Pay My Dues Quotes & Sayings

The new century demands new partnerships for peace and security. The United Nations plays a crucial role, with allies sharing burdens America might otherwise bear alone. America needs a strong and effective U.N. I want to work with this new Congress to pay our dues and our debts. We must continue to support security and stability in Europe and Asia - expanding NATO and defining its new missions, maintaining our alliance with Japan, with Korea, with our other Asian allies, and engaging China. — William J. Clinton

In order to deserve, we must pay our dues and steadily work for perfection. We must relish in struggle, and relinquish pride. We must dispel fear and seek enlightenment. We must shun division and honor love. We must know our hearts and seek to understand others. We must try, live, create, feel, grow and love. — Bryant McGill

You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues ... And you know it don't come easy. — Ringo Starr

Let me tell you something: I have members in my charter who, after paying their rent and house bills and taking care of their families, don't even have enough money left over to pay the fifteen dollars a week dues. — Chuck Zito

Posterity will pay everyone their due. — Tacitus

Third box car, midnight train, destination Bangor, Maine. Old worn out suit and shoes, I don't pay no union dues. — Roger Miller

When you play the bars, you pay your dues. It does matter that you know those things [songs]. And the great thing for me, too, is that I draw on that stuff as influences. It's also stuff that you put in the tank that you pull from to make records. — Eric Church

If you've never been on anything before, they're not going to take a risk and give you a huge job 90 percent of the time. There are exceptions to that. I certainly wasn't an exception to that. I had to pay my dues big time, but I wish somebody would have explained, 'Look, your job is not to get work. Your job is to get better.' — Christine Woods

What you want is for music to love you back. That's why you pay your dues. You want to feel like you belong and are part of this symbiosis, metamorphosis, whatever you want to call it. — Tom Waits

I think the fear of being seen as childish or crazy severely limits our enjoyment of the world around us, thus inducing a state of boredom that in turn gives rise to much of the stupidity and meanness that oftem seem to epitomize the human condtion. In fact, these ills merely signify that the dues we pay for adult respectability are far too high, and bring some 'benefits' of questionable value. — D. Patrick Miller

Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

You got to pay your dues, too. So you be careful how you live and what goes in that Bank of Life. You are going to get it back ... someday. I can sure tell you that! — J. California Cooper

Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years. — Alex Haley

Writing screenplays is incredibly hard. I can't call it joy. Writing Novels? Joy. Directing? Joy. Writing Screenplays? That's where you pay all your dues. — Stephen Chbosky

I also believe that member states of the United Nations should live up their obligations to pay their dues. — Alex Morrison

I'm in five guilds; that's a lot of dues to pay. So I have to keep on working. — Griffin Dunne

Bands should definitely pay some dues and go through it, go to small clubs, build a fan base, all that kind of stuff, because it's not real, otherwise. — Brian Bell

Whenever someone forces me to do something against my will, they're infringing upon my freedoms and my liberties. And that's what I think we're doing in Maine when we have fair share, which means that you are required to belong to a union, you're required to pay dues, but you don't want to participate. — Paul LePage

I can act. I've been acting for a long time, but like anything else, don't nobody owe you nothing. You've go to pay your dues. You go from A to Z; you don't go from M to Z. — Bernie Mac

Still,' whispered Jack, 'you have to keep at it. Overcome the miseries of vomiting and the whirling pit. Pay your dues and work towards the real rewards of big-time adult drinking. Something to look forward to. — Robert Rankin

Back when I was a devout Pharisee, I scowled at those who talked about grace, assuming they wanted both salvation and permission to do whatever they pleased. And when I came to discover grace as a biblical concept, it frightened me at first. The old idea of being saved by works has its benefits. It's a system where God owes you. You've been helping him out with all your good deeds. He can't very well put you through difficulty, since you're a taxpayer. You've paid your dues, you have your rights. But the beyond-belief teaching of grace is that we get what we can never pay for and more, including joy and hope and the desire to please him. I like living by God's grace a lot better than relying on my own efforts. — Phil Callaway

I've done stuff to pay my dues and that's what actors are supposed to do, because I was a really bad actor when I was 18 or 20. — Rachael Taylor

In Maine, nobody is required to belong to a union or pay dues. — Cynthia Dill

My preference is that employees pay their union dues, but what I also get is that I'd rather someone be in the union than not in the union. — Bill Shorten

I want to change things on my own terms, to show that there's no right or wrong way to change the world. There's no entry test. You don't need to suck anything up. Pay any dues. Just you and your anger and your voice is enough. If you only have the courage to use it. — Holly Bourne

I think I've been around for a while. But I still have to pay my dues. — Ed Sheeran

I knew that because of who I am, and the situation I'm in, that I'd attract more critics than your average person, and that was a little intimidating, but I wanted to get out there and pay my dues. — Lisa Marie Presley

No one sits in front of a drum set and thinks they invented it all out of whole cloth. The fact that the set is there means that you've got some dues to pay to Baby Dodds. — John Zorn

You know what - gyms make the largest chunk of their profit from clients who pay their monthly dues on auto-pay but never bother to show up and use the gym. The DVD-rental companies make a good chunk of their profits from late fees; the credit-card companies make a fortune on sundry fines and penalties; the airlines' margins are highest on ticket changes and cancellations ... So, the key to running a successful business in America is to sign up a customer and pray he'll somehow screw up ... — Ali Sheikh

You gotta pay your dues to sing the blues. — Carol Plum-Ucci

You have to pay your dues. And what's nice, after booking a lot of new people ... I counted the other day. We're in September and we've already booked between 30 or 40 people who've never done the show before. — Scott Aukerman

