W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“What is it that is hidden behind the Yankees' hate of the Cuban Revolution? What is it that rationally explains the conspiracy, uniting for the same aggressive purpose the most powerful and rich imperialist power in the contemporary world and the oligarchies of an entire continent, which together are supposed to represent a population of 350 million human beings, against a small country of only seven million inhabitants, economically underdeveloped, without financial or military means to threaten the security or economy of any other country? What unites them and stirs them up is fear. What explains it is fear. Not fear of the Cuban Revolution but fear of the Latin American revolution.”
Source: The Declarations of Havana
“What is it that is most beautiful? - The Universe; for it is the work of God. What is most powerful? - Necessity; because it triumphs over all things. What is most difficult? - To know one's self. What is most easy? - To give advice. What method must we take to lead a good life? - To do nothing we would condemn in others. What is necessary to happiness? - A sound body and a contented mind.”
“What is it that love does to a woman? Without she only sleeps with it alone, she lives.”
“What is it that makes a person insist passionately on the existence of metaphysical realities that can be neither demonstrated nor refuted? (176)”
“What is it that makes a seemingly rational man set out on a perilous journey knowing full well that the odds of success are quite remote and the consequences of failure are likely to be devastating? Is it pride, stubbornness, a yearning for adventure, or just a reckless disregard of reality?”
“What is it that makes all of us end each day with the sense that we have not lived our time, but have been lived, used by what we do?”
“What is it that makes language a far more powerful—and risky—tool for gods than it is for even humans? What is it that makes gods gods? What am I?”
Source: The Raven Tower
“What is it that makes us suppose that we can more easily do twice tomorrow what we didn't do once today!”
“What is it that makes us trust our judges? Their independence in office and manner of appointment.”
Source: The Political and Economic Doctrines of John Marshall
“What is it that makes us who we are and what we are? Is it only our blood, the color of our hair, our skin, and our eyes? Or is it believing in what we believe and living the way we live?”
Source: Ansgar: The Struggle of a People. The Triumph of the Heart.
“What is it that makes you cry? It is only your attachments. What is it that you miss when it is lost? It is the object of your attachment. Ponder over this. Find out what it is that grips your very life, without which you feel miserable and destitute; that is the center of your attachment.
Here is what you should do: make an effort to find out what things it would hurt you to lose. Then, before they are lost, open your hands little by little, relax your grip on them. This is the method for conquering attachment. There is bound to be pain, but you must bear it; this is your penance. It is not necessary to renounce anything. It is not that you should leave your wife and run away to the Himalayas. Remain there, where you are, but gradually stop depending on her. There is no need to cause any pain; your wife need not even know it. There is no need to tell her.
Seek out the attachments. Try gradually to live without the things that you now think you cannot live without. Create such a state within yourself that if and when these things are lost, there is not the slightest tremor within you. Then you will have attained victory over these attachments. This can be possible. It has been possible. And if it has happened to even one, it can happen to all.”
Source: Bliss: Living beyond happiness and misery
“What is it that makes you so angry, bothers you so deeply, that you're compelled to act?”
Source: Weird: Because Normal Isn't Working
“What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.”
Source: Life
“What is it that really makes us, us? It's our collective intelligence. It's our ability to write things down, our language and our consciousness.”
“What is it that renders death terrible? Sin. We must therefore fear sin, not death.”
“What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
Source: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
“What is it that stands higher than words? Action. What is it that stands higher than action? Silence.”
“What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth.”
Source: Mainly the truth: interviews with Mark Twain
“What is it that the child has to teach?
The child naively believes that everything should be fair
and everyone should be honest,
that only good should prevail,
that everybody should have what they want
and there should be no pain or sadness.
The child believes the world should be perfect
and is outraged to discover it is not.
And the child is right.”
Source: Wisdom to Heal the Earth - Meditations and Teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe
“What is it that turns people into artists? It often comes from some kind of pain or angst, a need to understand or express something. It very rarely comes from confidence, being raised by parents who want to hear what you have to say and wants to encourage you.”
“What is it that we all believe in that we cannot see or hear or feel or taste or smell — this invisible thing that heals all sorrows, reveals all lies and renews all hope? What is it that has always been and always will be, from whose bosom we all came and to which we will all return? Most call it Time. A few realize that it is God.”
“What is it that we call loneliness. It can’t simply be the absence of others, you can be alone and not lonely, and you can be among people and yet be lonely. So what is it?”
Source: Night Train to Lisbon
“What is it that we do here? By easing away from the mania that pulls on us, recalling and reconnecting with our essential spirit and callings, we regenerate our core inspiration and faith in Life and our place within it…with a purposeful eye toward facilitating evolution toward ‘More capable human beings,’ meaning grander, freer, more authentic and meaningfully effective.
How do we do that? By delving into pockets of rituals that have, across traditions and cultures, produced superior forms of insight and understanding, healing, evolution and resolution. One could call these tunnels into beauty, truth and love. And we can find access to them in any given day of our lives.”
