I guess if I’d had any sense, I’d have been a little scared [to register to vote] – but what was the point of being scared? The only thing they could do was kill me, and it kinda seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time since I could remember. — Fannie Lou Hamer
(F)or 50 years, the well-meaning leftist agenda has been able to do to blacks what Jim Crow and harsh discrimination could never have done: family breakdown, illegitimacy and low academic achievement. — Walter E. Williams
No man is hurt but by himself. …Literally by how he interprets what happens to him. If he focusses on how it could have been better, he will be hurt. If he focusses on how it could have been worse, he will be happy. The same is true for women too. — Diogenes
Every minute spent worrying about “The way thing were” is a moment stolen from creating the way things can be.
For even in hell, I still have faith, To one day be free with my father at the gates, But make no mistakes, I’ll show you what time takes, To be a success on earth, mixed with all the hate, I stand on my pivot, my life you could not live it For the things that I’ve seen have been too damn explicit. — Kid Cudi
You know what the true definition of hell is? It’s when you die, you get to meet the person you could have been. — Frank Mir
My stiffest earthly assignment is ended and my major life’s work is done. My country is now free and I have been honoured to be its first indigenous head of state. What more could one desire in life? — Nnamdi Azikiwe
Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right.
Michael Brown and Eric Garner died because they got into a confrontation that could have been easily avoided. That’s what made their deaths so tragic. — Mike Rowe
The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance. — Viktor E. Frankl
I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking. — George Macdonald
I’m not sure what the future holds but I do know that I’m going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate. As my dad said ‘Nic, it is what it is, it’s not what it should have been, not what it could have been, it is what it is.’ — Nicole Kidman
Nobody is stronger, nobody is weaker than someone who came back. There is nothing you can do to such a person because whatever you could do is less than what has already been done to him. We have already paid the price. — Elie Wiesel
If with so little we have done so much in Brazil, imagine what could have been done on a global scale, if the fight against hunger and poverty were a real priority for the international community. — Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Think what a contribution selfish people of great talent could have made if their commitments had been made to Jesus Christ instead of to themselves! We will do better in every aspect of our lives if we commit to a God in whose life we see miracles, power over disease and death. — Vaughn J Featherstone
Think about what could go right.
In my movies, there has been little to do in the way of animal rights. I have never worked in a movie with animals. No horse-riding, no trained dogs, lions, bears. A few actors, but what could I do? We had to have them. — Casey Affleck
We have a chance to wind down and expedite the removal of 96 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. What an achievement it would be, if at the end of the next administration, we could say that the nuclear arsenals of both Russia and the United States had been reduced to the barest minimums. — Dianne Feinstein
I’ve been an atheist since I was nine years old. And my mom is really religious, so we have a strange relationship. But if my mother was right, what would be the reason that the gods could let anything bad happen in the world? — Tarsem Singh
If you truly loved yourself, you could never hurt another.
Country music has changed tremendously, so what now is considered country was not considered country at that time. We were doing stuff that probably could have been called country music today, but would certainly have not have fit in at that time. — Charlie Daniels
We had offers to go everywhere and we could have done them. But what would have been the point? We were tired. We had worked hard and needed a break before we got stale. We spent six months at home and writing songs. — John Bonham
We all have that burning question about what happens if we lose somebody we love, especially if we lose them tragically. We wonder what fear was going on, we wonder if we could have reached out and touched them, held their hand, looked in their eyes, been there. — Kevin Costner
I don’t think that we’re limiting talent. I think if I could reverse the clock a little bit, there would have been more kind coverage among female journalists for what I was doing. — Kellyanne Conway
What I learned, in the two months that we shot, I don’t think I could have learned in two to four years of drama school. It’s invaluable to me, and that’s been the most fun. It’s been nice to let this be a learning experience in everything. — Steven Yeun
What could be more advantageous in an intellectual contest – whether it be chess, bridge, or stock selection – than to have opponents who have been taught that thinking is a waste of energy? — Warren Buffett
All of my films have been very hard to understand at the script stage because they’re very different. At the time I did them they were not conventional. The executives could only think in terms of what they’d already seen. It’s hard for them to think in terms of what has never been done before. — George Lucas
I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – thing I had no words for.
