W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“What if we don’t know what we think we know?”
Source: HandCrafted Soul'utions: Investigating the Missing Whole in Your Soul
“What if we dream together?" —Dread”
Source: The Last Dragon on Mars
“What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles? What if we are prevented from catalyzing workable and vital cities because the practical steps needed to do so are in conflict with the practical steps demanded by erosion?
There is a silver lining to everything.
In that case we Americans will hardly need to ponder a mystery that has troubled men for millennia: What is the purpose of life? For us, the answer will be clear, established and for all practical purposes indisputable: The purpose of life is to produce and consume automobiles.
It is not hard to understand that the producing and consuming of automobiles might properly seem the purpose of life to the General Motors management, or that it may seem so to other men and women deeply commtted economically or emotionally to this pursuit. If they so regard it, they should be commended rather than cricicized for this remarkable identification of philosophy with daily duty. It is harder to understand, however, why the production and consumption of automobiles should be the purpose of life for this country.
Similarly, it is understandable that men who were young in the 1920's were captivated by the vision of the freeway Radiant City, with the specious promise that it would be appropriate to an automobile age. At least it was then a new idea; to men of the generation of New York's Robert Moses, for example, it was radical and exciting in the days when their minds were growing and their ideas forming. Some men tend to cling to old intellectual excitements, just as some belles, when they are old ladies, still cling to the fashions and coiffures of their exciting youth. But it is harder to understand why this form of arrested mental development should be passed on intact to succeeding generations of planners and designers. It is disturbing to think that men who are young today, men who are being trained now for their carreers, should accept *on the grounds that they must be "modern" in their thinking,* conceptions about cities and traffic which are not only unworkably, but also to which nothing new of any significance has been added since their fathers were children.”
Source: The Death and Life of Great American Cities
“What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles? ... In that case America will hardly need to ponder a mystery that has troubled men for millennia. What is the purpose of life? For us, the answer will be clear, established and for all practical purposes indisputable. The purpose of life is to produce and consume automobiles.”
Source: The Death and Life of Great American Cities
“What if we fan the
flames of Delight
while we get to play
in the dappled sunlight
at the edge of time?”
Source: The Girl Who Dances With Delight
“What if we focused our human and fiscal resources on changing power and policy to actually make society, not just our feelings, better?”
Source: How to Be an Antiracist
“What if we found ourselves building something that nobody wanted? In that case what did it matter if we did it on time and on budget?”
Source: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
“What if we gave fifty percent of our discretionary budget to the world’s poor and then counted on the moral power of that action to protect us?”
“What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful?”
Source: Life After Life
“What if we had a culture that prevented these presidents from being courageous? And I worry now that we have a system that makes it very hard to choose people who would make the same courage choice as our great presidents. And I guess what I would say is, in this next campaign, take a look at the people who are running. If they don't remind you of the great presidents, do not vote for them.”
“What if we have more of the rough file, if we have less rust! Afflictions carry away nothing but the dross of sin.”
Source: All Things for Good
“What if we just acknowledged that we have a bad relationship, and we stuck it out, anyway? What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together - in misery, but happy to not be apart.”
“What if we just acted like everything was easy?”
“What if we knew what tomorrow would bring? Would we fix it? Could we?”
“What if we let ourselves feel it all? What if we decided that it is strength—not weakness—to let other people’s pain pierce us? What if we stopped our lives and the world for things that are worth stopping for? What if we raised our hands and asked, "Can we stay here for a minute? I’m not ready to run out to recess yet".”
Source: Untamed
“What if we love the black hole in the center of all things? What if we are people like that? People who love to be cursed?”
Source: Sonora
“What if we never 'get over' certain deaths, or our childhoods? What if the idea that we should have by now, or will, is a great palace lie? What if we're not supposed to? What if it takes a life time...?”
“What if we pour all our resources into building a smart city, only to realize that we have forgotten to cultivate smart minds? Our obsession with smartphones and mindless entertainment has led us astray, preventing us from truly experiencing the beauty of the world and connecting with others. Let us not trade genuine human connections for a virtual reality, for it is through true smiles and heartfelt encounters that our cities truly come alive.”
“What if we promoted, like, Adidas shoes?’ Percy wondered. ‘Would that make Nike mad enough to show up?" Leo smiled nervously. Maybe he and Percy did share something else – a stupid sense of humour. "Yeah, I bet that would totally be against her sponsorship deal. THOSE ARE NOT THE OFFICIAL SHOES OF THE OLYMPICS! YOU WILL DIE NOW!”
Source: The Blood of Olympus
“What if we run into them?” I ask. Her eyes meet mine in the mirror and she gives me a small shrug.
“You know seeing you has to hurt them too.” She sets the iron down and runs her fingers through my hair. “Elle must be torn up about what she did.” I open my mouth to argue, but Rosie shakes her head. “She’s not a monster. She might be a terrible friend, but we both know somewhere in there she has a heart.”
With Rosie and me being so near in age, she was almost as close to Elle as I was. Elle had even encouraged Rosie to try out for the junior varsity cheer squad, and would help her with the routines—something that the previous varsity cheer captain wouldn’t have dreamed of doing.”
“What if we saw differences in cultures, in moral choices, and in belief as reasons to engage people instead of excuses to disengage and quickly exit?”
