Top 100 One Thing Well Quotes
#1. Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing several things well at the same time.
Julian Barnes
#2. I thought of writing books myself once. I had the ideas; I even made notes. But I was a doctor, married with children. You can only do one thing well: Flaubert knew that.
Julian Barnes
#3. I'd grown accustomed to seeing myself as someone who, if fallible and unworthy, had nevertheless managed to do one thing well enough to get recognition for it.
Philip Schultz
#4. If you commit to doing one thing well in this relationship, listen
Anonymous
#5. Do not try to do everything. Do one thing well.
Steve Jobs
#6. Disability is a matter of perception. If you can do just one thing well, you're needed by someone.
Martina Navratilova
#8. Too often the educational value of doing well what is done, however little, is overlooked. One thing well done prepares the mind to do the next thing better. Not how much, but how well, should be the motto. One problem thoroughly understood is of more value than a score poorly mastered.
Booker T. Washington
#9. In an age of specialization people are proud to be able to do one thing well, but if that is all they know about, they are missing out on much else life has to offer.
Dennis Flanagan
#10. Microinteractions are an exercise in restraint, in doing as much as possible with as little as possible. Embrace the constraints and focus your attention on doing one thing well. Mies van der Rohe's mantra of "less is more" should be the microinteraction designer's mantra as well.
Dan Saffer
#11. I look at other members of my generation who have basically done one thing, and one thing well, and have been handsomely rewarded for it.
Billy Corgan
#12. Each man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any.
Plato
#13. My mouth only does one thing well, and talking's not it.
Melissa Cutler
#14. You don't need to know how to do everything, just one thing well,
Frankie Love
#15. It's better to do one thing well than ten things poorly.
Heather Hart
#16. Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.
Sophocles
#17. The problem with people is that they try to do everything but don't do one thing well. Focus more energy on the activity you excel in. Capitalize on your strengths.
Bianca Frazier
#18. To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a central human system of thought.
Robert Graves
#19. A lot of people ask me to produce or direct, but I don't think I'm qualified. It's hard enough for a person to do just one thing well in their life. I don't want to do too much.
Gong Li
#20. It reflects no great honour on a painter to be able to execute one thing well.
Leonardo Da Vinci
#21. If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.
Vincent Van Gogh
#23. You don't want to continue to do one thing and only one thing. You want to keep challenging yourself and if you do well at it, great, if you fall on your face, you tried. Like, she's really terrible at comedy! Who knew? But if you didn't try and put yourself out there you'd never know.
Lucy Liu
#24. For me, I love food. It's my greatest pleasure and also the thing that could ruin you as well. It's one of those things where, if you're not thoughtful about it, it could be unhealthy. But if there's a mindfulness about it; it actually is a wonderful tool of emotional expression.
Jon Favreau
#25. Progress in painting, there's no such thing! ... One day I went and changed the yellow on my palette. Well, the result was, I floundered for ten years!
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
#26. It's always the same
you get used to one thing, then it changes. Get used to another, and that changes. Over and over. Always the same.
O well, the hell with it. It's not important anyway.
Hubert Selby Jr.
#27. Our show is obviously at a disadvantage with any of the other news shows we're competing against. For one thing, we are fake. They are not. So in terms of credibility, we are ... well, oddly enough we're about even.
Jon Stewart
#28. The one obvious thing is that the devices are so good now that you can also see their limitations extremely well.
Tod Machover
#29. You'd be lucky to get tortured to death in one of my films. It's the best thing that could happen to your career. But I'm very aware that as soon as you put women in this situation, all of a sudden people are like: "Wow, well wait a second!" Immediately, people become very sensitive to it.
Eli Roth
#30. It is one thing to be well-read on a subject; it is quite another to be part of the subject itself. It is an unfortunate fact that there are many individuals who make magick there life without making their life magick.
Lon Milo DuQuette
#31. Personal branding is one thing that you just can't do well on your own. You are too close to it,
Gina Bianchini
#32. For me, the most entertaining evening would be to go sit with entrepreneurs and talk with them about how they're building their companies and how we can help to make them better. That's the one thing in the world - well, I love doing that.
Ashton Kutcher
#33. One thing I've always been concerned about is the objectification of women in ads, and that's one thing where I was like, 'Well, if I become a part of advertising, I could change that.'
Yara Shahidi
#34. I thought Rounders was a comic movie in its way. First time I directed a movie, I wanted to do a comedy. I don't like things that are superficially one thing or another, mainly. My favorite comedies are really smart, too, and have a lot of levels to them as well.
Edward Norton
#35. How do you explain the bond between man and wife? Well, for one thing, it's private. What people do in their own marriage is their own business.
Robin Gibb
#36. As a busker, one thing that does not work is self-consciousness. A busker needs to be working. A busker needs to shed all ego and get down to work. Play your songs, play them well, earn your money, and don't get in people's way.
Glen Hansard
#37. The final word belongs to one of Truman's aides, George Elsey. "It's all well and good to come along later and say the bomb was a horrible thing," he commented subsequently. "The whole goddamn war was a horrible thing.
