Best half & would-be Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“My father was a waiter basically, and when I got my first professional job as an actor, I left a job that he found me for half the amount of money. So anyone would think that they're stupid, that that would be a stupid move.”

Thinking Firsts Would Be Jobs Moving Actors Found Father Left Half Stupid Amount Waiter

Author:Alfred Molina

“It is thus that mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one half of mankind brave and one cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually fighting; but being all cowards, we go on very well.”

Wells Would Be Fighting Half Mankind Goes On Brave Mutual Coward Cowardice Uneasy One Half Easy Life

Author:Samuel Johnson

“I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen. The first of these came as a terrible shock and, like anything that changes you forever, split my life into halves: Before and After.”

Firsts Happens Would Be Half Accepting Forever Terrible Ordinary Extraordinary Shock Splits Extraordinary Things Before And After

Book:Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Source: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“If I could rest anywhere, it would be in Arkansas, where the men are of the real half-horse, half-alligator breed such as grows nowhere else on the face of the universal earth.”

Ifs Men Real Would Be Earth Faces Grows Half He Man Universal Horse If I Could Arkansas Alligators

Author:Davy Crockett

“It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything,. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size....I figured on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you'd have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed.”

Would Be Choices Born Half Huge Died Absolutes Size Tunnels

Author:Carol Rifka Brunt

“Let those find fault whose wit's so very small, They've need to show that they can think at all; Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls, must dive below. Fops may have leave to level all they can; As pigmies would be glad to lop a man. Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light, We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.”

Thinking Knows Men Needs May Littles Shows Light Would Be Levels Half Flow Errors Faults Surface Wit Glad Bites Pearls Scarce Straws Fleas

Book:The Poetical Works of John Dryden

Source: The Poetical Works of John Dryden

“Democracy...is a society in which the unbeliever feels undisturbed and at home. If there were only a half dozen unbelievers in America, their well-being would be a test of our democracy.”

Ifs Feels Wells Home Would Be America Half Democracy Tests Safety Well Being Dozen Unbelievers

Author:Alfred North Whitehead

“Ideas are somewhat like babies - they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. In the innovative company executives do not say, "This is a damn-fool idea." Instead they ask, "What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is an opportunity for us?"”

Ideas Would Be Asks Opportunity Born Half Company Baby Fool Needed Promise Foolish Make Sense Fulfillment Damn Executives Innovative Immature

Author:Peter Drucker

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spend most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.”

People Would Be Natural Results Numbers Half Personality Iron Atoms Riding Gross Bicycle Parish Natural Life

Book:The Complete Novels

Source: The Complete Novels

“The only way to prevent prostitution altogether would be to imprison one half of the human race.”

Way Humans Would Be Race Half Human Race Prostitution One Half

Book:God of the Machine

Source: God of the Machine

“If you notice an unconscious fantasy coming up within you, you would be wise not to interpret it at once. Do not say that you know what it is and force it into consciousness. Just let it live with you, leaving it in the half-dark, carry it with you and watch where it is going or what it is driving at.”

Ifs Knows Would Be Force Dark Half Consciousness Watches Fantasy Wise Leaving Driving Unconscious Within You Being Wise

Book:The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition

Source: The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition

“A large number of suspects, both men and women, escaped martial law for lack of any shred of evidence against them on which a court-martial could convict. So they began setting them free in groups, according to their birth-place. But half-way, the car-load would be emptied into a ditch.”

Men Way Would Be Law Numbers Half Groups Car Birth Evidence Men And Women Court Setting Settings Suspects Load Large Numbers Convicts Half Way Birth Place Martial Law

Author:Georges Bernanos

“Do we know what practices would be effective in resisting aliens? Wouldn't the public have to be convinced, in all countries, that there is such a threat? When have the major nations on this planet shown they can agree on any military course of action? Earthlings are already spending a trillion dollars a year on things military. Where would the money come from? Krugman seems to be suggesting more lies are what is needed. How about everybody cutting their military budgets in half and feeding people instead?”

“In life nothing is taken to its ultimate conclusion, life is a half-way house, a place of obligatory compromise; and, in dealing in logical conclusions, a man steps out of life -- or so it would be quite legitimate to argue.”

