What Are Some Powerful Quotes & Sayings

Accept every day as a beautiful mystery. Don't try to control everything or worry about the things you can't control. If you do, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of frustration and misery. You must simply accept that some forces are out of your control. However, you can always control the manner in which you react to situations. Everyone's life has positive and negative aspects. Whether you are happy or not depends greatly on which aspects you focus on. The best thing you can do is let go of what you can't control and invest your energy in the things you can. Powerful, positive change will occur in your life when you decide to take control of yourself instead of craving control over everyone and everything else. — Anonymous

I'm so sick of these wussy princesses and evil women. We've done the evil witches of Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel, the evil queen of Snow White and the evil stepmother of Cinderella. Is this some kind of campaign against femininity? Our choices are the evil and usually ugly powerful female or the helpless princess, desired just for her beauty? And what the heck is this shit about evil stepmothers anyway? — Wen Spencer

When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy - some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed. — Nikos Kazantzakis

We no longer dare seem what we really are, but lie under a perpetual restraint; in the meantime the herd of men, which we call society, all act under the same circumstances exactly alike, unless very particular and powerful motives prevent them. Thus we never know with whom we have to deal; and even to know our friends we must wait for some critical and pressing occasion; that it, till it is too late; for it is on those very occasion that such knowledge is of use to us. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A voice spoke in his head, mellow and vast:

"Long have we watched you, little one."

"Who's there?" he quavered. "Who are you?"

"Your concepts are inadequate."

"Malfunction! Malfunction!" squalled the scouter.

"Shut up, it's not a malfunction. Who's talking to me?"

"You may call us: Rulers of the Galaxy."

The scouter was lunging wildly, buffeting him as it tried to escape the white grasp. Strange crunches, firings of unknown weapons. Still the white stasis held.

"What do you want?" he cried.

"Want?" said the voice dreamily. "We are wise beyond knowing. Powerful beyond your dreams. Perhaps you can get us some fresh fruit."

- 'Painwise — James Tiptree Jr.

If I had a daughter, I would tell her certain things. I would tell her that it's great to be smart, really smart - that being smart makes you strong. I would tell her that emotions are powerful, so don't be afraid to show them. I would tell her that some people may judge you on how you look or what you wear - that's just how it is - but you should keep your focus on what you say and do. I would tell her that she may see the world differently from boys, and that difference is essential and good. — Kirsten Gillibrand

Because secrecy can become an addiction. That's been a problem as long as people have tried to covet power for themselves. Sure, governments need to keep some secrets, but too often the people inside the government create for themselves the illusion that because they know things nobody else does, it makes them more powerful. That kind of thinking creates a kind of contempt for anyone on the outside. It's born from a belief that their own power will diminish in direct proportion to the transparency of their actions. So secrets become the currency that buys them membership into a club so exclusive that their agendas are never shared, and the value of what the hold is measured only from a first-person perspective. — Jonathan Maberry

Even if the intelligent design of some structure has been established, it still is a separate question whether a wise, powerful, and beneficent God ought to have designed a complex, information-rich structure one way or another. For the sake of argument, let's grant that certain designed structures are not simply, as Gould put it, "odd" or "funny," but even cruel. What of it? Philosophical theology has abundant resources for dealing with the problem of evil, maintaining a God who is both omnipotent and benevolent in the face of evil. — William A. Dembski

Kagan has given us painstakingly documented evidence that high reactivity is one biological basis of introversion but his findings are powerful in part because they confirm what we've sensed all along. Some of Kagan's studies even venture into the realm of cultural myth. For example, he believes, based on his data, that high reactivity is associated with physical traits such as blue eyes, allergies, and hay fever, and that high-reactive men are more likely than others to have a thin body and narrow face. — Susan Cain

The greater part of the world has, properly speaking, no history, because the despotism of Custom is complete. This is the case over the whole East. Custom is there, in all things, the final appeal; justice and right mean conformity to custom; the argument of custom no one, unless some tyrant intoxicated with power, thinks of resisting. And we see the result. Those nations must once have had originality; they did not start out of the ground populous, lettered, and versed in many of the arts of life; they made themselves all this, and were then the greatest and most powerful nations in the world. What are they now? The subjects or dependants of tribes whose forefathers wandered in the forests when theirs had magnificent palaces and gorgeous temples, but over whom custom exercised only a divided rule with liberty and progress. — John Stuart Mill

