I Was Taught Quotes

#1. I try to shed what I've learned,
I try to forget the way I was taught to remember

Fernando Pessoa

#2. God is erratic, sometimes vindictive, sometimes merciful. The people I was taught were heroes - Jacob or Moses or David - were ambivalent figures, or worse. But that messiness was joyful, and challenging. I loved having a Bible that I could argue with.

David Plotz

#3. A book, I was taught long ago in English class, is a living and breathing document that grows richer with each new reading.

Malcolm Gladwell

#4. I was taught to play that way when I was in high school and even before I got to high school.

Oscar Robertson

#5. I'm a Republican, but I'm a Republican from the old school. I was taught that you get what you put into it. You can be anything you want to be if you work hard enough at it, and you can earn your place. That's the old way.

Joe Perry

#6. I was taught to remember, but never question. Wes was taught to forget, and never ask why. We learned our lessons well and were showing them off to a tee. We sat there, just a few feet from each other, both silent, pondering an absence.

Wes Moore

#7. In my 20s I was such a serious, boring-looking person. I would never do my nails. I never even danced. But I was taught by the women. They had gone through hell, but they would dance and sing. I came to realise I can't argue for a happy world if I am not happy myself.

Zainab Salbi

#8. I was taught that I cannot back down to anything. I was trained never to be scared.

Ray Rice

#9. I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.

Kurt Vonnegut

#10. As a Jew, I was taught that it was ethically imperative to speak up and to speak out against arbitrary state violence. That was part of what I learned when I learned about the Second World War and the concentration camps.

Judith Butler

#11. Sisters, you are each like the lioness at the gate. This means that there has to be some prioritizing. I was taught years ago that when our priorities are out of order, we lose power. If we need power and influence to carry out our mission, then our priorities have to be straight.

Julie B. Beck

#12. I'm not really into method acting - the way I was taught was the good old-fashioned British way of just doing your research and getting on with it.

Laura Donnelly

#13. I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college.

Jeffrey Eugenides

#14. I've always been a person afraid of the dark. I was taught that when you have complete darkness, that's when spirits walk. In our house when I was growing up, all the doors were always cracked a little bit at night so you could get light into the room.

Tony Dorsett

#15. I grew up in the north woods of Canada. You had to know certain things about survival. Wilderness survival courses weren't very formalized when I was growing up, but I was taught certain things about what to do if I got lost in the woods.

Margaret Atwood

#16. The outcome, the fourth in an issue of five boys born into a staunch Baptist home, meant that from the beginning I was taught to be respectful of others no less than myself, influencing ever since both my political and administrative attitudes.

James W. Black

#17. Would you just strap some toe shoes on and dance 'Swan Lake?' No. Would you just put a violin in your hand and - ? No. I felt that way about acting, and I was taught to feel that way. I didn't come to it on my own.

Ellen Barkin

#18. I was taught that to create anything you had to believe in failure, simply because you had to be prepared to go through an idea without any fear. Failure, you learned, as I did in art school, to be a wonderful thing. It allowed you to get up in the morning and take the pillow off your head.

Malcolm McLaren

#19. Working is very important to me. Probably because as a child I was taught that work was good. I don't believe it intellectually but I identify with that idea. So it's probably just like a habit.

Jasper Johns

#20. I was completely surrounded by religion from a young time. I was taught by my father. I engaged in discussions with him and many of these scholars who visited and came around the dining table, the lunch table, and attended many lectures with my dad. And so I learned the apprentice way.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

#21. I was reared in a Jehovah's Witness household. I was taught that every man should be judged by his deeds and not his color, and I firmly stand where my grandmother left me.

Jill Scott

#22. In any crass political calculation, drilling for oil will always win more votes than putting a price on carbon. But if I recall what I was taught in fifth-grade American government class, we elect presidents to do more than crass political calculations.

Jeff Goodell

#23. I was taught from childhood of the sanctity of food. Not a piece of bread could be thrown away without kissing it and raising it to one's eyes as with all things holy.

Attia Hosain

#24. I was taught to think the next week or month or year will only get better than it is today. So I just keep waiting to see how great it will get!

Stevie Ray Vaughan

#25. I was taught by teachers, and if it's one thing I have it's a basketball mind and I try to pass it on and pay it forward.

Doug Collins

#26. I never aspired to be 2nd. I was taught ... you can do whatever you want in this world, so why not be the best in the world?

Ronda Rousey

#27. I was taught by professors who had done their schooling in the 1930s. Most of them were scornful of, even hated, big business.

Stephen Ambrose

#28. I think a lot of what I was taught, gathered, and learned is worth keeping. Heritage and "wisdom" and simply personal family and local history enrich the one able to tap such information. As it is I wish I had garnered more from my grandparents and parents.

Gary Gygax

#29. I was taught growing up not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, to withdraw myself from the sinful 'others'. But we are all others. We are all sinners in someone's eyes.

Anna White

#30. I was raised in the '50s. I was taught by my father that how I looked was all that mattered, frankly.

