What If Quotations | Page 4

What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?

Bunkum and tummyrot! You'll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he'd said 'What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?' He wouldn't even have started.

I could never kill myself. What if it doesn't work. Then I'll have failed at the only thing that could save me from my failures. Where do you go from there?

So what if you fail? At least you'll know what not to do when you try again.

Individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do. How much room do individual rights leave for the state?

The thing for me is, what if one returns to these maxims, these rather simplistic maxims "Be the change you want to see in the world." Because what canvas have we but the self for these kind of explorations, ultimately.

The belief is growing on me that the disease is communicated by the bite of the mosquito. ... She always injects a small quantity of fluid with her bite-what if the parasites get into the system in this manner.

I tell you what, if the Cameroons get a goal back here they're literally gonna catch on fire.

She would always be my biggest what if.

For the rest of my life I would always be thinking about her. She would always be my biggest what if. -Perseus Jackson

I'm against redefining marriage historically 5,000 years... because then it'll be re-defined. What if it's between a brother and a sister?

So what if they were in Tartarus? So what if they stood a slim chance of surviving? He was so glad that they were together, he had the ridiculous urge to smile.

When I see that little white ball go up, I want to catch it, no matter what. If I have to knock myself silly doing it, so be it.

I catch myself thinking 'Thank God For This' out of habit, and then I understand what he's so concerned about. What if my parents' God, their whole belief system, is just something concocted by a bunch of scientists to keep us under control? And not just their beliefs about God and whatever else is out there, about right and wrong, about selfishness?

I did not know that my entire personality, my entire being, could be discarded as the byproduct of my anatomy. What if I really am just someone with a large prefrontal cortex...and nothing more?

What if I travel so far away in my dreams that I can't get back in time to wake up?

What if angry vectors veer Round your sleeping head, and form. There's never need to fear Violence of the poor world's abstract storm.

What if I don’t like adventure? Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow.

I got back in my car, starting the engine, then drove off. It wasn't until I pulled onto the highway that it all really sunk it, how temporary our friendship had been. We'd been on our breaks, after all, but it wasn't our relationships that were on pause: it was us. Now we were both in motion again, moving ahead. So what if there were questions left unanswered. Life went on. We knew that better than anyone.

What we can do, we must do: we must use what we are given, and we must use it the best we can, however much or little help we have for the task. What you have been given is a hard thing--a very hard thing... But my darling, what if there were no one who could do the difficult things?

...like a grain of sand that gets into an oyster's shell. What if the grain doesn't want to become a pearl? Is it ever asked to climb out quietly and take up its old position as a bit of ocean floor?

Why is America the last best hope of Earth? What if it's Liechtenstein? Or, worse, Canada?

My platitudes don't hold their interest and I can hardly blame them for that. My real stories are all out of date. So what if I can speak firsthand about the Spanish flu, the advent of the automobile, world wars, cold wars, guerrilla wars, and Sputnik — that's all ancient history now. But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet.

So what if I'm ninety-three? So what if I'm ancient and cranky and my body's a wreck? If they're willing to accept me and my guilty conscience, why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus?

What if - what if Life itself were the sweetheart?

What if I left my memory in the future and I have to catch up to it?

The important question to ask is not 'Will we surivive?' but 'What if we survive?'

And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the soul of each, and God of all?

Each time I take a role, I'm always nervous about it at the beginning and I'm always afraid what if that, what if this. Every time I take a role and I'm somewhat terrified at the beginning and I get into it and I start working, that's a big win for me. So, really it is stepping forward in the face of whatever fears that I've created for myself and going forward anyway and those are always big moments for me.

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

And a question stirred within me: What if he, this yellow-eyed creature, in his disorderly, filthy mound of leaves, in his uncomputed life, is happier than we are?

In a reality made of energy, thoughts may literally be things. What if it was intended that we create our own realities after death?