Think of some things you've wanted to do for ages and have never given yourself time or permission to do them. The Voice knows what they are and has probably suggested them many times. You've always said inside, 'Oh, I couldn't. Costs too much. I've got too much work. I'm too tired. I can't be away from x that long. Should clean out the garage instead.' It's time to stop cleaning and start living. — Noelle Sterne

Healthy companies know that they have to allow people to fail without assessing blame. They have to do that or else no one will take on anything that's not a sure bet. Healthy companies know that, but Culture of Fear companies do not. In a Culture of Fear company, failure must be rewarded with punishment. ("What would we be, we sinful creatures, without fear?") A typical punishment is that you get fired. If the people above you are insufficiently powerful, some of them may get fired as well. This creates a powerful incentive to pass responsibility for failure on by blaming someone outside the organization. — Tom DeMarco

What's going on?"
"Nothing." She coughed, and released Talaith's hand. "Except
you have some powerful enemies."
"Tell me what I don't know, witch."
"Powerful enemies who are gods."
For a moment, Annwyl was shocked beyond all reason ... then
she shrugged. "Now that I think of it - I don't know why I would be
surprised. — G.A. Aiken

Some women think they need to be overpowering in order to be powerful. This is so far from the truth. What is so great about being a women is how powerful we are quite naturally. — Robi Ludwig

There is a great fear of our Union - a fear that I do not fully understand, but that I know is present ... What is it that causes some men to act so hastily and so cruelly? It cannot be that we are so powerful. Is it so much to ask that the poorest people of the land have a measure of justice? — Cesar Chavez

The truth is a powerful thing: it does not allow a person to remain undisturbed. Some embrace and follow the truth. Some reject it outright. Others prefer to ignore it. employing what might be termed 'intentional ignorance'. How a person reacts to the truth is a willful decision that produces unavoidable consequences in that person't life.
If Materialism is embraced, then we invent our own standards of tight and wrong and are accountable to no one for our decisions. If, however, the Bible is right, then there is an absolute standard of right and wrong and we are to be held accountable for not only our decision, but our attitudes and actions as well. In Paul's letter to the Romans he states:
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
(Romans 1:20) — Werner Gitt

A vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considerable degree of health and vigor for near a twelvemonth, without Governor, without public Council, without judges, without executive magistrates. How long it will continue in this state, or what may arise out of this unheard-of situation, how can the wisest of us conjecture? Our late experience has taught us that many of those fundamental principles, formerly believed infallible, are either not of the importance they were imagined to be, or that we have not at all adverted to some other far more important and far more powerful principles, which entirely overrule those we had considered as omnipotent. — Edmund Burke

Setting aside the truth value of the UFO phenomenon, it is an interesting sociological reality that so many people are unwilling to discuss the most - and at times traumatic - experience of their lives. What does it say about our society that this is so? My feeling is that, by its very nature, it represents a form of repression. If you are a reader who believes UFOs to be nonsense of some sort, I can nevertheless assure you that you have a friend or relation who has seen one. They have simply learned not to discuss it. Many people can live perfectly well within the constraints of repression and denial; they simply learn to shut off certain parts of their mind. It is sad, but it happens all of the time.

But not everyone is the same. Not everyone is willing to do this, or even can do this. By any estimate, there are may millions of people on this planet who have had a powerful UFO experience. They cannot and will not be silenced indefinitely. — Richard M. Dolan

No sane paleontologist would ever claim that he or she had discovered "The Ancestor." Think about it this way: What is the chance that while walking through any random cemetery on our planet I would discover an actual ancestor of mine? Diminishingly small. What I would discover is that all people buried in these cemeteries
no mater whether that cemetery is in China, Botswana, or Italy
are related to me to different degrees. I can find this out by looking at their DNA with many of the forensic techniques in use in crime labs today. I'd see that some of the denizens of the cemeteries are distantly related to me, others are related more closely. This tree would be a very powerful window into my past and my family history. It would also have a practical application because I could use this tree to understand my predilection to get certain diseases and other facts of my biology. The same is true when we infer relationship among species. — Neil Shubin

