I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“I have often been amused by our vulgar tendency to take complex issues, with solutions at neither extreme of a continuum of possibilities, and break them into dichotomies, assigning one group to one pole and the other to an opposite end, with no acknowledgment of subtleties and intermediate positions and nearly always with moral opprobrium attached to opponents.”
Source: The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History
“I have often been asked by young Christians "Why is it that I fail so? I did so solemnly vow with my whole heart and did desire to serve God; why have I failed?" You are trying to do in your own strength what Christ alone can do in you. You were trusting in yourself, or you would not have failed. If you had trusted Christ, He could not fail. We find the Christian life so difficult because we seek God's blessing while we live in our own will. We make our own plans and choose our own work, and then we ask Him to give us His blessing.”
“I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping that something might improve if I viewed allsides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and to be able to use one's prejudice as an excuse.”
“I have often been asked what I wanted to prove by my photographs. The answer is, I don’t want to prove anything. They prove to me, and I am the one who gets the lesson.”
“I have often been asked whether I am a women or an athlete. The question is absurd. Men are not asked that. I am an athlete. I am a women.”
Source: Billie Jean
“I have often been asked why I am so fond of playing male parts. As a matter of fact, it is not male parts, but male brains that I prefer.”
Source: The Art of the Theatre
“I have often been charged with falsehood and hypocrisy, yet there lives not the man who would more gladly than I speak truthfully and lay bare his heart; but as I have not one idea, one feeling in common with the people who surround me, as the very first word I should speak truthfully would cause a general hue and cry, I have preferred to keep silent, or, if I do speak, to utter only stupid commonplaces which everyone has agreed to believe in.”
Source: Mademoiselle de Maupin
“I have often been doubted in music industry not because of my talent, but because I might not have been introduced to the game by major industry hype men, but I love being the underdog. I truly believe that god has put me here to say something and send a message to not only women but to all individuals like myself. I will not allow the politricks of the game to discourage me and keep me from the goal at hand. I will sing from my heart and leave the industry bullsh*t alone.”
“I have often been downcast, but never in despair.”
Source: The diary of Anne Frank: the critical edition
“I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary I treat all the privations as amusing. I have made up my mind now to lead a different life from other girls and, later on, different from ordinary housewives. My start has been so very full of interest, and that is the sole reason why I have to laugh at the humorous side of the most dangerous moments.”
Source: The diary of a young girl
“I have often been reminded of the wild duck that came down on migration into a barnyard and liked it so well that he stayed there. In the fall his erstwhile companions passed overhead and his first impulse was to rise and join them, but he had fed too well and could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. The day came when his old fellow travelers could pass overhead without his even hearing their call. I have seen men and women who once mounted up with wings like eagles but are now content to live in the barnyard of this world.”
“I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause: viz . that though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on a dreary desert.”
Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria
“I have often been told that I have many of the same mannerisms as Jack Benny and certainly Bob Cummings.”
“I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrow of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience.”
Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
“I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire.”
Source: The Landmark Thucydides
“I have often believed the pen to be a needle, and ink to be a thread. Each story is an intricately woven tapestry and with each word I invariably sew a piece of myself into the page.”
Source: The Army of Five Men
“I have often caught sight of myself, my spine humped over, defining my hollowness, my head too heavy for my body, swinging like the oversized blossom of some cruelly bred plant; admiration for the world spread for the world to see on my gullible face-unlike my other face with the sour look of a starved peasant.”
Source: Bridgeport Bus
“I have often come across convinced adepts of Greek mythology who mock our faith under the pretext that we do not say anything else to those whom we instruct in divine things, but merely command them to believe.
They accuse the apostles of ignorance, labelling them barbarians, because they do not have the subtlety of eloquence; and they say that the cult of martyrs is ridiculous, considering it completely absurd for the living to seek assistance from the dead.”
“I have often discussed the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path in talks I have given about meditation. But, since I also teach Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist mediation, I have a very eclectic approach to the subject.”
“I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.”
Source: The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private
“I have often felt a motion of love to leave some hints in writing of my experience of the goodness of God, and now, in the thirty-sixth year of my age, I begin this work.”