Jane Fonda

#31. I was raised to speak out about politics and the world around me. I would do it whether I was in the public or not. It is the way I was taught. The American way.

Judy Collins

#32. I was taught from a very early age that it was probably the most American thing you can do is to question what's going on and to try to fix things that you see that aren't right. I believed that as a young person, and I believe that today.

Michael Moore

#33. My life has consisted of challenging authority, which I was taught as a young girl. Life is only noise between two abysmal silences. Silence before birth, silence after death.

Isabel Allende

#34. I've always been very shy and sheltered; I think it was a good way of starting to communicate with people. I was taught as a child never to talk about myself, never to talk about my emotions. Of course, now I talk about myself constantly. Now I have to take reverse est.

Sigourney Weaver

#35. I was brought up with considerable discipline, and I was taught it wasn't proper to display certain very private emotions in public.

Carolina Herrera

#36. Most important of all, there is no right or wrong way to write - there's only what works for you. I was taught to write every day, but I know a writer (a bestseller at that!) who only writes on weekends.

Tamora Pierce

#37. When I was taught Shakespeare in school, it was such an alien, sanitized puzzle, it made no sense.

Rhys Ifans

#38. One of the things I was taught in law school is that I'd never be able to think the same again - that being a lawyer is something that's part of who I am as an individual now.

Anita Hill

#39. I discovered that our clan included loads of cousins and uncles and aunts and animals of every shape. I was taught that chaos and competition were family values. And I learned that we all loved the sea. Somehow, the sea was about us-our past, our exuberance, our frailty, our longing.

Timothy Shriver

#40. I was taught that you can't expect to be forgiven when you continuously commit the same sin over and over again.

J.B. McGee

#41. I was taught as a young child by my parents and family to love myself.

Zendaya

#42. I don't believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself. I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others : Might makes right.

Carl Panzram

#43. I was taught not to confront and interrupt people, but that's what I do every day on 'The View.'

Sherri Shepherd

#44. And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much,
The self-sufficing power of solitude.

William Wordsworth

#45. I was taught in my religious upbringing to spell God with a dash, G-d. But now my dash is pink.

Helene Aylon

#46. I have to be working, doing things. That's the way I grew up and the way I was taught.

Karl Malone

#47. I was taught that if you see a person drowning, you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not.

Irena Sendler

#48. I was taught to fighter like Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali when I was growing up.

Nonito Donaire

#49. I was taught when there's somethin' you can change around keep quiet, you got nothin' to complain about.

Mos Def

#50. I did physics because of my love of nature. As a young student of science, I was taught that physics was the way to learn nature. So my travels through physics really are the same urges that make me travel through ecology.

Vandana Shiva

#51. I was taught to confront things you can't avoid. Death is one of those things. To live in a society where you're trying not to look at it is stupid because looking at death throws us back into life with more vigour and energy. The fact that flowers don't last for ever makes them beautiful.

Damien Hirst

#52. I was taught in school that I have to look out for number one. That was against everything that I intuitively felt.

Tom Shadyac

#53. I was taught never to make a threat unless you are prepared to carry it out, and I am not a fan of carrying anything. Even watching other people carrying things makes me uncomfortable. Mainly because of the possibility they may ask me to help.

David Thorne

#54. Legendary manners there, Karim," she commented, her voice calm. "Your mother teach you?"

"I was taught the advantage of surprise," he responded as he walked over to her massive desk.

Katherine McIntyre

#55. I was taught that peace is the absence of war. But I wonder if these days we've simply replaced conventional war with a war of paper. I'm not sure which is better.

Robert Jackson Bennett

#56. The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, 'What does the protagonist want?' That's what drama is. It comes down to that. It's not about theme, it's not about ideas, it's not about setting, but what the protagonist wants.

David Mamet

#57. I was taught when I was young that if people would only love one another, all would be well with the world. I found when I tried to put that into practice, not only were other people seldom lovable but I wasn't very lovable myself.

George Bernard Shaw

#58. I was taught to play the game from a total team concept-to be able to do everything reasonably well and some things extraordinarily well. If I'm not shooting well, I'll try to be an asset in other ways-like defense, passing, rebounding, and hustle.

Rick Barry

#59. I suppose you could sum up the religious aspects of my boyhood by saying it was a time of life when I was taught the difference between right and wrong as it specifically applied to Catholicism.

Robert Vaughn

#60. Growing up, I was taught a man's word is his bond.

Logan Mankins

#61. I still think of myself as a stage actor. When I do film and television I try to implement what I was taught to do in theatre, to try to stretch into characters that are far from myself.

Tony Shalhoub

#62. I was taught to think about mission and people. Mission. What are you trying to accomplish? Don't do anything until you know what the mission is. Drilled into our hearts and into our heads.

Colin Powell

#63. There have been 50 or 60 books written about Empress Orchid, but none of them bothered to really examine the period in China when she lived. I was taught that she was evil; it's in all the textbooks.