Men Way Would Be Life Is House Half Steps Taken Ultimate Arguing Conclusion Compromise Logical Half Way

Author:Wyndham Lewis

“When I finished the juniors I felt, perhaps for about a year and a half, that everything was going to be the same and that I would be able to go out there and win any match. But it wasn't the case. I struggled. It took me time to adjust and to realise it was not going to happen like it did in the juniors. It was three years between the junior ranks and reaching the Australian Open, and even then, having reached the final against Hingis, I wasn't really realising what it would take to go higher.”

Years Happens Would Be Able Three Winning Felt Sports Half Cases Higher Finals Finished Reaching Realising Three Years Juniors Australian

Author:Amelie Mauresmo

“This is a living planet. Look around. Mars, Venus, Jupiter. Look beyond our solar system. Where else is there a place that works, that is just right for the likes of us? It has not happened just instantly. It is vulnerable to our actions. But it's the result of four and a half billion years of evolution, of change over time. And it changes every day, all the time. It would be in our interest to try to maintain a certain level of stability that has enabled us to prosper, to not wreck the very systems that give us life.”

“Jewish women are very exciting, as exciting sexually as any other group. Even so, my advice to a young man marrying a Jewish girl would be to have three and a half years of foreplay. Of course, most girls in every group are reserved about getting down to it. They don't usually do it right away. But once they do it, women are bananas. They don't wanna do it, you can't make them do it, there's no way they'll do it - but once they do it, they don't let you alone.”

Men Way Years Would Be Young Girl Three Courses Half Groups Advice Exciting Young Man Reserved Sexually Bananas Marrying Half A Year

Author:Mel Brooks

“It would be a healthy exercise for every politician to look in the mirror every morning and remind himself that he holds office only because, in a two-man race against another mediocrity, a modest majority of those half-informed people who imagined that their votes mattered reckoned that he was the lesser evil. And they weren't too sure about that.”

People Men Looks Two Would Be Evil Race Half Morning Politician Exercise Healthy Office Vote Mirrors Majority Mediocrity Every Morning Modest Lesser Evil

Author:Joseph Sobran

“Music is a language, and it's like a dictionary that has a lot of words, but if you limited yourself to a couple of definitions you would be illiterate. If one limits oneself to a peculiar definition like 'new music,' 'avant-garde,' or something like that, I think it's like cutting out half the dictionary.”

Ifs Thinking Would Be Language Half Cutting Couple Limits Music Is Oneself Definitions Peculiar Dictionary Illiterate Avant Garde New Music

Author:Archie Shepp

“It is certain that there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree. But this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated.”

Ifs Love May Doe Said Soul Would Be Certain Passion Half Effects Produce Degrees Strikes Contrary Animated Insipid Soul Life

Book:Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste

Source: Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste

“If time, like money, could be laid by while one was not using it, there might be some excuse for the idleness of half of the world, but yet not a full one. For even this would be such an economy as the living on a principal sum, without making it purchase interest.”

Ifs World Might Would Be Time Interest Half Economy Excuse Principal Idleness Living On

Book:The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author, Written by Himself ...

Source: The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author, Written by Himself ...

“I scarcely remember any writer who has ever ventured to say that the half of the work of the world is actually accomplished by women; and very few husbands who would be otherwise than greatly startled and amazed, if not indignant, if not derisive, at the suggestion of such an idea as that the work of their wives was equal to their own.”

Ifs World Ideas Would Be Remember Work Half Wife Husband Equal Equality Accomplished Amazed Suggestions Indignant

Author:Margaret Oliphant

“tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice. It would be subversive of every human interest that the cry of one-half the human family be stifled. ... The world has had to limp along with the wobbling gait and one-sided hesitancy of a man with one eye. Suddenly the bandage is removed from the other eye and the whole body is filled with light. It sees a circle where before it saw a segment. The darkened eye restored, every member rejoices with it.”

“I don't think half my stuff would be funny if the audience didn't feel at least a little bit safe that it's not how I truly feel.”

Ifs Thinking Feels Littles Would Be Stuff Bits Half Audience Safe Little Bit

Author:Sarah Silverman

“My life, in some ways, has been a half-measure. I didn't commit myself all the way to my marriage and family, because I would have given up more. And I didn't go all the way with just being completely selfish. I always wonder where my career would be if I was more selfish.”