We throw away what we could have been and waste our opportunities. We each have a purpose, a destiny, and to realize it, we must reach beyond what we think we are capable of. — Colleen Houck
I feel there are so many things in this world that have been and are being created that I could spend the rest of my life thinking about, and I couldn’t cover all the things I’m interested in. That to me is what makes life sweet-learning and exploring. — James Franco
I think, like a lot of other people who have been in the service, you’d been delayed in what you were doing. You wanted to catch up and the best way to catch up was to move as fast as you could toward a degree. — Daniel J. Evans
It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it.
If you give your life to a cause in which you believe, and if it is right and just, and if your life comes to an end as a result of this, then your life could not have been spent in a more redemptive way. I think that is what my husband has done. — Coretta Scott King
What if she was meant to be, or could have been, someone important in my life? I think that’s what scares me: the randomness of everything. That the people who could be important to you might just pass you by. Or you pass them by. — Peter Cameron
Have you been drinking this morning? How did you miss me? I swear I’ve fought old women with better reflexes. (Takeshi) The fact you fight old women tells me just how rusty you’ve become. What? Your ego needed the boost and they were the only ones you could find you could beat? (Savitar) — Sherrilyn Kenyon
What would be awful would be to die and look back miserably – seeing only the bad things, the opportunities missed, or what could have been. — Audrey Hepburn
I supposed, perhaps, you miss the promise of what could have been, while at the same time you are grateful that what it was instead is over. — Sylvia Day
WIth freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy.
You might have to lose control before you could find out what you’d been missing. — Jodi Picoult
But hey, man, if I summited K2 in winter, without oxygen, frost-nipped fingers are a small price to pay. It was worth it. Think about it, things could have been a lot worse. — Nirmal Purja
Such is life and life is such and after all it isn’t much. First a cradle. Then a hearse. It might have been better, but it could have been worse. — Norman Wisdom
What happened to you could have been worse – it could have happened to me. — Ashleigh Brilliant
If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.
There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement. — Jane Austen
The word ‘happiness’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced and contrasted and compared to sadness. In comparing how an experience could have been worse we develop gratitude and happiness, while if we compare it how it could have been better we develop bitterness and sadness. — Carl Jung
But…as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like that and survive. I mean, I know it could have been worse-a lot worse- but for me, it was all I could have handled at the time. And I learned from it. — Nicholas Sparks
Some people pass through our lives for a reason to teach us lessons that could never be learned if they stayed.
It could have been worse. I could have been born black. — Stevie Wonder
Any experience can be transformed into something of value. [ – worthy of enjoying by knowing it could have been worse.] — Vash Young
Sometimes I’m scared of being Ozzy Osbourne. But it could have been worse. I could have been Sting. — Ozzy Osbourne
There’s nothing wild about me. I’m a solid middle-aged man.” “Except that once a month you turn into a wolf and go tearing around slaughtering things,” Clary said. “It could be worse,” Luke said. “Men my age have been known to purchase expensive sports cars and sleep with supermodels. — Cassandra Clare
The famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it’s just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe”, I’d have been lying! — Rene Magritte
It occurred to me that I just didn’t see how I could go ahead and continue to eat meat. It just seemed so… cannibalistic to me. And so, I’m a vegetarian, and I have been ever since. — Alice Paul
Whatever meaning ‘Annie’s Song’ had for me on a personal level, there was also a larger context. It could just as easily have been about love for a brother. Or a father. Or a friend. It could just as easily have been a prayer. — John Denver
So many times I wish I could’ve lived my life without making mistakes. In reality, a path like that doesn’t exist. We fall. We get lost. We make mistakes. We get up and Live.