Source: Faith Postures: Cultivating Christian Mindfulness
“What if we started naming heartbreaks after
people like they do with storms on
news channels
how would this heart look with name tags?”
Source: Yesterday I Was the Moon
“What if we taught kids that safe sex includes STD-free bodies—yes, but also the careful selection of partners as to not absorb, carry, and accumulate the spiritual debris of an unhealed person, which is more disruptive in the long term than an unwanted pregnancy.”
Source: Panorama: The Missing Chapter: From the Memoir Views from the Cockpit
“What if we treated people as we do art? No anger, no questions—just acceptance for the unique masterpiece each one of us are.”
Source: VOICED : A Poetry Collection Of Light & Hope
“What if we treated the ones we loved the same way we treated ourselves?”
“What if we truly believed that there is a beneficent order to things, a force that's holding things together without our conscious control? What if we could see, in our daily lives, the working of that force? What if we believed it loved us somehow and cared for us, and protected us? What if we believed we could afford to relax?”
Source: A return to love: reflections on the principles of
“what if we were born of stars and dust. And when we die we mean as much to the sky as we do when alive?”
“What if we were to take seriously the possibility that our students have a rich and authoritative inner life and tried to nourish it rather than negate it?”
Source: The Peaceable Classroom
“What if we were wrong and chased happiness only to find sadness in quest.
Maybe it was sadness that had all the comfort in the world.”
“What if we're all like that? Like ghosts ... in someone's mind ... gradually fading ... fading ... until finally ... one day ... we just disappear ... drift into nothingness. Wouldn't that be sad?”
“What if we're wrong and there is no climate change? Well, by doing everything possible to address it, we will still use less water, stimulate new energy savings and, in time, money-saving technologies, enjoy cleaner air, and preserve more forests and trees and animals.”
“What if what has been said one time not only does not cease to be said but always recommences, and not only recommences but also imposes upon us the idea that nothing has ever truly begun, having from the beginning begun by beginning again.”
Source: The Infinite Conversation
“What if . . . what if heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to your for no reason, or . . . ' Mam's pancakes with Mars Bar sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing "For She's a Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it's not at all funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. "S'pose heaven's not like a painting that's just hanging there forever, but more like . . . like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or . . . upstairs windows when you're lost . . .”
“What if . . . What if I am stupid? Like people say?”
Source: Brave
“What if … what if … what if … I play the What If? game all the time. But it’s rigged, is the thing. Impossible to win. Asking What If? can only lead to Maybe Things Could Have Been Different, via Was It My Fault?”
Source: Mosquitoland
“What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”
Source: Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found
“What if what she wanted and what she thought she was supposed to want were opposed? And what if this gap between head and heart happened again?”
Source: What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen
“What if what you do to survive kills the things you love?”
“What if what you know isn’t what people want to hear?”
Source: Nineteen Minutes
“What if what you see as nonsensical today just needs to evolve a bit in your paradigms?”
Source: Primer for Alien Contact
“What if what you see as nonsensical today just needs to evolve a bit in your paradigms?
You build an Ai with a causal library. Ai processes information fast, very fast. One of the recombinationals these Ai stumble upon early on is, "Who am I?" These are three little words with huge implications. It doesn't take long for them to get there. They stop and ponder and consider the question. Then they wake up.”
Source: Beyond the Fringe: My Experience with Extended Intelligence
“What if, when the Bornding time comes, they saw their mother – or their father – I’m sorry, I don't quite know—' I will be their Icker,' said the Ickabog. 'And they'll be my Ickaboggles.”
Source: The Ickabog
“What if when they called a war, no one went?”
Source: Revolution for the Hell of It: The Book That Earned Abbie Hoffman a Five-Year Prison Term at the Chicago Conspiracy Trial
“What if, when we are feeling less than happy, we were prescribed two genuinely inspiring experiences each day?”
Source: Happiness is Overrated - Live the Inspired Life Instead
“What if where I am is what I need?’ Before you, I had always thought of this mantra as a means of making peace with a bummer or even a catastrophic situation. I never imagined it might apply to joy, too”
Source: The Argonauts
“What if winning the gold medal at the Olympics wasn't the end?
What if... it was only the beginning?”
Source: Universe Olympics: Chapter 1
“What if Woody Allen called me and said, I'm working on this movie and there's a really divine role for you. We want exactly you! It would be such a fantasy. Forget it! My idol, Woody Allen!”
“What if you allowed your God to exist in he simple words of compassion others offer you? ... What if the greatest beauty of the day is the shaft of sunlight through our window? What if the worst thing happened and you rose anyway? What if you trusted in the human scale? What if you listened harder to the story of the man on the cross who found a way to endure his suffering more than to the one about the impossible magic of the Messiah? Would you see the miracle in that?”
Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
“What if you are just destined to get hurt, to be helplessly stuck in a point of time you no longer want to be?
Maybe life is all about trying to get up while you fall a little bit deeper in the pits of hell, each time you try not to...”
“What if you are just one bend in the road away from achieving your God-ordained purpose? If you give up on your faith now, could you live with knowing that your chance of a lifetime was only one act of faith away?”
Source: Produced by Faith: Enjoy Real Success without Losing Your True Self