Anchee Min

#64. I was taught that a lawyer was supposed to be a custodian of the community's legal and ethical sense.

Joe Jamail

#65. I'm willing to forgive the press, or forgive anybody,I was taught to love and forgive,which I do have in my heart,but please don't believe these crazy, horrifying things.

Michael J. Jackson

#66. As a child, I was taught that it was bad manners to bring attention to yourself, and to never, ever make a spectacle of yourself ... all of which I've earned a living doing.

Audrey Hepburn

#67. As a young boy, I was taught in high school that hacking was cool.

Kevin Mitnick

#68. When I was in Taiwan, I was taught in school that Taiwan is part of China.

Alex Chiu

#69. I was taught very early on how you treat people is actually what matters.

Gerald Chertavian

#70. As a competitive gymnast, my life has always been filled with challenges that would ultimately define my future. From day one, I was taught to be prepared at all costs.

Dominique Moceanu

#71. My mother was taught the ch'an concept of happiness, which was to find satisfaction in small things. i was taught to appreciate the fresh air in the morning, the colour of leaves turning red in autumn and the water's smoothness when i soaked my hands in the basin.

Anchee Min

#72. My passion for giving is no different than yours. I give because it's in my heart to give. I give because I was taught to give at a very early age. This is how I developed my passion for giving.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

#73. I was taught that being myself was not only okay, but encouraged - and by being unapologetically yourself, you thrive and inspire others to thrive.

Tyler Oakley

#74. Canada has a passive-aggressive culture, with a lot of sarcasm and righteousness. That went with my weird messianic complex. The ego is a fascinating monster. I was taught from a young age that I had to serve, so that turned into me thinking I had to save the planet.

Alanis Morissette

#75. I have never given all of myself, even vocally, to anyone. I was taught to sing on your interest, not your capital.

Leontyne Price

#76. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, the Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.

Paul Broun

#77. I grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, with no money. I was taught not to take anything for granted. If you are too busy being a diva or a freak, then you are not enjoying it.

Lucy Liu

#78. I was brought up in a car family, my dad loved cars and I was taught the art of making an Austin 7 operate.

Nick Mason

#79. When I was 16, I was taught by a wonderful teacher who let me ignore the Greek syllabus and just read Homer.

Alice Oswald

#80. From a child I was taught to forgive and forget, but it's difficult to forget these things, the loss of parents, of children and grandchildren.

Ann Leckie

#81. I slept in castles and fell in love because I was taught to dream

Taylor Swift

#82. I was taught very early on that the state can be, and is, a liar and a murderer.

Christopher Hitchens

#83. I was taught to value hard work. At the end of day, I'm just Olivia.

Olivia Culpo

#84. I was taught that in this country if you work hard, you can do anything, and I don't see a lot of those principles in children's books today.

Allen Covert

#85. As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth - whatever the truth may be - that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.

June Jordan

#86. I was taught to whistle as a little girl by an undertaker. I used to sit in his workshop, watching him planing wood for the coffins, and he used to whistle all the time - and eventually I started whistling, too. I can whistle anything, particularly trumpet tunes from Classic FM.

Susan Hill

#87. I was taught a very strong work ethic that included punctuality, which I've always felt is a sign of respect for others.

Nicole Kidman

#88. In any conversation, I was taught, there are at least three parties: you, the other person, and the Lord.

Mitch Albom

#89. I was taught to be anti-Jewish.

Mercedes McCambridge

#90. Culturally speaking, I was raised in a Jewish household. In addition to the religious side of it, I was taught respect for books and learning and the higher professions like medicine and law and teaching.

Woody Allen

#91. At the time I was taught to read, it was an Eden-like time of my life. My mother adored me. Everyone adored me. So I associate reading with enormous pleasure.

Jamaica Kincaid

#92. I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group

Peggy McIntosh

#93. Dry your eyes O dry your eyes, For I was taught in Paradise To ease my breast of melodies.

John Keats

#94. Some libs took offense at my David Broder quip earlier. In my own defense, I was taught in college it's OK to disrespect dead white males.

James Taranto

#95. My mother raised three kids on her own, so I was taught that to be a working mom was a good thing.

Sarah Shahi

#96. When I was nine, I was taught to ride a surfboard in Waikiki by the beach boy Rabbit Kekai.

Susanna Moore

#97. Like many girls, I was taught to tame my wanting. I was called selfish and demanding when I wanted something for myself and weak when what I wanted was help.

Kassi Underwood

#98. Ever since I could first write I have been doing so. When I was taught how to write and read at school, I made up my mind that this was what I love to do best and this was the world I was going to occupy.

Anita Desai

#99. I don't sign autographs when I'm out for a meal or out with my kids. I think that's rude and disrespectful. I would never ask anyone for an autograph while they were eating dinner; that's what I was taught by my parents.

Tim Howard

#100. I was taught to be demure, so it was harder for me to learn how to stand up for myself and go, 'What do I want? What are my desires?'

Heather Graham