Should Have Been Quotes - Page 12

• In a world where thrushes sing and willow trees are golden in the spring, boredom should have been included among the seven deadly sins.

  Elizabeth Goudge

  Spring, Should Have, Boredom

  Elizabeth Goudge (2012). “The Rosemary Tree”, p.76, Hachette UK

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• The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy.

  Erich Maria Remarque

  War, Simple, Should Have

  Erich Maria Remarque, Helmuth Kiesel, Joseph Roth (2004). “All quiet on the western front”, Continuum International Publishing Group

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• J’aurais dû être plus gentille—I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Regret, Thinking, Should Have

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• He was a man who would never ask for sympathy. He was a man who sought only to do what was right. Such people appear in the world, every world, now and then, like a single refrain of some blessed song, a fragment caught on the spur of an otherwise raging cacophony. Imagine a world without such souls. Yes, it should have been harder to do.

  Steven Erikson

  Song, Blessed, Men

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• We must beware of one who is in a passion against us as of one who has once sought our life; for the fact that we still live is due to the absence of power to kill, - if looks could kill, we should have been dead long ago.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Passion, Long Ago, Should Have

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2012). “Human, All-Too-Human: Parts One and Two”, p.51, Courier Corporation

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• Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment & enjoiment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that in France the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Exercise, Blood, Should Have

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1793-1798”, p.173, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Good people are seldom fully recognised during their lifetimes, and here, there are serious problems of corruption. One day it will be realised that my findings should have been acknowledged. It was difficult, but she always smiled when asked why she went on when recognition eluded her in her own country.

  Alice Stewart

  Country, Science, Should Have

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• This is perdition: the things to which the heart was attached pass away while the person himself, who is an eternal being, is filled with nothing but emptiness when he should have been filled with God Himself. That is why it is so very important that we turn our focus inward to the source of life that lives forever, even as we ourselves will live forever.

  Johan Oscar Smith

  Life Changing, Heart, Should Have

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• Second place is meaningless. You can't always be first, but you have to believe that you should have been - that you were never beaten - that time just ran out on you.

  Vince Lombardi

  Believe, Winning, Should Have

  Vince Lombardi (2003). “What It Takes to Be #1: Vince Lombardi on Leadership”, McGraw-Hill Education

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• I think that Lee should have been hanged. It was all the worse that he was a good man and a fine character and acted conscientiously... It's always the good men who do the most harm in the world.

  Henry Adams

  War, Character, Men

  "American Heritage" Magazine, December 1955.

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• We are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all-that the wealth of individuals and of state is being diverted from the development and the progress of human expression and civilization.

  Margaret Sanger

  Expression, Should Have, Civilization

  Margaret Sanger, Michael W. Perry, H. G. Wells (2003). “The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective: The Birth Control Classic”, p.371, Inkling Books

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• I should have been glad to acquire some sort of idea of Hindu theology, ... but the difficulties were too great.

  Mark Twain

  Should Have, Ideas, Hinduism

  Mark Twain (1925). “The Writings of Mark Twain [pseud.]”

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• I feel there should have been some recognition of the Spice Girls at this year's 25th anniversary. We flew the flag for Britain around the globe in the 1990s and we achieved a hell of a lot.

  Melanie Chisholm

  Anniversary, Girl, Should Have

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• Its better to be second while everyone is saying You should have been first than be first when everyone says You should be second.

  Karina Smirnoff

  Should Have, Firsts, Has Beens

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• This person should have been aborted years ago.

  Richard Dawkins

  Should Have, Years, Persons

  Twitter post from Aug 20, 2014

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• I was not really as good as I should have been.

  Eddie Albert

  Should Have, Should, Has Beens

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• God picks us up where we are, not where we should have been

  Douglas Wilson

  Should Have, Has Beens, Picks

  Douglas Wilson (1995). “Reforming Marriage”, p.140, Canon Press & Book Service

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• A new biography came out that says that in high school Obama was a huge pothead … Mitt Romney had to respond to this and said, ‘It is appalling that Obama spent his teenage years goofing around and smoking pot when he should have been pinning down gay kids and cutting their hair.

  Bill Maher

  Teenage, School, Kids

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• I should have been a stuntwoman.

  Poppy Montgomery

  Should Have, Should, Has Beens

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• Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and that's what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw. It's just extraordinary that we should have been given these peculiarities. Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it.

  Diane Arbus

  Should Have, People, Ironic

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• Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, Jarrell, et al.) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and classrooms when they should have been trudging up mountains, slogging through swamps, rowing down rivers. The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial.

  Edward Abbey

  Suicidal, Journey, Should Have

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.36, RosettaBooks

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• I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Garden, Should Have, Years

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin”, p.6

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• Never mind that the story had turned out to be lies and foolishness—there was always folks stupid enough to say, Where there's smoke there's fire, when the saying should have been, Where there's scandalous lies there's always malicious believers and spreaders-around, regardless of evidence.

  Orson Scott Card

  Lying, Stupid, Fire

  Orson Scott Card (1996). “Alvin Journeyman: The Tales of Alvin Maker”, p.349, Macmillan

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• The real wonder is that so many difficulties should have been surmounted [in the federal convention], and surmounted with a unanimity almost as unprecedented as it must have been unexpected. It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.

  James Madison

  Real, Reflection, Men

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (2003). “The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus”, p.173, Cambridge University Press

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• You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt with. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding and my dear one, you and I have been granted a mighty generous one.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Believe, Should Have, Play

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