Source: journal
“I have often felt as though I had inherited all the defiance and all the passions with which our ancestors defended their Temple and could gladly sacrifice my life for one great moment in history. And at the same time I always felt so helpless and incapable of expressing these ardent passions even by a word or a poem.”
Source: Letters of Sigmund Freud
“I have often felt bad that I am not great at any one thing. Like just a super super singer. Or the Gregory Hines of something”
“I have often felt like I was the only one fighting against female genital mutilation. There is still a huge taboo surrounding the topic, because it involves the most private parts of the female´s body. But whenever I feel like this is too much for me to do, I read e-mails and messages I receive every day from people thanking me for speaking up for them, for giving them a voice. These messages let me know that I am not alone, and that what I do is worthwhile.”
“I have often felt that I cheated my children a little. I was never so totally theirs as most mothers are. I gave to audiences whatbelonged to my children, got back from audiences the love my children longed to give me.”
“I have often felt that I would find it more complicated, troublesome and unpleasant to ascertain the feelings by which a woman lives than to plumb the innermost thoughts of an earthworm.”
Source: The Osamu saga: the autobiographical fiction of Dazai Osamu
“I have often felt that when an Atheist asks "Where is your God?" it means even he has an innermost desire to see 'The One' whom he has been rejecting all his life and when an unbeliever asks "Where is your God?" it means he is fed-up with the hand crafted God he has been meaninglessly serving all his life and in his heart even he wants to see the wonder working true living God in all His glory.”
“I have often found a small stream at its fountain-head, that, when followed up, carried away the camel with his load.”
“I have often found the most productive people appear not to be working at all.”
“I have often had a retrospective vision where everything in my past life seems to fall with significance into logical sequence.”
“I have often had a retrospective vision where everything in my past life seems to fall with significance into logical sequence. Intuition, suspicion, or confidence in new ventures; there is a strange strain within me when advantage is not taken of some situation, the immediacy of recognition of the rightness or wrongness of a mood, a response, a decision - they are so often valid that I am increasingly convinced that we have yet to grasp the reality of existence.”
“I have often had cause to feel that my hands are cleverer than my head. That is a crude way of characterizing the dialectics of experimentation. When it is going well, it is like a quiet conversation with Nature. One asks a question and gets an answer, then one asks the next question and gets the next answer. An experiment is a device to make Nature speak intelligibly. After that, one only has to listen.”
“I have often had occasion to notice how, where a direct question would fail to elicit a response, a false assumption brings instant information in the form of a contradiction.”
Source: Poirot loses a client
“I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortunes.”
Source: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
“I have often had the fancy that there is some one Myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought.”
Source: The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume IV: Early Essays
“I have often heard it said that the Irish are too ready to forgive. It is a noble failing.”
Source: The Wandering Years
“I have often heard it said that the United States is isolated and is not interested in European affairs. I assure you that this is not the case.”
“I have often heard that the novel is dead. But I see novels produced, I don't know how many a week, in France. I have the impression it's carrying along quite well.”
“I have often heard that the outstanding man is he who thinks deeply about a problem, and the next is he who listens carefully to advice.”
“I have often heard the statement made by foreign singers, as a demonstrated fact, that the German artists are artists in feeling indeed, and serious in their devotion, but that their singing is crude.”
Source: On Conducting
“I have often heard, "I love God but just don't like His people." This may sound glib, but as John explained, this is a basic deception as we do not really love God unless we also love His people. The Scriptures also go to great lengths to explain that love is not to be based on whether people are lovable or not.”
“I have often heard, that it is safer to hear and to take counsel, than to give it.”
Source: The Imitation of Christ; Or, the Ecclesiastical Music
“I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as which we close our eyes.”
“I have often lamented that we cannot shut our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes.”
“I have often lost myself in the sea, ears full of newly cut flowers, tongue full of love and agony.”
“I have often marveled at the thin line which separates success from failure.”
“I have often met with happiness after some imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his mercy.”
Source: The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt: Complete
“I have often noticed how primate groups in their entirety enter a similar mood. All of a sudden, all of them are playful, hopping around. Or all of them are grumpy. Or all of them are sleepy and settle down. In such cases, the mood contagion serves the function of synchronizing activities.”
“I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect - it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman.”
Source: The Comedians
“I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.”
Source: The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov