I mind myself, only prove what a world of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you might even come to be so much better than you are, through me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside you. — Charles Dickens

Very soon she'll join all the others who know the secret and will not tell it. Or cannot. Or try and fail because they do not know enough. They can be recognized. White faces, dazed eyes, aimless gestures, high-pitched laughter. The way they walk and talk and scream or try to kill (themselves or you) if you laugh back at them. Yes, they've got to be watched. For the time comes when they try to kill, then disappear. But others are waiting to take their places, it's a long, long line. She's one of them. I too can wait - for the day when she is only a memory to be avoided, locked away, and like all memories a legend. Or a lie ... — Jean Rhys

The only way to escape misrepresentation is never to commit oneself to any critical judgement that makes an impact - that is, never to say anything. I still, however think that the best way to promote profitable discussion is to be as clear as possible with oneself about what one sees and judges, to try and establish the essential discriminations in the given field of interest, and to state them as clearly as one can (for disagreement, if necessary). — F.R. Leavis

The clean clear colours were in my head. But one day as I looked at the brown burned wood of the Shanty, I thought 'I can paint one of those dismal-coloured paintings like the men. I think
just for fun I will try - all low-toned and dreary with the tree besides the door.' In my next show, 'The Shanty' went up. The men seemed to approve of it. They seemed to think that maybe I
was beginning to paint ... that was my only low-toned dismal-coloured painting. — Georgia O'Keeffe

You try never to strike anyone, but when you must, you strike only one blow, but such a harsh one that your enemy can never, never strike back. — Orson Scott Card

It is certainly true that most men need some kind of a God. A few, and they are the men of genius, do not bow to an alien law. The rest try to justify their doings and misdoings, their thinking and existence (at least the menial side of it), to some one else, whether it be the personal God of the Jews, or a beloved, respected, and revered human being. It is only in this way that they can bring their lives under the social law ... — Otto Weininger

But, of course, we cannot choose. We can only try to cope. That is what one does with sorrow, with tragedy, with any misfortune. We do not try to explain it. We do not try to explain it. We do not justify it by telling ourselves that we somehow deserve it. We do not even accept it. We survive it. We recognize its unfairness and defiantly choose to go on living. — Harold S. Kushner

The more extensive the revolution, the more considerable the chances of the war that it
implies. The society born of the revolution of 1789 wanted to fight for Europe. The society born of the
1917 revolution is fighting for universal dominion. Total revolution ends by demanding - we shall see
why - the control of the world. While waiting for this to happen, if happen it must, the history of man, in
one sense, is the sum total of his successive rebellions. In other words, the movement of transition which
can be clearly expressed in terms of space is only an approximation in terms of time. What was devoutly
called, in the nineteenth century, the progressive emancipation of the human race appears, from the
outside, like an uninterrupted series of rebellions, which overreach themselves and try to find their
formulation in ideas, but which have not yet reached the point of definitive revolution where everything
in heaven and on earth would be stabilized. — Albert Camus

Nobles' sons are one of nature's great destructive forces, like floods or tornadoes. When you're struck with one of these catastrophes, the only thing an average man can do is grit his teeth and try to minimize the damage. — Patrick Rothfuss

When you're on stage performing stand-up, things only happen one time. I've done bits where I improv a joke, and people are dying. The next show, I try to repeat it, I can't do it. Because with the first audience that was our moment. It can't happen the same way again. We were all there: a certain type of people were at that show and we all got it. — J. B. Smoove

Stop looking at me like that," I say, frowning and rubbing at my chest. He has this habit of making my heart sore, making my lungs feel like there's not enough air.
He tilts his head attractively, which only makes matters worse. "Like what?"
"Like you're molesting me with your eyes," I blurt out.
His answering laugh is long and deep. I can barely handle the affection in his gaze. "Okay, I'll try to stop. But if it all gets to be too much for you, this apartment happens to have a very nice bathroom. You can go rub one out again to take the edge off. I'll come listen, too, if that will help."
There he goes again, pushing me.
I do a slow blink at him before coming out with a rather masterful comeback. And when I say "masterful," I mean shit. "Why don't you go and rub one out?"
He cocks an eyebrow. "I don't rub out, darlin'. I jack off. — L. H. Cosway