William E. Leuchtenburg
#38. First, I was opposed to gay marriage because it seemed like one more way that gays were wanting to assimilate. When I realized the Christian right was so opposed to it, as well as tyrannical governments in Africa and Russia, I thought, 'It must be a good thing to fight for.'
Edmund White
#39. I have heard from people that the first year of marriage is the toughest. Brie [Bella] and I have definitely had our share of life difficulties with me having neck surgery and that sort of thing, but things are going really well and it is getting better after year one and that is phenomenal.
Daniel Bryan
#40. Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.
Socrates
#41. There are times when you get frustrated, but the one thing you always focus on is treating people well. You just cannot storm off and freak out.
Taylor Swift
#42. Comedians have a tendency to have a limited range, they tend to do one thing and do it very well, but it's limited.
Woody Allen
#43. It was supposed to be a year or two just to refresh my batteries, but I moved to Silicon Valley in the early 90's, and one thing let to another, got very involved in high tech, and formed a company and it ended up doing pretty well.
Thomas Dolby
#44. You need to get one thing done well, or else you don't have permission to do anything else.
Larry Page
#45. I knew I could live no other way, that the one thing I wanted was to act and do it well.
Juliette Lewis
#46. Being involved in the well-being and advancement of one's own community is a most natural thing to do.
Clarence Clemons
#47. No," I say. "Actually, the first time I saw one in real life, I thought of the Great Pit of Carkoon in Return of the Jedi." "OK, well, I officially take back my previous comment about you knowing a thing or two about vaginas." "Understandable." "What
Matthew Norman
#48. January has only one thing to be said for it: it is followed by February. Nothing so well becomes its passing.
Katharine Tynan
#49. One thing that's happened to me is I've been around a long time and I've played a lot of villains and so forth. I think it had to do with, well one thing is that I looked younger than I was for a long time. Now I think I'm suddenly starting to play people's father.
Christopher Walken
#50. Hollywood is the kind of place that takes what you do well in one thing and manufactures it so the joy can be taken out of it.
Josh Gad
#51. The people of the United States are one of the people I most admire in the world. The only thing I don't understand is why a country that manages to do so well cannot do better in choosing its president.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
#52. Without a story there is no meaning.
And the nature of the meaning depends on the nature of the story.
To understand this is to understand the true power of stories.
And so, to control the stories, to be the one doing the telling...
Well now, wouldn't that be quite a thing...?
Steven Hall
#53. So up I got in anger, And took a book I had, And put a ribbon on my hair To please a passing lad. And, "One thing there's no getting by
I've been a wicked girl," said I; But if I can't be sorry, why, I might as well be glad!
Edna St. Vincent Millay
#54. The Neurosciences do not exist exclusively to understand man's nature. They also serve a social function, such as in the treatment of the cerebral diseases or when helping us to have a more pleasant and constructive life. It is a thing that one could explore well.
Rodolfo Llinas
#55. Well, I met Sandy Bullock at an awards thing a couple years ago, and she said to me, 'If I were gay, you'd be the one.' and I said, 'I'm there!'
Emma Thompson
#56. One thing concerns me a little, nick has a girlfriend, right? Well, how do you think she'll feel about all of this? He probed. He had this look on his face that he always had when I'm doing something a little bit naughty. You know, something you can get away with, but it's still a bit dodgy.
Jessica Thompson
#57. One thing I don't want to feel is marketplace pressure, so I'm really glad I enjoy teaching because I can rely on that for a salary. I think it would be such a different game if I had to write a book that has to sell well.
Aimee Bender
#58. One thing we do well within evangelicalism is in thinking of Jesus as our friend. But He is also our King.
Stephen Nichols
#59. Well, think about it," he said. "Exposing yourself to a girl is one thing. Doing it to a boy, though - the guy would have to be perverted.
David Sedaris
#60. The other thing is that I'm a pretty moody guy, but no one really wants to see a normal-looking guy complain about things or talk about being unhappy. That's hard. Most people are like, 'Well, you have all your hair and you're tall, so why are you unhappy?' That can be limiting.
Gary Gulman
#61. I grew up in Pennsylvania in a small town. Real small, like one high school and one movie theater. Well, there was a state college there, that was the only good thing about it.
Keith Haring
#62. To specialize is to brush one tooth. When a person specializes he channels all of his energies through one narrow conduit; he knows one thing extremely well and is ignorant of almost everything else.
Tom Robbins
#63. Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.
Rene Descartes
#64. It seems like everybody's weighing in on Trumps campaign - even Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. He said that Trump is 'probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long, long time.' Then Trump was like, 'Well, at least one Cuban loves me.'
Jimmy Fallon
#65. Studies are one thing, but then there's just the way bonobos make you feel. They're so "almost-human" on so many levels that science doesn't even know how to test yet. Just look into any bonobo's big brown eyes, and you may well feel like you're connecting with a living version of the Missing Link.
Susan Block
#66. Too much of what passes for design now is theater. It's one thing to be eccentric- and by the way, most eccentrics tend to be rather well-educated people - and quite another to be a faddist, by which I mean someone who tries to conjure a totally foreign aesthetic in a misplaced environment ...