Ifs Way Has Beens Would Be Given Half Wonder Careers Selfish Commit Just Being Given Up Marriage And Family Half Measures

Author:Alec Baldwin

“I have a half-brother who is very, very, very gay, many cousins, best friends who are all members of the LGBT community, and for me to not say anything would be hypocritical. There is a lot of prejudice. People think it is abnormal. No, its just another normal.”

People Thinking Would Be Community Half Brother Gay Members Normal Prejudice Lgbt Say Anything Cousin Abnormal Gay Men Hypocritical Lgbt Community

Author:Lea Salonga

“I would say a must-do in Canada would be to go skiing at Whistler in Vancouver. You could take a chair lift for like a half hour to the top of this mountain and you ski down, it takes like so long to get to the bottom. You go past the clouds. It's absolutely incredible.”

Long Would Be Past Hours Half Mountain Bottom Incredibles Clouds Lifts Canada Chairs Skis Half Hours Skiing Vancouver Whistler

Author:Sebastian Bach

“I got the idea that to write books would be the best way to spend a life. I never thought of anything else that seemed like half as much fun, although in my next life I would like to be an architect, too, so I can have an easier time restoring houses.”

Way Writing I Can Book Ideas Would Be Next House Fun Half Easier Best Way Being The Best Architect Restoring Next Life Easier Times

Author:Frances Mayes

“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”

Source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 18 June, 1779 to 30 September, 1780

“There is a clear acknowledgement all over the world that we should not teach people to read and then to leave them without literature. For they would then relapse into a dreary and ultimately dangerous state of half-education, in which they would be easily satisfied by crude semi-pictorial approximations of the strip cartoon and by the abundant supply of degenerate literature which destroys, rather than promotes, a capacity to face the problems of the world with skill and courage”

“This Tony Haywire guy, whatever his name is, he told the BBC on Sunday that he believes the new oil cap that they've installed will eventually capture the vast majority of oil spewing from the well. You know, if they could capture half the BS spewing from Tony Hayward, people would be thrilled.”

People Ifs Knows Believe Wells Would Be Guy Names Half Majority Oil Sunday Capture Caps

Author:Jay Leno

“I loved him. I hated him. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to strangle him. I was a walking, talking contradiction. There were days I was so torn by my conflicting emotions that I thought I would be ripped in half. Staring at my best friend and secret object of my undying love, I wondered if I would ever get off this crazy train of emotions swirling around inside me. I didn't like feeling this way. But the truth was I couldn't remember a time I didn't feel this aching need to completely immerse myself in all things Daniel Lowe.”

“What a pleasure life would be to live if everybody would try to do only half of what he expects others to do.”

Ifs Trying Would Be Pleasure Half Expectations

Author:William J. H. Boetcker

“More than half the difficulties of the world would be allayed or removed by the exhibition of good temper.”

World Would Be Half Difficulty Temper Exhibitions

Author:Arthur Helps

“A non-Communist premier with Communist ministers would be like a woman trying to stay half pregnant.”

Trying Would Be Half Ministers Communist Pregnant

Author:Charles E. Bohlen

“It would be about as easy for an American to become a Chinaman or a Hindoo as for him to acquire an Englishness or a Frenchness or a European-ness that is more than half skin deep.”

Would Be Easy Half Skins Acquire Skin Deep

Author:Ezra Pound

“One third of all of our cancers are from tobacco. It's one of the big killers in America and more than half of our kids still have environmental tobacco smoke exposure when environmental tobacco smoke is known to be associated with sudden infant death syndrome, with ear infections, respiratory infections and the rest. If we had to pick something to really go after, that would be one that I would really argue is an extraordinarily high priority and something people can actually do something about.”

“I would not want to be a mobile home repo man. Those would be hard to sneak away - "Knock knock - Hi, would you go cut your grass and look that way for a half an hour?"”

Men Way Want Looks Hard Home Humor Would Be Funny Hours Half Cutting Grass Mobile Sneak Repo Man

Author:Mitch Hedberg

“I ate while I was taking chemo. The doctors didn't know. I really didn't get any nausea. I didn't have side effects. I would be drained for a day and a half.”