I had gone away from Twitter because before people had been so mean to me. Talking about my lisp and my enormous forehead and all these things. I do have a lisp, I do have a forehead I know you could land a plane on, it’s no mystery to me. I just didn’t have the skin for it. — Sarah Paulson
Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them. — Susan B. Anthony
People spend a lifetime thinking abouthow they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me, it’s very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing ‘Love in the Time of Cholera.’ — Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I wish I could say someone taught me my mental toughness, it would have been a lot less painful. — Kurt Warner
Keep your libraries, your penal institutions, your insaneasylums… give me beer.You think man needs rule, he needs beer. The world does not need morals, it needs beer… The souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the soul could make use of beer. — Henry Miller
If she had touched me,” he said very softly, “I would have been hers and not my own, not ever again. I wanted her to touch me but I could not let her. No cat will. We let human beings caress us because it is pleasant enough and calms them – but not her. The price is more than a cat can pay. — Peter S. Beagle
I don’t really regret much. I know there are things that I’ve done that have been wrong, and wish I could do over again, but I feel it’s all made me who I am today, and I’m very thankful for that. — Tim Tebow
It is never too late to be what you might have been. — George Eliot
Mr. Meant-to has a friend, his name is Didn’t-Do. Have you met them? They live together in a house called Never-Win. And I am told that it is haunted by the Ghost of Might-have-Been. — Marva Collins
It’s pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness. — Jerry Garcia
I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past. — Clara Barton
I don’t think I was awake for much of my childhood. I did a lot of napping. This might have been a defensive measure against encroaching depression. Until about the age of eleven or twelve, I had zero interests other than trying to steal gumballs from supermarket gumball machines. — Michael Ian Black
Man is an idiot. He doesn’t know how to do anything without copying, without imitating, without plagiarizing, without aping. It might even have been that man invented generation by coitus after seeing the grasshopper copulate. — Augusto Roa Bastos
The war… was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides. — Robert E. Lee
This world crisis came about without women having anything to do with it. If the women of the world had not been excluded from world affairs, things today might have been different. — Alice Paul
If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been. — Robert H. Schuller
The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. — Frederick Buechner
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. — Haile Selassie
Someone once asked me what I regarded as the three most important requirements for happiness. My answer was: A feeling that you have been honest with yourself and those around you; a feeling that you have done the best you could both in your personal life and in your work; and the ability to love others. — Eleanor Roosevelt
To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour. — Winston Churchill
I have frequently been questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy. — Marie Curie
The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. — Jeremy Bentham
For years mental health professionals taught people that they could be psychologically healthy without social support, that “unless you love yourself, no one else will love you.”…The truth is, you cannot love yourself unless you have been loved and are loved. The capacity to love cannot be built in isolation — Bruce D. Perry
We were in the Arabian Desert for nine months. And I was having the time of my life. It could have been an archeological expedition, a military expedition. — Peter O’Toole
Until COVID, I thought that free speech was a protected fundamental right guaranteed to all citizens of the United States of America by the Bill of Rights. Having been assigned core texts like 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and The Trial and Death of Socrates in fourth and fifth grade as a “gifted and talented” student in the California school system of the time, I believed there was no way anything like what was written in those books could happen here in the USA during the 21st century. — Robert W. Malone
The countries of northern Europe have been richer than those of the south for several centuries. The north industrialized earlier than the south and so has been more economically successful. As many of the northern countries comprise the heartland of Western Europe, their trade links were easier to maintain, and one wealthy neighbor could trade with another — whereas the Spanish, for example, either had to cross the Pyrenees to trade, or look to the limited markets of Portugal and North Africa. — Tim Marshall
Facebook could have gone public whenever it wanted. We decided the right time was 2012. It could have easily been 2010 or 2014. — Chamath Palihapitiya