Just being alive is such a gift, but nobody ever told you to be thankful to existence. On the contrary, everyone was grumpy, complaining. Naturally, if everything surrounding your life from the very beginning goes on pointing out to you that you are not what you should be, goes on giving you great ideals that you have to follow and you have to become, your isness is never praised. What is praised is your future - if you can become someone respectable, powerful, rich, intellectual, in some way famous, not just a nobody. — Osho

I'll tell you what gives me hope. After the struggle for marriage equality, the LGBTQ community has built some very powerful organizations; in particular, I'm thinking of HRC (the Human Rights Campaign), GLAAD ... but there are many, many others, too. Along with those organizations come some savvy and tested leaders who have come to understand not only how to change hearts and minds but also legislators and judges votes. — Steven Petrow

Love is something so relevant, so powerful and encompassing, yet we all have our own interpretation of what it is. Some versions are watered down, some are based on magical fairytales we hear as a child, and some are developed by watching those around us as we were growing up. No matter what the specifics, love has become a subjective term, verb and noun. — Camille Lucy

I adore the way fan fiction writers engage with and critique source texts, by manipulating them and breaking their rules. Some of it is straight-up homage, but a lot of [fan fiction] is really aggressive towards the source text. One tends to think of it as written by total fanboys and fangirls as a kind of worshipful act, but a lot of times you'll read these stories and it'll be like 'What if Star Trek had an openly gay character on the bridge?' And of course the point is that they don't, and they wouldn't, because they don't have the balls, or they are beholden to their advertisers, or whatever. There's a powerful critique, almost punk-like anger, being expressed there - which I find fascinating and interesting and cool. — Lev Grossman

Entire industries and some of our very largest professions depend on the persistence of our current system. Other social institutions - like giant publishers and test-prep companies - are synched to its workings. A certain teaching method implies certain goals and certain tests. The tests, in turn, have a serious impact on hiring practices and career advancement. Human nature being what it is, those who prosper under a given system tend to become supporters of that system. Thus the powerful tend to have a bias toward the status quo; our educational customs tend to perpetuate themselves, and because they interconnect with so many other aspects of our culture, they are extraordinarily difficult to change. — Salman Khan

You intend to keep me confined in here with you for three days?" His voice was low and ominous.
"It doesn't have to take three days," she said, "It just depends how long it takes for you to come to your senses."
"My senses?" he shook her so hard she thought her teeth would rattle. "It is you whose mind is disordered if you think you can tame me like some pet! Is that what you think, Vesta? That you can somehow turn a man like me into your little lap dog?"
"No," she said, as earnest as she had ever been in her life. "I could never imagine you as a lap dog. Ever. You are a Mastiff. Big, powerful, dignified, brave, and yet gentle." She nodded with a look of self satisfaction. "Yes. Most definitely a Mastiff."
from THE VIRGIN HUNTRESS — Victoria Vane

Stories? We all spend our lives telling them, about this, about that, about people ... But some? Some stories are so good we wish they'd never end. They're so gripping that we'll go without sleep just to see a little bit more. Some stories bring us laughter and sometimes they bring us tears ... but isn't that what a great story does? Makes you feel? Stories that are so powerful ... they really are with us forever. — Dustin Hoffman

If we're talented at music, that talent is of god. If something makes our heart sing, that's god's way of telling us its a contribution he wants us to make. Sharing our gifts is what makes us happy. We're most powerful and god's power is most apparent on the earth when we're happy. A course in miracles teaches that we are only truly happy when we're doing god's will. The only thing to be saved from is our own negativity and fear. The crux of salvation in any area is a shift in our sense of purpose. That shift is a miracle, as always we consciously ask for it: 'Dear god, please give my life some sense of purpose. use me as an instrument of your peace. Use my talents and abilities to spread love. I surrender my job to you. Help me to remember that my real job is to love the world back to health. — Marianne Williamson