Knows Would Be Sides Half Effects Doctors Side Effects Drained Nausea

Author:Eric Davis

“In the first half of the 20th Century, we lived through human disasters on a scale unimaginable. The Holocaust was once suggested would be the end of not only civilization, but art, too.”

Firsts Humans Art Ends Would Be Half Century Civilization Disaster Scales Holocaust 20th Century Unimaginable

Author:Ian Mcewan

“It's funny: half my films were flops, half did well. It would be terrible if I'd had only success.”

Ifs Wells Would Be Film Half Terrible

Author:Claude Lelouch

“The Chinese are quite entrepreneurial. Remember when Lenovo bought IBM's PC division. It was said that China didn't need a brand name, China didn't need to buy Lenovo to get into the PC business, I remember reading a one-liner somewhere which struck me as quite possibly true, it said the one thing that the Chinese had not been able to copy or figure out was the way, in terms of systems, that Americans - it probably would be true for Europeans as well - that Americans install and live by their management systems, while China is still quite half-assed. Perhaps that is a true statement.”

“I don't think people ought to believe only one news medium. They ought to read and they ought to go to opinion journals and all the rest of it. I think it's terribly important that this be taught in the public schools, because otherwise, we're gonna get to a situation because of economic pressures and other things where television's all you've got left. And that would be disastrous. We can't cover the news in a half-hour event evening. That's ridiculous.”

“Nothing can preserve the integrity of contact between individuals, except a discretionary authority in the state to revise what has become intolerable. The powers of uninterrupted usury are too great. If the accretions of vested interests were to grow without mitigation for many generations, half the population would be no better than slaves to the other half.”

Ifs States Would Be Individual Grows Interest Half Generations Integrity Authority Slave Population Contact Preserves Other Half Vested Interests Usury

Book:The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes

Source: The collected writings of John Maynard Keynes

“If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.”

Ifs Would Be Half Tomorrow Taxes Bones Lawyer Factories

Author:H. L. Mencken

“If people would stop objectifying abstractions (which they probably never will), or if they would stop objectifying the abstractions they make consciously (which they might learn to do), at least half the pseudo-questions befuddling the world today - as they have befuddled it since time immemorial - would vanish. And that would be a very, very great gain.”

People Ifs World Might Would Be Today Half Gains Abstraction World Today Pseudo Objectifying

Author:Cassius Jackson Keyser

“At least half of your mind is always thinking, I'll be leaving; this won't last. It's a good Buddhist attitude. If I were a Buddhist, this would be a great help. As it is, I'm just sad.”

Ifs Thinking Mind Helping Would Be Lasts Half Attitude Leaving Buddhist Always Thinking Good Buddhist

Author:Anne Carson

“If a hundred or a thousand people, all of the same age, of the same constitution and habits, were suddenly seized by the same illness, and one half of them were to place themselves under the care of doctors, such as they are in our time, whilst the other half entrusted themselves to Nature and to their own discretion, I have not the slightest doubt that there would be more cases of death amongst the former, and more cases of recovery among the latter.”

People Ifs Would Be Care Age Half Cases Doubt Habit Thousand Hundred Doctors Constitution Illness Recovery Former Our Time Latter Discretion Other Half One Half

Author:Petrarch

“I thought if the climate was heating that CO2 was the only forcing, and it would be late in the century before we had trouble. Now that we know about the other half of the forcing, it's obvious that the trouble is coming much sooner.”

Ifs Knows Would Be Half Trouble Century Late Climate Obvious Other Half Co2 Heating

Author:Paul R. Ehrlich

“The greatest element in life is not what occupies most of its time, else sleep would stand high in the scale. Nor is it what engrosses most of its thought, else money would be very high. The two or three hours of worship and preaching weekly has perhaps been the greatest signal influence on English life. Half an hour of prayer, morning or evening, every day, may be a greater element in shaping our course than all our conduct and all our thought.”

May Two Would Be Life Is Three Courses Hours Prayer Sleep Half Morning Greater Influence Elements Worship Scales Evening Preaching Our Thoughts Signals

Author:Peter Forsyth

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