Why were my visitors so secretive, hiding themselves behind my consciousness. I could only conclude that they were using me and did not want me to know why...What if they were dangerous? Then I was terribly dangerous because I was playing a role in acclimatizing people to them.

What if you began to expect the best from any situation? Isn't it possible that you could write new chapters in your life with happy endings? Suspend your disbelief? Take a leap of faith? After all, what have you got to lose but misery and lack?

I mean, so what if it's a little dangerous? A one-armed kid is comedy gold.

What if I should discover that the poorest of the beggars and the most impudent of offenders are all within me; and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I, myself, am the enemy who must be loved -- what then?

The problem with prostitutes is, what if you actually like somebody you meet in that situation? Where do you go from there? What do you do?

What if someone gave a war & Nobody came? / Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again.

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

But is it just then that the few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, in like manner, rob and plunder the people, - is this just?

What if it can't be worked out? What if I'm—what if I'm broken for good?

Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?

You cannot come to Christ unless the Spirit of God brings you. But what if you ignore His warnings? Then you are in the gravest danger, for some day God will no longer be speaking to you. Then it will be too late. Come to Christ while there is still time. Christ, God's greater Ark, stands ready to welcome you to safety today.

What if my words Were meant for deeds.

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

We have need to be as sturdy pioneers still as Miles Standish, or Church, or Lovewell. We are to follow on another trail, it is true, but one as convenient for ambushes. What if the Indians are exterminated, are not savages as grim prowling about the clearings today?

It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you and I.

But what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who wants the greatest possible amount of the one must also have the greatest possible amount of the other, that he who wants to experience the "heavenly high jubilation," must also be ready to be "sorrowful unto death"?

What if God were not exactly truth, and if this could be proved? And if he were instead the vanity, the desire for power, the ambitions, the fear, and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?

I tell you what I really fear. I fear aeroplanes. When the flight's all right and smooth I'm still thinking, 'what if the engine blow up?' 'What if a fool's got a bomb on it?'

Its better to shoot and miss, then to let time run out and wonder what if

Earth, is not this what you will: in us to rise up invisible? Is it, O Earth, not your dream once to be wholly invisible? Earth! Invisible! What, if not change, is your desperate mission?

What if Earth be but the shadow of Heaven and things therein - each other like, more than on Earth is thought?

What if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine,... the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God,... ?

A general-in-chief should ask himself several times in the day, What if the enemy were to appear now in my front, or on my right, or my left?

What will happen to me if that which this desire seeks is achieved, and what if it is not?

So what if someone wrote your obituary... that doesn't mean you are obligated to die.

What if everything that happened here, happened for a reason?

God has the tough end of the deal. What if instead of planting the seed you had to make the tree? That would keep you up late at night, trying to figure that one out.

So what if you're not perfect? nobody else is either.

Lord, what if I miss You? What if I miss You? What if I miss You? Oh, I'm so scared! God, what if I miss You? He answered simply, "Joyce, don't worry; if you miss Me, I will find you.

What if English toil and blood Was poured forth, even as a flood? It availed, Oh, Liberty, To dim, but not extinguish thee.

What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

You might say what if I screw up? Then screw up big! Go for it! Do a big screw-up!

What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?

Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.

What if I fall?', Tim cried. Maerlyn laughed. 'Sooner or later, we all do.

You train yourself in the art of being mysterious to everyone. My dear friend! What if there were no one, who cared about guessing your riddle, what pleasure would you then take in it?

What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?

What if the meek inherited the Earth and we had to defend ourselves from Martians?

With a wonderful business, you can figure out what will happen; you can't figure out when it will happen. You don't want to focus on when, you want to focus on what. If you're right about what, you don't have to worry about when

Bid imagination run / Much on the Great Questioner; / What He can question, what if questioned I / Can with a fitting confidence reply.

But what if everyone in the world behaved like me and came here and shot Brisseau through the ear? What a mess! And of course we'd need valet parking.