After nineteen hundred years the Sermon on the Mount still haunts men. They may praise it, as Mahatma Gandhi did; or like Nietzsche, they may curse it. They cannot ignore it. Its words are winged words, quick and powerful to rebuke, to challenge, to inspire. And though some turn from it in despair, it continues, like some mighty magnetic mountain, to attract to itself the greatest spirits of our race (many not Christians), so that if some world-wide vote were taken, there is little doubt that men would account it "the most searching and powerful utterance we possess on what concerns the moral life."2 — Charles L. Quarles

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. MATTHEW 18:20 OCTOBER 14 Prayer can change your life. I strongly recommend that you learn the art or science of prayer and put it to work in your life. Now this may seem to you to be just one more religious idea, without much life or sparkle to it. But that is where you would be wrong. It is the way to life itself. When I say this of prayer I do not speak of the mere mumbling of words. I do not mean formal affirmations either, although formal prayers sometimes help and some formal prayers are touched with the glory of God. What I mean is a deep, fundamental, powerful relationship of the individual to God, whereby his whole mind and heart become changed and he receives power from God within himself. I have seen such prayer change the lives of many. God's peace deeply imbedded in your mind can often have a more tranquilizing and healing effect upon nerves and tension than medicine. God's peace is itself medicinal. — Norman Vincent Peale

What exactly is the free world, anyway? I guess it would depend on what you consider the non-free world. And I can't find a clear definition of that, can you? Where is that? Russia? China? For chrissakes, Russia has a better Mafia than we do now, and China is pirating Lion King DVDs and selling dildos on the Internet. They sound pretty free to me. Here are some more jingoistic variations you need to be on the lookout for; "The greatest nation on Earth; the greatest nation in the history of the world"; and "the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth." That last one is usually thrown in just before we bomb a bunch of brown people. Which is every couple of years. — George Carlin

Some Western politicians are already threatening us with not just sanctions, but also the prospect of increasingly serious problems on the domestic front. I would like to know what it is they have in mind exactly: action by a fifth column, this disparate bunch of 'national traitors', or are they hoping to put us in a worsening social and economic situation so as to provoke public discontent? We consider such statements irresponsible and clearly aggressive in tone, and we will respond to them accordingly. — Vladimir Putin

Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows-the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or will ever exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions. — Eben Alexander

It was the verdict of ancient writers that men afflict themselves in evil and weary themselves in the good, and that the same effects result from both of these passions. For whenever men are not obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition; which is so powerful in human breasts, that it never leaves them no matter to what rank they rise. The reason is that nature has so created men that they are able to desire everything but are not able to attain everything: so that the desire being always greater than the acquisition, there results discontent with the possession and little satisfaction to themselves from it. From this arises the changes in their fortunes; for as men desire, some to have more, some in fear of losing their acquisition, there ensues enmity and war, from which results the ruin of that province and the elevation of another. — Niccolo Machiavelli

The first job of the historian and of the journalist is to find facts. Not the only job, perhaps not the most important, but the first. Facts are the cobblestones from which we build roads of analysis, mosaic tiles that we fit together to compose pictures of past and present. There will be disagreement about where the road leads and what reality or truth is revealed by the mosaic picture. The facts themselves must be checked against all the available evidence. But some are round and hard
and the most powerful leaders in the world can trip over them. So can writers, dissidents and saints. — Timothy Garton Ash

I'm part of an industry that everybody wants to be a part of. I do hang out with a lot of sort of powerful, interesting people like Bella Freud or Jay Joplin or Tracey Emin. I'm part of that group of people. Brit artists who are doing things. That's what I do. Some of them happen to be aristocrats. — Duncan Roy

Some things, like the orbits of the planets, can be calculated far into the future. But that's atypical. In most contexts, there is a limit. Even the most fine-grained computation can only forecast British weather a few days ahead. There are limits to what can ever be learned about the future, however powerful computers become. — Martin Rees

In order to break your child's negative cycle, you must first break your own cycle of negative perception. You must take on a strengths-based perspective. Look for the good, which in some cases may require you to get creative. Do this even when it's hard. This sends a powerful message to children even when they are behaving poorly. You are sending the message that you believe in them, you see that there is more to them than their bad behavior, and you are painting a future picture of what they can become. — Daniel Bates

