Really True Quotes

• Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?

  Milton Friedman

  Self, Political, Economic

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• That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it’s not really true. It’s like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart.

  Lauren Oliver

  Fall, Animal, Thinking

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• He didn’t know if that was really true or not, but he discovered something which was tremendously liberating: he didn’t care. He was very tired of thinking and thinking and still not knowing. He was also tired of being frightened, like a man who has entered a cave on a lark and now begins to suspect he is lost. Stop thinking about it, then. That’s the solution.

  Stephen King

  Tired, Men, Thinking

  Stephen King (2016). “The Dark Half: A Novel”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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• Many people seem to think that success in one area can compensate for failure in other areas. But can it really?... True effectiveness requires balance.

  Stephen Covey

  Mistake, Failure, Thinking

  Stephen R. Covey (2004). “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change”, p.161, Simon and Schuster

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• Of course we do not live in order to eat, but it is not really true to say that we eat in order to live; we eat because we are hungry. Desire has no further intentions behind it... it is a good will.

  Emmanuel Levinas

  Food, Order, Desire

  75 Copy quote

• The great opposition to reading is what I allow to fill my time instead of reading. To say we have no time to read is not really true; we simply have chosen to use our time for other things, or have allowed our time to be filled to the exclusion of reading. So don't add reading to your to-do list. Just stop doing the things that keep you from doing it. But read.

  James Emery White

  Reading, Add, Use

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• We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true.

  Pericles

  Fall, Needs, Delight

  "Eternal Greece". Book by Rex Warner, 1961.

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• If zoos are like arks, then rare animals are like passengers on a voyage of the damned, never to find a port that will let them dock or a land in which they can live in peace. The real solution, of course, is to preserve the wild nature that created these animals and has the power to sustain them. But if it is really true that we are inevitably moving towards a world in which mountain gorillas can survive only in zoos, then we must ask whether it is really better for them to live in artificial environments of our design than not to be born at all.

  Peter Singer

  Zoos, Real, Moving

  70 Copy quote

• The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.

  Andrew Bird

  Song, Writing, Ideas

  Interview with Christopher Bahn, www.avclub.com. February 21, 2006.

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• I have a great family, great kids. I have practically everything, you know? Sometimes I have to pinch myself. It's really true: Life starts at 50.

  Bjorn Borg

  Kids, True Life, Sometimes

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• You always hear the phrase, money doesn't buy you happiness. But I always in the back of my mind figured a lot of money will buy you a little bit of happiness. But it's not really true. I got a new car because the old one's lease expired.

  Sergey Brin

  Inspirational, Car, Mind

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• I don't like novels that tie everything up in a plot-y way. I always think that's not really true of life, particularly of people in power.

  Sarah Hall

  Thinking, People, Novel

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you? Am I making believe I see in you, a woman too perfect to be really true? Do I want you because you're wonderful, or are you wonderful because I want you? Are you the sweet invention of a lover's dream, or are you really as beautiful as you seem?

  Oscar Hammerstein II

  Beautiful, Dream, Sweet

  15 Copy quote

• That's what I love about writing. Once you get the words down on paper, in print, they start to make sense. It's like you don't know what you think until it dribbles from your brain down your arm and into your hand and out through your fingers and shows up on the computer screen, and you read it and realize: That's really true; I believe that.

  Ellen Wittlinger

  Believe, Writing, Thinking

  Ellen Wittlinger (2012). “Hard Love”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.

  Alexander Payne

  Change, Hollywood Films, Trying

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• They say that theater is the actor's medium, television is the writer's medium and film is the director's medium, and it's really true.

  Charlie Hunnam

  Directors, Actors, Television

  "Charlie Hunnam Talks FRANKIE GO BOOM, the Success of SONS OF ANARCHY, His Desire to Direct, and More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. October 13, 2012.

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• We often equate charity with visiting the sick, taking in casseroles to those in need, or sharing our excess with those who are less fortunate. But really, true charity is much, much more. Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and make a part of yourself. And when the virtue of charity becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again.

  Marvin J. Ashton

  Real, Heart, Giving

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• When they say the sky's the limit to me that's really true

  Michael Jackson

  Love Yourself, Cheer Up, Sky

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• It is like football with coaches, like, 'We're only going to think about the next game.' It is really true, all you think is, 'Okay, we have to make a good next episode.'

  Matt Stone

  Football, Thinking, Games

  "IGN Exclusive Interview: South Park's Matt Stone". Interview with Eric Goldman, www.ign.com. October 3, 2006.

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• It's really going to happen. I really won't ever go back to school. Not ever. I'll never be famous or leave anything worthwhile behind. I'll never go to college or have a job. I won't see my brother grow up. I won't travel, never earn money, never drive, never fall in love or leave home or get my own house. It's really, really true. A thought stabs up, growing from my toes and ripping through me, until it stifles everything else and becomes the only thing I'm thinking. It fills me up like a silent scream.

  Jenny Downham

  Falling In Love, Brother, Jobs

  Jenny Downham (2012). “Now is Good (Also published as Before I Die)”, p.54, Random House

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• If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Ambition, Ignorance, Civilization

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.18, Library of Alexandria

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• I was saying the right things, but not the really true things.

  Katherine Hannigan

  True Things, Right Thing

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• But if that was really true, why in the name of all that is holy would anyone have ever liked Nikki in the first place? I was becoming more and more convinced she was a cross between Heidi Montag and Hitler.

  Meg Cabot

  Names, Firsts, Becoming

  Meg Cabot (2010). “Airhead Book 3: Runaway”, p.73, Scholastic Inc.

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• There is supercomputer somewhere in the Nevada desert whose sole function is to count the number of times that I have said the following, because it is unquantifiable by human minds at this point, but this time it’s really true: I should have stayed home.

  David Rakoff

  Regret, Home, Numbers

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• I don't know how much time passes with us just lying there, just feeling that the other is really there, really true, really alive, feeling the safety of him, his weight against mine, the roughness of his fingers touching my face, his warmth and his smell and the dustiness of his clothes, and we barely speak.

  Patrick Ness

  Lying, Smell, Clothes

  4 Copy quote