Sometimes the dues we pay to maintain integrity are pretty high, but the ultimate cost of moral compromise is so much higher. — Michael Josephson

One thing about excellence, it's an exclusive club. And it's only for those who really want to pay dues to the s
. My daddy told me when I was a boy: The only way you can be different from other people is to do some s
they don't want to do. — Wynton Marsalis

We pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self denial, anxiety and discouragement. — L.M. Montgomery

You got to pay your dues to get the joke. Besides, laughter is cheap and very portable. If there's a pogrom, or they're blaming you for the plague, nothing is easier to pack than a sense of humor. — Lenny Bruce

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool - and I'm not any of those - to say that I don't write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues. — Maya Angelou

The idea that we need to "pay our dues" is a lie told to us by people who wanted our efforts and labor on the cheap. — James Altucher

When the country's indebtedness is so colossal and where the budget deficit is so huge, there is a moral obligation on people to pay their fair and reasonable dues. — John Caudwell

The religious heritage sort of suggests implicitly and explicitly that you pay your dues and you get your reward later on, that's a little inconsistent with the notion of personal, happiness. I am a strong believer in a set of values that are rooted in the notion of happiness and personal fulfillment. — Hugh Hefner

I vow to serve, to pay my dues
And train myself for Legal use.
I vow to bear the Surplus shame
And repay Nature for the same
I vow to listen, not to speak;
To steel myself when I am weak.
I vow to work and most of all
To serve the State if it should call. — Gemma Malley

For 200 years, the dominant powers have also been the colonial powers: the European countries, the U.S. and Japan. They have never been required to pay their dues for what they did to those whom they possessed and treated with contempt. — Martin Jacques

Many blue-collar families struggling to pay rent would be happy to skip paying optional union dues. — Kevin O'Leary

A lot of people feel that way. That if you didn't pay your dues by being ostracized then you're not *really* a geek.
I don't think that though. It's not an exclusive club that you need to pay some social price to get in. Being a geek is about loving something passionately beyond all reason or sense. And it need not necessarily be related to science fiction, fantas, superheroes, etcetera. You can be a gardening geek, a model train geek, stamp collecting geek, a baby geek ...
It's about enthusiasm, in my opinion.
From his blog RE: Thirty years of D&D — Patrick Rothfuss

Nonsense,' said Bjartur, 'there's nothing lucky about it at all. I will have no truck with superstition. She can lie where she is, the old bitch.' 'Let me down to give her a stone, Bjartur.' 'What the devil does she want with a stone? No stone from me or mine. We pay our dues to the living, which is more to the point than pandering to people that have been fried in hell for centuries. — Halldor Laxness

You've got to clock the hours and pay your dues. Then eventually, people will come to you. You have to be patient and appreciative. — Elisabeth Rohm

The structure that is currently in place, inside government, forcing government employees to pay union dues, even if they don't want to be in a union
that is fundamentally unconstitutional and it is against the American system of freedom of choice. — Bruce Rauner

Ultimately, the artist and the revolutionary function as they function, and pay whatever dues they must pay behind it because they are both possessed by a vision, and they do not so much follow this vision as find themselves driven by it. Otherwise, they could never endure, much less embrace, the lives they are compelled to lead. — James Baldwin

I believe if an individual wants to join organized labor and work under a union contract, they should have the legal right to do so. At the same token, a person who does not want to work under organized labor and wants to work should have the ability to do so without the threat of having to join and having to pay dues to organized labor. — Paul LePage

Two hours a day for two days per week. Four hours. At $7.25 an hour, that gave him a gross income of $29 a week. He is also now a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers International, the union that represents food workers, retail clerks, and farm workers. His monthly dues for the UFCW are $25, all taken out of his first week's check. That makes Owen arguably the most selfless labor activist in America, with 86 percent of his pay going to support his union. — Ron Suskind

In order for a musician to grow, he's got to pay his dues. Some musicians ask me, 'well, what do you mean? You're saying I have to 'starve' and pay all these dues just to play jazz?' And my answer to them is, well, to some degree, yes! Because in order to play jazz you have to live it. Those notes mean something. They don't just come from your brain, they come from your heart and soul too. And in order to have that heart and soul you have to experience life. So I relate my music to my life and my life style. You can't separate the two. — Woody Shaw

Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues. We complain of terrorism, yet our empire is now the greatest terrorist of all. We bomb, invade, subvert other states. — Gore Vidal

No one can say I didn't pay my dues in life, — James Robertson

When I was really little, I was skinny and people laughed at me for being skinny, so, we all pay our dues for the bodies we're in one way or another. But thank god I haven't needed to alter it to feel good about myself. — Sandra Bernhard

The unions claim the deck is stacked against them when it comes to labor laws, but the truth is many private and public sector workers are forced to pay union dues as a condition of their employment, yet they have little say in how the unions spend their money. — Linda Chavez

I always had hopes of being a big star. But as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you've made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you've left a mark. You don't have to bend the whole world. I think it's better to just enjoy it. Pay your dues, and just enjoy it. If you shoot a arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you. — Dorian Corey

Actors and writers need to come back to the theater because it's a place where you can learn. You have to pay your dues, and people who haven't paid their dues in the theater, I think, have a hard time creating a whole career. — Joanne Woodward

The Government as Substitute Husband did for women what labor unions still have not accomplished for men. And men pay dues for labor unions; the taxpayer pays the dues for feminism. Feminism and government soon become taxpayer-supported women's unions. — Warren Farrell