The universe is something like a powerful radar system that is set up from all sides to record every action and every event that may take place anywhere, even of the least intensity or momentum. Meditation, when it is properly done, is not a silent and non-interfering process of thinking by some individual in some undisturbed corner, but a positive interference with the very structure of the universe and, sometimes, a directly employed system starts working at once and the forces around receive a warning, as it were, that someone is in a state of meditation. Immediately, counter-forces are gathered by what is generally known as the lower nature and the meditation receives a setback. — Swami Krishnananda

What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about 'Man taking charge of his own destiny'. All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of the others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before? — C.S. Lewis

What we had went so much deeper than a kiss. When we were together, she turned me completely inside out. It didn't matter if we were dead or alive. We could never be kept apart. There were some things more powerful than worlds or universes. She was my world, as much as I was hers. What we had, we knew. The poems are all wrong. It's a bang, a really big bang. Not a whimper. And sometimes gold can stay. Anybody who's ever been in love can tell you that. — Kami Garcia

Some Ange'el are a bit more powerful. Each one has their own set of capabilities and level of skill depending on the purity of their genes and their age. Some Ange'el can heal ya. Some can convince ya to do their will. Some know what you're thinking. Some can speak to you using only their minds, and Viviane ... well, Viviane can do it all. — Jamie Le Fay

The truth, though is that Cantor's work and its context are so totally interesting and beautiful that there's no need for breathless Prometheusizing of the poor guy's life. The real irony is that the view of (Infinity) as some forbidden zone or road to insanity-which view was very old and powerful and haunted math for 2000+ years- is precisely what Cantor's own work overturned. Saying that (Infinity) drove Cantor mad is sort of like mourning St. George's loss to the dragon: it's not only wrong but insulting. — David Foster Wallace

The likings and dislikings of society, or of some powerful portion of it, are thus the main thing which has practically determined the rules laid down for general observance, under the penalties of law or opinion. And in general, those who have been in advance of society in thought and feeling, have left this condition of things unassailed in principle, however they may have come into conflict with it in some of its details. They have occupied themselves rather in inquiring what things society ought to like or dislike, than in questioning whether its likings or dislikings should be a law to individuals. They preferred endeavouring to alter the feelings of mankind on the particular points on which they were themselves heretical, rather than make common cause in defence of freedom, with heretics generally. — John Stuart Mill

The way we behave, our views and outlooks really have their sources some place. They come from somewhere. Sometimes we don't even know what they are, and yet they're very powerful in our lives. — Kim Edwards

She is opinionated, as most of us are, but you won't find yourself impaled on her arguments; she doesn't charge at you as some people do. What [she] does is walk slowly and steadily into a conversational battle, somehow managing to deflect all incoming targets until she is standing in your corner with her flag dug firmly into the ground. I think it comes from the deep-seated confidence she possesses in her core. I think it is the powerful combination of encouraged individualism and a strong family unit. — Carrie Adams

Where there were once several competing approaches to medicine, there is now only one that matters to most hospitals, insurers, and the vast majority of the public. One that has been shaped to a great degree by the successful development of potent cures that followed the discovery of sulfa drugs. Aspiring caregivers today are chosen as much (or more) for their scientific abilities, their talent for mastering these manifold technological and pharmaceutical advances as for their interpersonal skills. A century ago most physicians were careful, conservative observers who provided comfort to patients and their families. Today they act: They prescribe, they treat, they cure. They routinely perform what were once considered miracles. The result, in the view of some, has been a shift in the profession from caregiver to technician. The powerful new drugs changed how care was given as well as who gave it. — Thomas Hager

The prime fact is that all humans are puffed up by their extreme self-satisfaction with their own brute power. Unless some creatures more powerful than humans arrive on earth to bully them, there's just no knowing to what dire lengths their fool presumptuousness will eventually carry them. — Soseki Natsume

The interests behind fracking are very powerful and they've managed to control the dialogue for a while, because they have forced people to sign disclosure agreements; people who have had negative experiences who are not able to speak out because they've signed disclosure agreements with the gas companies. Things like this. They've managed to strangle the opposing viewpoint, but it does seem like the people who are against fracking have started to gain some traction and the realities of what an environmental nightmare it is are starting to become known. — Joan Osborne