Kids who are least impressive in my class are the ones who only listen to one kind of music. They only listen to country or only to rap or to gospel or anything. It's a sad thing. I try really hard to get them to go out and listen to things. It's amazing what you learn ... I'm still trying to learn. It's not like I'm going to be a calypso singer. That's not going to happen, but I'm sure there's something in that, that I can learn from and apply to my own work. — Andy Wilkinson

Heartbreak is more common than happiness. No one wants to say that, but it's true. We're taught to believe not only that everyone deserves a happy ending, but that if we try hard enough, we will get one. That's simply no the case. Happy endings, life long loves, are the products of both effort and luck. We can control them, to some extent and though our feelings always seem to have a life of their own, we can at least be open to love. But, luck, the other component, well there's nothing we can do about that one. Call it God's plan or predestination or divine intervention, but we're all at its mercy. And sometimes God isn't very merciful. Jane taught me that. — Beth Pattillo

Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you. — George Harrison

There's only one response, and I can tell you this because I see it every day. You LIVE. And you throw yourself into everything and try not to think about the bruises. — Jojo Moyes

When you believe you have found an important scientific fact, and are feverishly curious to publish it, constrain yourself for days, weeks, years sometimes, fight yourself, try and ruin your own experiments, and only proclaim your discovery after having exhausted all contrary hypotheses. But when, after so many efforts you have at last arrived at a certainty, your joy is one of the greatest which can be felt by a human soul. — Louis Pasteur

To the grumbler who complains about the unfairness of the market system only one piece of advice can be given: If you want to acquire wealth, then try to satisfy the public by offering them something that is cheaper or which they like better ... Equality under the law gives you the power to challenge every millionaire. — Ludwig Von Mises

When the mainstay of one's world is taken away, it's only natural to cling to all the rest, to try desperately to keep things as close to the way they were as one can." He shook his head sorrowfully. "But no one can ever go back to yesterday. — Robin Hobb

We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology however frank and open our behaviour we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If you asked someone, 'Can you play the violin?' and he says, 'I don't know, I have not tried, perhaps I can,' you laugh at him. Whereas about writing, people always say: 'I don't know, I have not tried,' as though one had only to try and one would become a writer. — Leo Tolstoy

The point is that only one thing matters in this world, to prepare oneself for death. One can try to be as comfortable as possible until one dies ... Because being comfortable does not have any meaning either. It just does not. Everything is only a big meaninglessness that one must bear. — Odd Nerdrum

It really so in your souls? Are you now henceforth dead to the world, and dead to sin, and quickened into the life of Christ? If you are so, then the text will bear to you a third and practical meaning, for it will not merely be true that your old man is condemned to die and a new nature is bestowed, but in your common actions you will try to show this by newness of actual conduct. Evils which tempted you at one time will be unable to beguile you now because you are dead to them: the charms of the painted face of the world will no longer attract your attention, for your eyes are blind to such deceitful beauties. You have obtained a new life which can only be satisfied by new delights, which can only be motivated by new purposes and constrained by new principles suitable to its own nature. This — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Being a philosophical naturalist does not mean that one thinks that science can provide all of the answers. That is scientism and that is wrong. I don't think a billion buckets of science could speak to the problems raised by the Tea Party. Being a philosophical naturalist does not mean that one thinks that the only truths are those of science. I think the claim just made in the last sentence is true but I don't think it is a claim of science. It means that you use science where you can and you respect and try to emulate its standards. — Michael Ruse

Such a women as you a hundred men always convet - your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unvailing fancy for you - you can only marry one of that many ... The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all of these men will be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have married are saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to her race. — Thomas Hardy

I change the channel to another movie. An old one, but new to me. And, ironically, a thin, gorgeous blonde - Meg Ryan, maybe - rides her bike on a country road. She smiles like she has no cares in the world. Like no one ever judges her. Like her life is perfect. Wind through her hair and sunshine on her face. The only thing missing are the rainbows and butterflies and cartoon birds singing on her shoulder.

