Quixotic Quotes

• Modern man's capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity's capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.

  George Will

  Powerful, Men, Humanity

  56 Copy quote

• Dare to change the world. There is nothing quixotic or romantic in wanting to change the world. It is possible. It is the age-old vocation of all humanity. I can't think of a better life than one dedicated to passion, to dreams, to the stubbornness that defies chaos and disillusionment.

  Gioconda Belli

  Dream, Passion, Thinking

  16 Copy quote

• It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent.

  James M. Barrie

  May, Magnificent, Has Beens

  James M. Barrie (2015). “Peter Pan: Top 100 Classic Novels”, p.121, 谷月社

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• This too is a jihad. Yet we Americans find ourselves in the dangerous position of going to war not against a state but against a phantom. The jihad we have embarked upon is targeting an elusive and protean enemy. The battle we have begun is never-ending. But it may be too late to wind back the heady rhetoric. We have embarked on a campaign as quixotic as the one mounted to destroy us.

  Chris Hedges

  War, Wind, Enemy

  Chris Hedges (2014). “War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning”, p.4, PublicAffairs

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind.

  Earl Nightingale

  Life, Motivational, Night

  Dr. Robert C. Worstell, Dorothea Brande, Claude M. Bristol, Earl Nightingale, Napoleon Hill (2017). “Mindset StackingTM Inspirational Journal VolumeSS01”, p.4, Lulu.com

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there's only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

  Wayne Dyer

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Wayne W. Dyer (2009). “Everyday Wisdom for Success (Easyread Large Edition)”, p.205, ReadHowYouWant.com

  92 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it.

  Winston Churchill

  Believe, Done, Half

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in this universe.

  James Gleick

  Purpose, Sometimes, Entropy

  9 Copy quote

• Government at all levels in the USA right now is engaged in a quixotic campaign to sustain the unsustainable. We're determined to run WalMart, Disney World, the Interstate Highways, suburbia, and an imperial military by other means than oil. We'll squander a lot of dwindling resources in the process.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Running, Military, Mean

  Interview With Simmons B. Buntin, www.terrain.org.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• QUIXOTIC, adj. Absurdly chivalric, like Don Quixote. An insight into the beauty and excellence of this incomparable adjective is unhappily denied to him who has the misfortune to know that the gentleman's name is pronounced Ke-ho-tay.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Beauty, Names, Gentleman

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.285, ReadHowYouWant.com

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• The world rarely shrieks its meaning at you. It whispers, in private languages and obscure modalities, in arcane and quixotic imagery, through symbol systems in which every element has multiple meanings determined by juxtaposition.

  Gregory Maguire

  Elements, World, Juxtaposition

  16 Copy quote

• I want to be a guy, but I want to wear a lot of makeup.

  Gwen Stefani

  Makeup, Guy, Want

  19 Copy quote

• Age is just a number. It's totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.

  Joan Collins

  Funny, Birthday, Wine

  80 Copy quote

• Happiness is the sense that one matters.

  Sarah Trimmer

  Happiness, Inspiration, Matter

  45 Copy quote

• I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Cheer, Mean, Thinking

  "Thatcher Put the "Great" Back in Great Britain" by Jack Kelly, www.realclearpolitics.com. April 14, 2013.

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are all members of the same flawed species. Putting our moral vision into practice means imposing our will on others. The human lust for power and esteem, coupled with its vulnerability to self-deception and self-righteousness, makes that an invitation to a calamity, all the worse when the power is directed at a goal as quixotic as eradicating human self-interest.

  Steven Pinker

  Mean, Self, Practice

  23 Copy quote

• My resting pulse as a writer is writing idealistically and romantically; aspirationally. My taste lies in quixotic heroes.

  Aaron Sorkin

  Lying, Hero, Writing

  11 Copy quote

• The characters in my novels, from the very first one, are always on some quixotic effort of attempting to control something that is uncontrollable - some element of the world that is essentially random and out of control.

  John Irving

  Character, Effort, Elements

  4 Copy quote

• Elimination of nuclear weapons, so naive, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not.

  Robert McNamara

  Thinking, Events, Nuclear

  11 Copy quote

• All male friendships are essentially quixotic: they last only so long as each man is willing to polish the shaving-bowl helmet, climb on his donkey, and ride off after the other in pursuit of illusive glory and questionable adventure.

  Michael Chabon

  Adventure, Men, Long

  Michael Chabon (2011). “Wonder Boys”, p.359, Open Road Media

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The phase of the usury system which we are trying to analyze is more or less Patterson's perception that the Bank of England could have benefit of all the interest on all the money that it creates out of nothing. ... Now the American citizen can, of course, appeal to his constitution, which states that Congress shall have power to coin money or regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin. Such appeal is perhaps quixotic.

  Ezra Pound

  America, Perception, Trying

  7 Copy quote

• We are animals and we are made in this way and this is how we behave. I'm just kind of fascinated by how we can deny that we are animals and what our impact on the other animals is like, and how quixotic we can be in trying to assess what we've done in trying to correct it.

  T.C. Boyle

  Animal, Impact, Trying

  Source: www.motherjones.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I understand there are inevitable things that we have to go through: heartbreak, family problems. I don't feel like some Quixotic idiot who says, 'We don't have to feel pain.' No! Let's feel it, let's make it work for ourselves. But I want us all to be able to get past it.

  Drew Barrymore

  Pain, Past, Want

  5 Copy quote

• The idea of defending, as integral parts of our Empire, countries 10,000 miles off, like Australia, which neither pay a shilling to our revenue... nor afford us any exclusive trade... is about as quixotic a specimen of national folly as was ever exhibited.

  Richard Cobden

  Country, Ideas, Australia

  "Speeches on Questions of Public Policy by Richard Cobden M.P". Book edited by James E. Thorold Rogers, 1878.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He believed in himself, believed in his quixotic ambition, letting the failures of the previous day disappear as each new day dawned. Yesterday was not today. The past did not predict the future if he could learn from his mistakes.

  Daniel Wallace

  Mistake, Ambition, Past

  Daniel Wallace (2014). “The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel”, p.99, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source