“What is it that we in the theatre give? Instead of images on canvas or in the form of statuary or music, we give our body, voice, feelings, will, imagination — we give a form of pulsating art to life itself; we give it to our characters and we give it to our audiences. Nothing, absolutely nothing remains for us save the pleasure of having given pleasure.”
“What is it that we long for? Protection and peace, to be free from shock.”
Source: Imagination and a World of Dreams
“What is it that we need to do to explain to the public exactly is what is happening? We are destroying our precious water resources at this alarming rate, and again, why? When we have so many viable alternatives? "Oh,alternative power is too expensive, what about the jobs" - this is dinosaur thinking.”
“What is it that would make a creature as fierce, majestic and powerful as a lion is, subject itself to the intimidation of a man a whip and a chair? The lion has been taught to forget what it is.”
Source: Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You're Going Through
“What is it that you contain? The dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia opening in your gut. Every minute, in each of you, a few million potassium atoms succumb to radioactive decay. The energy that powers these tiny atomic events has been locked inside potassium atoms ever since a star-sized bomb exploded nothing into being. Potassium, like uranium and radium, is a long-lived radioactive nuclear waste of the supernova bang that accounts for you. Your first parent was a star.”
Source: Weight
“What is it that you contain? The Dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia. The expanding universe opening in your gut. Are your twenty-three feet of intestines loaded with stars?”
“What is it that you don't think you can do? What do you think is too big for you? Or too scary, or too risky? Sometimes God whispers it, and sometimes, he shouts it. Whatever the volume, I bet he's always using the same three words with us: Be Not Afraid.”
Source: Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People
“What is it that you ever wanted in life?
Who cares about you?
Who laughs with you?
Who shared your hopes and dreams?
To top it all, maybe just maybe,
When you are near your death,
All that you ever wanted is to ask forgiveness to whom you have sinned,
to tell them that they should take care of themselves, wish them to be safe, and to ask mercy from God to let you enter His Kingdom.
And barely wouldn't even care what will happen with your facebook account.
Well maybe we can start with start living simple
And could stop living like a pro,
Because nothing in this world is worth of value to the One up above.
Don't you know that none of us is born perfect,
And no one else will be?”
“What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it.”
“What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it. You don't have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don't like it you'll never be successful in it.”
“What is it that you love in others?--My hopes.”
“What is it that you most fear hearing about your work?”
“What is it that you really want, a relationship that is too easy, that you will question, that it is too good to be true, or one that you both worked out to have?”
Source: Jake Hollow's Guide on How to Persuade Women: Revised Female Edition
“What is it that you think about just before you get a condom? Sex!”
“What is it that's taken hold of me, for me to carry on like this in relentless pursuit of something beyond my powers?”
Source: Monet by Himself: Paintings, Drawings, Pastels, Letters
“What is it the Bible teaches us? — repine, cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament teaches us? — to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.”
Source: The age of reason
“What is it the Bible teaches us? - raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? - to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.”
“What is it the Bible teaches us? -- rapine, cruelty, and murder.”
Source: Thomas Paine: Collected Writings: Common Sense / The American Crisis / Rights of: (Library of America #76)
“What is it the I'll want from you? Not love: that would be too much to ask. Not forgiveness, which isn't yours to bestow. Only a listener, perhaps; only someone who will see me. Don't prettify me though, whatever else you do: I have no wish to be a decorated skull. But I leave myself in your hands. What choice do I have? By the time you read this last page, that- if anywhere- is the only place I will be.”
“What is it then? Why do you hesitate?
Why do you relish living like a coward?
Why cannot you be bold and keen to start?”
Source: The Divine Comedy by Dante
“What is it to 'walk in the Spirit'? It is not self-occupation, nor even occupation with the Spirit. Walking according to the Spirit is occupation with the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. If the believer ever looks to the Lord Jesus, depends upon Him, draws all his needs from Him- if He is his All in all- then the believer walks according to the Spirit of Christ.”
“What is it to be a fool for Christ? It is to control one's thoughts when they stray out of line. It is to make the mind empty and free.”
“What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?”
Source: Contributions to Punch, Etc.
“What is it to be a philosopher? Is it not to be prepared against events?”
Source: The Works of Epictetus: Consisting of His Discourses in Four Books Preserved by Arrian, the Enchiridion, and Fragments
“What is it to be bold?
To feel fear but pay it no heed. To take a chance despite the looming threat of failure. To risk ridicule while attempting something new and unusual. To ignore probabilities. To scorn the odds. To hope, to dream, to dare to fly. This is to be bold.”
Source: Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year
“What is it to be rich? It is to have an assured income in excess of expenditures, and to have no occasion for anxiety for the morrow. It is to be above the necessity of living from hand to mouth. It is to be able (or to have grounds to insanely suppose one's self to be able) to live outside of God's providence.”
Source: A Letter to the Rev. Henry W. Foote, Minister of King's Chapel, in Vindication of the Poorer Class of the Boston Working-women
“What is it to be wise?
'Tis but to know how little can be known,
To see all others' faults, and feel our own.”
Source: The works of Alexander Pope. With notes by dr. Warburton