I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“If I tried to shout over my older brother, my mother told me keep quiet. If I tried to shout over my little sister, my father told me to shut up. I found the best way to be heard was to lower my voice and actually speak when I had something to say.”
“If I tried to write long-hand, I suppose I'd never finish a novel. I edit too much as I write - the paper would be "white-out" and sharpie marks. Writing with a computer works for me, so I stick with it.”
“If I try to articulate every little detail in a drawing, it would be like missing the forest for the trees, so it's just about getting the outline of the forest.”
“If I try to compose anything but sad poems, I fear it'll be akin to a widower trying to convince others that he has found happiness again by wearing a T-shirt that says HAPPINESS.”
Source: A History of My Brief Body
“If I try to cover too much ground, you start to get watered down and less interesting.”
“If I try to figure out what people want and give it to them, it's a failure. If I try to please people and figure out what's going to get me from point A to point B, I fail. But I think if I do what I want to do, in the long run, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point, I think it'll pay off and it'll at least feel honest.”
“If I try to make only enough money for my family' immediate needs, it may violate Scripture. ...Even though earning just enough to meet the needs of my family may seem non materialistic, it's actually selfish when I could earn enough to care for others as well.”
“If I try to summon back his face, the sound of his voice, and the sensation in my stomach like a key turning in a lock when he touched me, I lose everything.”
“If I try to understand what it means to be a Christian, I look at the two instructions that were given in the Bible that are paramount, and those are to love God with all your heart and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That's it.”
“If I try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me and each other-while my character is fundamentally flawed, marked by duplicity and insincerity-then, in the long run, I cannot be successful. My duplicity will breed distrust, and everything I do-even using so-called good human relations techniques-will be perceived as manipulative.”
Source: Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People: Living THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE Every Day
“If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.”
“If I turn a blind eye, it's so I can listen with a fanned ear. - The Malwatch”
“If I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest;”
Source: Richard II
“If I turn on the television, am I to believe that that is America? I'm sorry, I don't believe that's America.”
“If I turn up suicided in the morning, it was murder.”
Source: Survivor: A Novel
“If I turned towards books, it was because they were the only sanctuary I knew, one I needed in order to survive, to protect some aspect of myself that was now in constant retreat.”
Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
“If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is this: that he regarded only subjective realities as realities, as “truths”—that he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal, spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables. The concept of “the Son of God” does not connote a concrete person in history, an isolated and definite individual, but an “eternal” fact, a psychological symbol set free from the concept of time. The same thing is true, and in the highest sense, of the God of this typical symbolist, of the “kingdom of God,” and of the “sonship of God.” Nothing could be more un-Christian than the crude ecclesiastical notions of God as a person, of a “kingdom of God” that is to come, of a “kingdom of heaven” beyond, and of a “son of God” as the second person of the Trinity. All this—if I may be forgiven the phrase—is like thrusting one’s fist into the eye (and what an eye!) of the Gospels: a disrespect for symbols amounting to world-historical cynicism.... But it is nevertheless obvious enough what is meant by the symbols “Father” and “Son”— not, of course, to every one—: the word “Son” expresses entrance into the feeling that there is a general transformation of all things (beatitude), and “Father” expresses that feeling itself —the sensation of eternity and of perfection.—I am ashamed to remind you of what the church has made of this symbolism: has it not set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the Christian “faith”? And a dogma of “immaculate conception” for good measure?... And thereby it has robbed conception of its immaculateness—
The “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something to come “beyond the world” or “after death.” The whole idea of natural death is absent from the Gospels: death is not a bridge, not a passing; it is absent because it belongs to a quite different, a merely apparent world, useful only as a symbol. The “hour of death” is not a Christian idea —“hours,” time, the physical life and its crises have no existence for the bearer of “glad tidings.”... The “kingdom of God” is not something that men wait for: it had no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it is not going to come at a “millennium”—it is an experience of the heart, it is everywhere and it is nowhere....
This “bearer of glad tidings” died as he lived and taught—not to “save mankind,” but to show mankind how to live. It was a way of life that he bequeathed to man: his demeanour before the judges, before the officers, before his accusers—his demeanour on the cross. He does not resist; he does not defend his rights; he makes no effort to ward off the most extreme penalty—more, he invites it.... And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in those, who do him evil.... Not to defend one’s self, not to show anger, not to lay blames.... On the contrary, to submit even to the Evil One—to love him....
36.
—We free spirits—we are the first to have the necessary prerequisite to understanding what nineteen centuries have misunderstood—that instinct and passion for integrity which makes war upon the “holy lie” even more than upon all other lies.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our benevolent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the spirit which alone makes possible the solution of such strange and subtle things: what men always sought, with shameless egoism, was their own advantage therein; they created the church out of denial of the Gospels....
That mankind should be on its knees before the very antithesis of what was the origin, the meaning and the law of the Gospels—that in the concept of the “church” the very things should be pronounced holy that the “bearer of glad tidings” regards as beneath him and behind him—it would be impossible to surpass this as a grand example of world- historical irony—”
“If I understand Change, I shall make no great mistake in Life”
“If I understand correctly, part of the objection to homosexuality used to have to do with the fact that gay people didn't reproduce. Part of it seems to have to do, as a lot of Christian resistance to gayness does, with a dim view of sex that is not procreative, and that is therefore lascivious.”
“If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet.”
“If I understand this correctly Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men made belief impossible.”