Maybe I should grab my bike and try to catch up with Mom, Mike, and the kids. They can't be going very fast. I would love to feel like that, even if it's just for a second - free and peaceful and normal.
Suddenly, there's a truck. It can't be headed toward Meg Ryan. Could it? Yes. Oh my God. No! Meg Ryan just got hit by that truck.

Figures. See what happens when you exercise? — K.A. Barson

Americans should never forget that the founders of this country, like all who have served her in uniform, were willing to die defending everything its flag represents. It's so easy to get lost in the controversies that divide us. But I believe, no matter what our race, religion, or beliefs may be, that Americans should be able to come together to keep our country rooted in what made it great: a land of opportunity, a place where people can make something of themselves, limited only by their imaginations and willingness to work hard; a country where we can all come together, whatever our differences, for the greater good; a country of hands up, not handouts, where we try to live by the meaning of the words "Love thy neighbor," and put as much effort into helping others as we do helping ourselves. By doing those things, we can continue to live up to the idea of "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. — Marcus Luttrell

I try not to repeat myself. It's the hardest thing in the world to do-there are only so many notes one human being can master ... One of the reasons we're going out on the road and why we're titling this tour as "Musicology" is because we want to bring that back. We want to teach the kids and musicians of the future the art of song writing, the art of real musicianship. — Prince

No point in thinking," she said briskly, "you just have to get on with life." (She really was turning into Miss Woolf.) "We only have one after all, we should try and do our best. We can never get it right, but we must try." (The transformation was complete.) "What if we had a chance to do it again and again," Teddy said, "until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?" "I think it would be exhausting. — Kate Atkinson

You will fall in love with someone for one night and one night only. They'll come to you when you need them and be gone in the morning when you don't. At first, this will make you feel empty and you'll try to convince yourself that you could've loved this person for longer than a night, but you can't. Some people are just meant to make cameo appearances, some are destined to be a pithy footnote. That's okay though. Not every person we love has to stick around. Sometimes it's better to leave while you're still ahead. Sometimes it's better to leave before you get unloved. — Ryan O'Connell

We are not like the social insects. They have only the one way of doing things and they will do it forever, coded for that way. We are coded differently, not just for binary choices, go or no-go. We can go four ways at once, depending on how the air feels: go, no-go, but also maybe, plus what the hell let's give it a try. — Lewis Thomas

But sometimes things happen that no one hopes for. Events that cause everything you've worked towards, the life you've carefully constructed piece by piece, to come tumbling down all around you. No one is to blame, but you're left with a wound you can't heal on your own and can't believe you'll ever learn to accept, so you struggle to escape the pain. Only time can heal wounds as deep as that - a lot of time - and all you can really do is place yourself in its hands and try to consider the passing of each day a victory. You tough it out moment by moment, hour by hour, and after some weeks or months you begin to see signs of recovery. Slowly the wound heals into a scar. — Ryu Murakami

My dear Mrs. Ali, I would hardly refer to you as old," he said. "You are in what I would call the very prime flowering of mature womanhood." It was a little grandiose but he hoped to surprise a blush. Instead she laughed out loud at him. "I have never heard anyone try to trowel such a thick layer of flattery on the wrinkles and fat deposits of advanced middle age, Major," she said. "I am fifty-eight years old and I think I have slipped beyond flowering. I can only hope now to dry out into one of those everlasting bouquets. — Helen Simonson

They can't beat when I'm unhappy. They try and fix it; they'd fix the whole world if they could, just to make me feel better-even when it's none of their business. It's one of the many hazards of being an only child. — E. Lockhart

