Crucial Moments Quotes

• Real life is a funny thing, you know. In real life saying the right thing at the right time is beyond crucial.

  Taylor Swift

  Real, Funny Things, Life Is

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• Real life is a funny thing, you know. In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've begun to fear more that that is letting the moment pass without saying anything. I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back, regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say "I love you." When we should've said "I'm Sorry." When we didn't stand up for ourselves or some one who needed help.

  Taylor Swift

  Sorry, Regret, Real

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• At certain crucial moments - an emergency or an opportunity - one must act first and think later.

  Edmund White

  Thinking, Opportunity, Emergencies

  Edmund White (2016). “A Boy's Own Story: Picador Classic”, p.42, Pan Macmillan

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• The close games are usually lost, rather than won. What I mean by that is games are mostly won because of the opponent making mistakes during crucial moments.

  John Wooden

  Mistake, Mean, Games

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• I'm so, so thrilled that [Pope Francis] is there at this crucial moment in the history of our world.

  Desmond Tutu

  Our World, Moments, Pope

  Source: sojo.net

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• I'm afraid to be afraid in a crucial moment.

  Omar Chaparro

  Moments, Crucial

  Source: www.sheknows.com

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• The women's movement appeared at a very crucial moment in my life. There was a whole political movement asking such questions and others I had never asked. I began to feel heard in that movement. But it was because my voice was resonating with other voices.

  Adrienne Rich

  Voice, Political, Asking

  Source: www.paulodacosta.ca

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• At all crucial moments in our lives we want to speak without knowing what to say.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Knowing, Want, Speak

  Joyce Carol Oates (1989). “(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities”, Plume

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• For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been the reverberations after even the simplest conversation.  But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting and tormented self...I am unable to become what I see.  I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful halt, "won't go".

  May Sarton

  Self, Long, Machines

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• He's a tremendous breath of fresh air. The things he [Pope Francis] has done in a short period of time: the fact that he does not live in a huge papal mansion and just dropped by in the dining room where ordinary people have meals. You think of his background, where he didn't use limousines in South America, that he used public transport. I'm so, so thrilled that he is there at this crucial moment in the history of our world.

  Desmond Tutu

  Thinking, Our World, Air

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Part of the power of Emerson's individualism is his insistence, at crucial moments, that individualism does not mean isolation or self-sufficiency. This is not a paradox, for it is only the strong individual who can frankly concede the sometimes surprising extent of his own dependence.

  Robert D. Richardson

  Strong, Mean, Thinking

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• The faithful man perceives nothing less than opportunity in difficulties. Flowing through his spine, faith and courage work together: Such a man does not fear losing his life, thus he will risk losing it at times in order to empower it. By this he actually values his life more than the man who fears losing his life. It is much like leaping from a window in order to avoid a fire yet in that most crucial moment knowing that God will appear to catch you.

  Criss Jami

  Fear, Opportunity, Men

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.115, Criss Jami

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• Silences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).

  Michel-Rolph Trouillot

  Silence, Historical, Archives

  Michel-Rolph Trouillot (2015). “Silencing the Past (20th anniversary edition): Power and the Production of History”, p.26, Beacon Press

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• I am not anxious to be the loudest voice or the most popular. But I would like to think that at a crucial moment, I was an effective voice of the voiceless, an effective hope of the hopeless.

  Whitney M. Young

  Thinking, Voice, Hopeless

  "Independent Lens (The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights)". TV Series, www.imdb.com. February 18, 2013.

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• Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like 'What is my purpose in life?' very quickly lacked both.

  Terry Pratchett

  Hero, Purpose, Saws

  Terry Pratchett (2008). “Interesting Times: (Discworld Novel 17)”, p.139, Random House

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• Gerald Westerby, he told himself. You were present at your birth. You were present at your several marriages and at some of your divorces, and you will certainly be present at your funeral. High time, in our considered view, that you were present at certain other crucial moments in your history.

  John le Carre

  Divorce, Views, Funeral

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• Intellect takes us along in the battle of life to a certain limit, but at the crucial moment it fails us. Faith transcends reason. It is when the horizon is the darkest and human reason is beaten down to the ground that faith shines brightest and comes to our rescue.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Shining, Religion, Battle

  Mohandas Karmchand Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, V. Geetha (2004). “Soul Force: Gandhi's Writings on Peace”, p.224, Tara Publishing

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• Just being a human being, I’ve realized that before every big problem you create for yourself, before every huge mess you have to clean up, there was a crucial moment where you could’ve just said no.

  Taylor Swift

  Just Being, Problem, Moments

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• It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs.

  Donna Tartt

  Thinking, Might, Way

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• It is my conviction that physical courage at crucial moments comes from the sum of intellectual courage and integrity that you muster at that moment.

  Michael Weisskopf

  Integrity, War, Intellectual

  Michael Weisskopf (2016). “Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57”, p.188, Holt Paperbacks

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• I have found that great people do have in common. . .an immense belief in themselves and in their mission. They also have gerat determination as well as an ability to work hard. At the crucial moment of decision, they draw on their accumulated wisdom. Above all, they have integrity.

  Yousuf Karsh

  Determination, Integrity, Hard Work

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• Self-confidence is very important. If you don't think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in the crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent. You see the opportunity but also greater limitations than you should. I have always believed in what I do on the chessboard, even when I had no objective reason to. It is better to overestimate your prospects than underestimate them.

  Magnus Carlsen

  Success, Self Confidence, Winning

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• Closeness can lead to emotions other than love. It's the ones who have been too intimate with you, lived in too close quarters, seen too much of your pain or envy or, perhaps more than anything, your shame, who, at the crucial moment, can be too easy to cut out, to exile, to expel, to kill off.

  Daniel Mendelsohn

  Pain, Cutting, Envy

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• In every race there is a crucial moment when the body wants to quit. Then it needs imagination and mental tenacuty to survive the crisis. Otherwise the penalty is defeat.

  Derek Ibbotson

  Race, Imagination, Needs

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• I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful hault, 'won't go,' or, even worse, explodes in some innocent person's face.

  May Sarton

  Innocent Person, Machines, Faces

  4 Copy quote