“If I understand two things about masculinity at the age of seven, it is a) the Sovereign Importance of Early Homophobia, and b) the Paramount Objective of Despising Girls. Nobody wants to be a gay and only gays play with girls – this much has been made clear.”
Source: How Not to Be a Boy
“If I unfocus my eyes, I see exactly what the Candor don't believe in-gray. Maybe Tobias and I don't believe in it either. Not really.”
Source: Insurgent
“If I upset some notions and went against established rules, that wasn't part of what I wanted to do. It wasn't my goal.”
“If I upset you, don't stress. Never forget
That God isn't finished with me yet.
I feel His hand on my brain...
When I write rhymes, I go blind and let the Lord do His thang.”
“If I use empathy to liberate people to be less depressed, to get along better with their family, and at the same time not inspire them to use their energy to rapidly transform systems in the world, then I am part of the problem. I am essentially calming people down, making them happier to live in the systems as they are, and I am using empathy as a narcotic.”
“If I use Facebook to stay in touch with my high school friends who are church-going Republicans, I may be getting more ideological diversity than in hanging out with secular progressives on the World Politics sub-reddit.”
“If I use the Bible to prove I am right, I have yet to be humbled by the beautiful truths of the Bible.”
“If I use the media, even with tricks, to publicize a black youth being shot in the back in Teaneck, New Jersey... then I should be praised for it, and it's more of a comment on them than me that it would take tricks to make them cover the loss of life.”
“If I use the word consciousness, in our lab, in our institute, what we mean is the special quality of mind, the special features that exist in the mind, that permit us to know, for example, that we, ourselves, exist, and that things exist around us.”
“If I use the word romance, whether it's my wife or not, it does not mean sex. We can use the word sex when sex is there.”
“If I used a higher percentage of my brain I wouldn't of had to ride on the short bus.”
“If I used justice, you'd all be dead. The karma that you throw at me when you don't like me - if I just let it come back, you'd all be destroyed in no time.”
“If I've been some kind of light to you, know I was not lit from the outside.”
“If I’ve created this road, it’s likely that my agendas define it. And although I believe the ascent to be lofty, it’s anything but the ‘higher road’ that I pretend it to be. However, if God’s truth’s define it, there is no road that is higher and there’s no pretending that it’s not.”
“If I've got a Dad, and his name is Wormwood Rot, and he's in some heavy metal rock band called Grave Dirt . . . then I'm definitely meeting him!
She stares at me awkwardly, and I'm about to ask again—maybe even insist—when she says, "Honey, why do you think he's on the news? Wormwood, I mean . . . your father? Becca, he's . . . dead.”
Source: Becca Bloom and the Drumsticks of Doom: A Heavy Metal Love Story
“If I’ve granted myself a wide margin of error, I’m probably going to have a slim chance of success.”
“If I've heard this saying once, I've heard it a thousand times - Everything happens for a reason. And it possibly does. I just haven't found the reason that this all happened yet.”
“If I’ve learned anything from facing death, it is that life is not meant to be survived. Life is the greatest adventure there is. And why stop your adventuring when someone says the end may be near? The truth is, we never know when the end will actually come. None of us will avoid it forever. What’s the point in trying? Live fearlessly!”
Source: The Mission Walker: I was given three months to live...
“If I’ve learned anything from my past and my present, it’s the power of fear. You can give your subjects all the generosity in the world, and still they will demand more. But those who are afraid don’t fight back. I know this well enough.”
Source: The Midnight Star
“If I've learned anything in my life, it's that there is no darkness so absolute that it cannot be dispelled by the faintest of light," she explained.
His face softened as his eyes touched her, and his boot slid forward. "My sweet Fairy." He exhaled on a painful breath. "You can't imagine darkness. You are the only light I've ever known."
His tender words didn't match his pitiless features, but Farah still found hope. "You must believe that my light is more powerful than your darkness. And so let me touch you, instead. And everywhere that my fingers touch your flesh, they will clear away the blood and filth that you see, and will leave behind the light I've always wanted to give to you.”
Source: The Highwayman
“If I've learned anything new, it would be understanding a character's emotions-why they fall for someone, what makes them feel attracted to each other.”
“If I've learned anything over the years, it's that horses do listen to you. They may not have a clue what you're saying, but they know the tone in which you say it. I'll sing to horses so hooked on their own nerves they're ready to climb into the sky, and sometimes it's one of the only things that keep them on the ground.”
Source: Stay the Distance
“If I've learned anything over the years, it's that the truth is generally a little unexpected, or even illogical, since we humans aren't entirely rational. Whereas lies, as a rule, tend to be consistent and comprehensive and often sound like a cliché - especially if the liars aren't very good.”
Source: The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
“If I've learned one thing about a woman: they'll get over every damn single tragedy without losing the charm of their smile.”
“If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that the unfortunate thing about life is that everything’s mixed. There’s no absolute good and there’s no absolute evil. There’s just a lot of confusion.”
Source: The Coming Storm
“If I’ve not determined a target for my life, then I have neither target nor bullseye. And maybe I’ve not determined a target because the bullseye is not to have one.”
“If I’ve prayed, I never have to worry about being the first one to show up.”
“If I venture to displace ... the microscopical speck of dust... on the point of my finger,... I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of multitudinous myriads of stars.”
Source: The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe
“If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dreams, where immobile steel rims crack and the ditch in the back roads stop. Could you find me?”