There is one thing that, more than any other, throws people absolutely off their balance - the thought that you are dependent upon them. This is sure to produce an insolent and domineering manner towards you. There are some people, indeed, who become rude if you enter into any kind of relation with them; for instance, if you have occasion to converse with them frequently upon confidential matters, they soon come to fancy that they can take liberties with you, and so they try and transgress the laws of politeness. This is why there are so few with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with vulgar people. If a man comes to think that I am more dependent upon him than he is upon me, he at once feels as though I had stolen something from him; and his endeavor will be to have his vengeance and get it back. The only way to attain superiority in dealing with men, is to let it be seen that you are independent of them. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Joe, you did fine," Mercer says. "You were great. But there is no question that we are in the shit. We are in the savage jungle. For some reason, which I do not yet apprehend, there are titans stirring in the deeps and shadows on the stairwell. As my youngest cousin Lawrence would say, we are up to our necks in podu. This, incidentally, is Reggie, who is one of my occasional thugs," indicating the gnarled youth on his left. "Now retiring to become a vet, would you believe, but for the next ten minutes you can trust him with your life, only don't, trust me instead. Anyway ... good evening, and what the fuck is going on, and try the lamb, it's excellent. — Nick Harkaway

If you try, you will find it impossible to do one great thing. You can only do many small things with great love. — Mother Teresa

I can say that I am only human and I have made mistakes. I can say that I try to live my life in the most true, honest way that I can. I am not perfect, no one is. No one is harder on me than me. No one can please everyone. No one can live in the past and expect to grow. I have been moving forward and hope that I am not defined by just a few moments in my life but all of the moments that will make up my life. — Chris Brown

Never be ashamed,' he said. 'Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.'
'How will I know which is which?'
'By the taste. You can only know a good wine if you have first tasted a bad one. — Paulo Coelho

Art is a meta-language, with the help of which people try to communicate with one another; to impart information about themselves and assimilate the experience of others. Again, this has not to do with practical advantage but with realising the idea of love, the meaning of which is in sacrifice: the very antithesis of pragmatism. I simply cannot believe that an artist can ever work only for the sake of 'self-expression.' Self-expression if meaningless unless it meets with a response. For the sake of creating a spiritual bond with others it can only be an agonising process, one that involves no practical gain: ultimately it is an act of sacrifice. But surely it cannot be worth the effort merely for the sake of hearing one's own echo? — Andrei Tarkovsky

From now on, don't do this, even for me. We don't have an employer-employee relationship right now. I'm a person and you're a person. Why does it have to be so one-sided? Why do only women ... Why only you, Yoo Kyeong, have to do things like that? 'So, I'll try to look good, in any way that I can.' Let go of such thoughts. When you're on TV, you look wonderful, full of confident. You shine. — Lee Se-joo

Many guilty consciences have been created by the slave trade. Europeans know that they carried on the slave trade, and Africans are aware that the trade would have been impossible if certain Africans did not cooperate with slave ships. To ease their guilty consciences, Europeans try to throw the major responsibility for the slave trade on to the Africans. One major author on the slave trade (appropriately titled Sins of Our Fathers) explained how many white people urged him to state that the trade was the responsibility of African chiefs, and that Europeans merely turned up to buy captives- as though without European demand there would have been captives sitting on the beach by the millions! Issues such as those are not the principal concern of this study, but they can be correctly approached only after understanding that Europe became the center of a world-wide system and that it was European capitalism which set slavery and the Atlantic slave trade in motion. Pg. 82 — Walter Rodney

One of the commonest causes of failure in Christian life is found in the attempt to follow some good man whom we greatly admire. No man and no woman, no matter how good, can be safely followed. If we follow any man or woman, we are bound to go astray. There has been but one absolutely perfect Man on this earth-the Man Christ Jesus. If we try to follow any other man we are surer to imitate his faults than his excellencies. Look to Jesus and Jesus only as your Guide. — R.A. Torrey

They're on a cusp; a highly heterogeneous but highly connected
and stressedly connected
civilization. I'm not sure that one approach could encompass the needs of their different systems. The particular stage of communication they're at, combining rapidity and selectivity, usually with something added to the signal and almost always with something missed out, means that what passes for truth often has to travel at the speed of failing memories, changing attitudes, and new generations. Even when this form of handicap is recognized all they ever try to do, as a rule, is codify it, tidy it up. Their attempts of filter become part of the noise, and they seem unable to bring any more thought to bear on the matter than that which leads them to try and simplify what can only be understood by coming to terms with its complexity. — Iain M. Banks

But one place ain't no different from no place else. People try and make it like everything's new only to find the devil done followed you wherever you moved and all you can do is hold him off whiles you catch your breath — Amina Gautier