As the egalitarianism of Marxism is attractive to many, socialism could have attracted many followers in America, anyway. But there is no doubt that it could not possibly have affected us so widely and so deeply as it has, had it not been heavily financed. — B. Carroll Reece
And all this time when you could have been romping around the f*cking Garden of Eden f*cking hot girls and eating steaks and living a beautiful life you were worried about… — Duncan Trussell
You ask me whether I am in good spirits. How could I not be so? As long as Faith gives me strength I will always be joyful. Sadness ought to be banished from Catholic souls… the purpose for which we have been created shows us the path; even if strewn with many thorns, it is not a sad path. It is joyful even in the face of sorrow. — Pier Giorgio Frassati
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. — Henry David Thoreau
On a weekday morning that normally would have been spent chained to a desk, I mounted my bike for the first time in months and began pedaling toward the Santa Monica Mountains. Soon I was ascending Topanga Canyon, and as the sun rose into the clear blue skies above the ridgeline, I spotted a hawk. In a perfect symbiosis of air and wing, the majestic bird sailed its perfect arc across the morning sky. And that’s when I understood. If I could summon the courage to pursue my passion with purpose and without fear, I, too, could experience such synchronicity. Somehow, everything would work out. — Rich Roll
It is curious how there seems to be an instinctive disgust in Man for his nearest ancestors and relations. If only Darwin could conscientiously have traced man back to the Elephant or the Lion or the Antelope, how much ridicule and prejudice would have been spared to the doctrine of Evolution. — Havelock Ellis
As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. — Henry David Thoreau
No-one will ever have golf under his thumb. No round ever will be so good it could not have been better. Perhaps this is why golf is the greatest of games. You are not playing a human adversary; you a playing a game. You are playing old man par. — Bobby Jones
We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made. — Albert Einstein
Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself. — Frida Kahlo
As far back as the 1970s, though, there have been observational studies that strongly suggested long-term calorie restriction could help humans live longer and healthier lives, too. — David Sinclair
It has actually been suggested that warfare may have been the principle evolutionary pressure that created the huge gap between the human brain and that of our closest living relatives, the anthropoid apes. Whole groups of hominids with inferior brains could not win wars and were therefore exterminated. — Jane Goodall
And we have abundant natural energy resources in the country. We haven’t been taking adequate advantage of them, and we can burn coal in a clean way; we could improve the grid. — John W. Snow
Let’s save some time here. I grow weary of your clumsy bluffs. In the case of an abduction, the LEP will send a crack Retrieval team to get back what has been lost.. You have done so. Excuse me while I titter. Crack team? Honestly. A Cub-Scout patrol armed with water pistols could have defeated them. — Eoin Colfer
The defeat of Japan in 1945 left Korea divided. North was a Communist regime overseen first by the Soviets and later by Communist China; south was a pro-American dictatorship. This was the very beginning of the Cold War era, when every inch of land was contested, with each side looking to establish influence or control around the world, unwilling to let the other maintain a sole presence. The choice of the 38th parallel as the line of division was unfortunate in many ways and arbitrary. Washington was so focused on the Japanese surrender that it had no real strategy for Korea. Two junior officers chose the 38th parallel as a place to suggest to the Soviets on the grounds that it was halfway down the country. No Koreans were present, nor any Korea experts. If they had been, they could have shared that that line was the same one that the Russians and Japanese had discussed for spheres of influence half a century earlier, following the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5. Moscow, not knowing the Americans were making up policy on the fly, could be forgiven for thinking this was the U.S.’s de facto recognition of that suggestion and therefore acceptance of division and a Communist north. The nation was divided and the die was cast. — Tim Marshall
Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it – in a decade, a century, or a millennium – we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we have been so stupid? — John Archibald Wheeler
Because I was the first super-elite, the press caught on and started calling me a supermodel. So in that sense, I guess I’m the first. But, in my opinion, there were girls that could have been called supermodels before that, if the term was in existence. — Carol Alt
I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them. — Roger Zelazny
I really don’t think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don’t mind the failure but I can’t imagine that I’d forgive myself if I didn’t try. — Nikki Giovanni
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