Could Have Been Quotes - Page 11

• I had been alone more than I could have been had I gone by myself.

  Sylvia Plath

  Gone, Has Beens

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• God, I wish you could have been there.

  J. D. Salinger

  Wish, Wish You, Has Beens

  J.D. Salinger (1951). “The Catcher in the Rye”

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• This result could have been achieved either by his [God] endowing my intellect with a clear and distinct perception of everything about which I would ever deliberate, or simply by impressing the following rule so firmly upon my memory that I could never forget it: I should never judge anything that I do not clearly and distinctly understand.

  Rene Descartes

  Memories, Judging, Perception

  Rene Descartes (1999). “Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy”, p.86, Hackett Publishing

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• In the garden there was nothing which was not quite like themselves - nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to them - the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an end... there could have been no happiness even in that golden springtime air.

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Hurt, Taken, Heart

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• I don’t think any girl in all of Illéa could have been smiling more than me.

  Kiera Cass

  Girl, Thinking, Ill

  Kiera Cass (2015). “The Selection Series 4-Book Collection: The Selection, The Elite, The One, The Heir”, p.20, HarperCollins

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• I’m going to lie this one right on the line, right here, right now: I’m pro big pants. Strident feminism NEEDS big pants. Really big. I’m currently wearing a pair that could have been used as a fire blanket to put out the Great Fire of London at any point during the first 48 hours or so. They extend from the top of my thigh to my belly button, and effectively double up as a second property that I can escape to at weekends. If I were going to run for parliament, it would be solely on a platform of ‘Get Women In Massive Grundie’s’.

  Caitlin Moran

  Running, Lying, Weekend

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• I understand the arguments about how the billions of dollars spent to put men on the moon could have been used to fight poverty and hunger on Earth. But, look, I'm a scientist who sees inspiration as the ultimate tool for doing good. When you use money to fight poverty, it can be of great value, but too often, you're working at the margins. When you're putting people on the moon, you're inspiring all of us to achieve the maximum of human potential, which is how our greatest problems will eventually be solved. Give yourself permission to dream.

  Randy Pausch

  Dream, Inspiration, Fighting

  "The Last Lecture".

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• It was a light that shone over our faces, our wounds and scars. It was a light so brilliant and white it could have been beamed from heaven, and Brian and I could have been angels, basking in it. But it wasn’t, and we weren’t.

  Scott Heim

  Angel, Light, Wounds And Scars

  Scott Heim (1995). “Mysterious skin: a novel”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• It could have been the whole thing where you stabbed him.

  Cassandra Clare

  Whole, Has Beens

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• But I know that I'm not who I was supposed to be. Who I could have been. And I know it's because I was too afraid for too long.

  Nancy Werlin

  Life, Long, Supposed To Be

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• We wish we could have been there for you. We didn't have many role models of our own--we latched on to the foolish love of Oscar Wilde and the well-versed longing of Walt Whitman because nobody else was there to show us an untortured path. We were going to be your role models. We were going to give you art and music and confidence and shelter and a much better world. Those who survived lived to do this. But we haven't been there for you. We've been here. Watching as you become the role models.

  David Levithan

  Art, Giving, Role Models

  David Levithan (2014). “Two Boys Kissing”, p.113, Egmont UK

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• The old system where every child was locked away and set into nonstop, daily cut throat competition with every other child for silly prizes called grades is broken beyond repair. If it could be fixed it could have been fixed by now. Good riddance.

  John Taylor Gatto

  Children, Silly, Learning

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• For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.

  Alexander Hamilton

  4th Of July, Diversity, Constitution

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• There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Funny, Witty, Teacher

  Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose "The Nature and Aims of Fiction" (1969)

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• Sometimes I wish I could have been a bit more relaxed, but then I wouldn't have been the same player.

  Steffi Graf

  Player, Tennis, Wish

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I wonder if I could have been here before as I drive up the Roman road the Theater seems familiar - perhaps I headed a legion up that same white road... I passed a chateau in ruins which I possibly helped escalade in the middle ages. There is no proof nor yet any denial. We were, We are, and we will be.

  George S. Patton

  Army, White, Age

  Letter to his mother from Chamlieu, France, November 20, 1917.

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• Jimmy Stewart could have been a good golfer, but he speaks so slowly that by the time he yells 'Fore!' the guy he's hit is already in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

  Bob Hope

  Golf, Guy, Way

  "Love of golf kept Hope tied to game" by Richard Urban, www.espn.com. January 20, 2004.

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• She's the coolest person in the world...I don't date what the person does...You know what I mean? I could have been a zitty teenager and walked into a Tower Records, and we would have talked about Pearl Jam, and we would have fallen in love when we were 15. And that's when you know. It's like, oh, my God, game over.... Listen, there are a lot of women in this country, in many countries, who date men for their money. Okay? That's despicable. Right? That's not what we're talking about here. Whatever does it for you, man.

  Adam Levine

  Country, Teenager, Mean

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• Be who you are, said the Duchess to Alice, or, if you would like it put more simply, never try to be what you might have been or could have been other than what you should have been.

  Lewis Carroll

  Destiny, Should Have, Be Who You Are

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• Funerals and weddings were commonplace, and nothing could have been so interesting to them as the coming of the end of the world ... unless it had been a first-class circus.

  Edward Eggleston

  Class, Interesting, Funeral

  Edward Eggleston (1872). “The End of the World: A Love Story”, p.59

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• Had I been brighter, the ladies been gentler, the Scotch been weaker, had the gods been kinder, had the dice been hotter, this could have been a one-sentence story: Once upon a time I lived happily ever after.

  Mickey Rooney

  Scotch, Once Upon A Time, Stories

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• The "progressives" who today masquerade as "liberals" may rant against "fascism"; yet it is their policy that paves the way for Hitlerism. Nothing could have been more helpful to the success of the National-Socialist (Nazi) movement than the methods used by the "progressives," denouncing Nazism as a party serving the interests of "capital." The German workers knew this tactic too well to be deceived by it again.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Party, Liberty, Movement

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• You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it's important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn't go away.

  Barack Obama

  Pain, Son, Thinking

  " 'Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago', Obama says" by Paul Lewis, www.theguardian.com. July 19, 2013.

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• No husband of mine will say, "I could have been a drummer, but I had to think about the wife and kids. You know how it is." Nobody supports me at the expense of his own adventure.

  Maxine Hong Kingston

  Husband, Adventure, Kids

  Maxine Hong Kingston (2010). “The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts”, p.57, Vintage

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• So let us raise a cheer ... for the insatiable spirit of Man eager for all new things! What a tale could have been written by that far off man who first saw a tree trunk roll and made a wheel and cart and harnessed in his mare and cracked his whip and drove away to disappear beyond the hill! Or that first man who made a boat and raised a sail and disappeared hull down to unknown shores!

  Cecil Arthur Lewis

  Cheer, Men, Tree

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