Albert Hadley
#67. The reader cannot even begin to see the sense of a story that may well seem to him a very wild one, until he understands that to this great mystic his religion was not a thing like a theory but a thing like a love-affair.
G.K. Chesterton
#68. Start kissing their little backsides so they'll love you again? There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you. I told them you were the best. Now you damn well
Orson Scott Card
#69. I rode my bike home and did the one thing that always helped when things weren't going well. I read. Books were my refuge. Getting lost in a solid adventure story was the best way I knew of to turn off reality.
D.J. MacHale
#70. One thing you learn really quickly and really well when that kind of thing happens to you is to be a fucking great actress.
Kristen Ashley
#71. I tried not to dwell on the comparison; it was one thing to accept that New York was more wealthy than Lahore, but quite another to swallow the fact that Manila was as well.
Mohsin Hamid
#72. Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart's drama and the negative meaning of history.
Emile M. Cioran
#73. 'How much longer will I live?' ... Only one thing seems clear to me. Every day should be well-lived. What a simple truth! Still, it is worthy of my attention.
Henri Nouwen
#74. I loved her and I loved no one else and we had a lovely magic time while we were alone. I worked well and we made great trips, and I thought we were invulnerable again, and it wasn't until we were out of the mountains in late spring, and back in Paris, that the other thing started again.
Ernest Hemingway,
#75. The funny thing about writing is that whether you're doing well or doing it poorly, it looks the exact same. That's actually one of the main ways that writing is different from ballet dancing.
John Green
#76. When I finish with one thing very well, I start some other thing. I don't like to stop. I like to continually prove myself.
Pierre Cardin
#77. You can have examples of reasons to hate people, but if you analyze those reasons it's like, Oh, I'm hating that person based on one thing they did, but I don't actually know them well enough to hate them.
Charlyne Yi
#78. This was how I wanted to end our night, with hope. Well, and maybe one more thing. I bit my lip and leaned into Maxon, asking with my eyes. Without a second of hesitation, he bent to kiss me. It was warm and gentle, and it left me feeling adored and somehow aching for more.
Kiera Cass
#79. Well I don't know how many pounds make up a ton, Of all the nobel prizes that I've never won, And I may be the mayor of simpleton, But I know one thing, And that's I love you.
Andy Partridge
#80. I had been told by a number of people that if you get half of what you want on your first album, you're doing really well. Pretty much every single thing they had was something that I liked. There were maybe one or two songs I didn't like, and they were taken off the album quickly.
Clay Aiken
#81. Well, you know Esme. She wasn't one for that kind of thing - never one to push herself forward*
* She hadn't ever needed to. Granny Weatherwax was like the prow of a ship. Seas parted when she turned up.
Terry Pratchett
#82. The truth is the last thing that matters,' she said. 'And you can believe one thing of the truth and me: I keep it well hidden, inside my heart.
Philippa Gregory
#83. I'm an interior designer, first and foremost. I can do one thing really well, and I'm going to stay in my little niche.
Candice Olson
#84. A lie to get out of something, or take an advantage for oneself, that's one thing; but a lie to make life more interesting - well, that's entirely different.
Diana Vreeland
#85. Well one thing's for sure.. all you really need is love.
Brad Paisley
#86. Well, one thing you can say for masturbation ... you certainly don't have to look your best.
Mart Crowley
#87. What if today you gave yourself permission to be outrageously kind? What if you extended as much good will and kindness as you can possibly muster to every person you meet? And what if you did it with no thought of reward? I'm sure of one thing: it will be a day you will never regret.
Steve Goodier
#89. My knowledge and thirst for knowledge has no expiration date ... It goes until I'm dead. I will be learning and studying from youth, as well as people older than me ... Having degrees as a person of color in this country is the one thing that can't nobody take away from me.
Ruben Santiago-Hudson
#90. No-one likes being told it's their lucky day. That sort of thing does not bode well. When someone tells you it's your lucky day, something bad is about to happen.
Terry Pratchett
#91. I will say, the one thing Mexico does well is punish prisoners. They do. They're good at that.
Tucker Carlson
#92. If there's one thing I'm well versed in it's my own good qualities.
Patrick Rothfuss
#93. Well, I had done nudity in one other thing, but nudity for an actress is a very particular thing. It has to do with the material, and making sure it's not gratuitous, that it's done in a way that's shot beautifully, and it's for a reason. And I'd never played a lesbian before.
Laura Prepon
#94. In this world the one thing supremely worth having is the opportunity to do well and worthily a piece of work of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind.
Theodore Roosevelt
#95. I don't want to be known as a serial entrepreneur. I like doing one thing at a time and making sure that gets my full attention until it's well established. I enjoy the initial years of a company because they are the most dynamic, and that is when I can give the best of myself.
Silvio Scaglia
#96. You would think," added Art, "that a wedding was a great thing."
"Well," replied Old Hector, "it's not a small thing, as a rule. They contrive, one way or another, to make a lot of it.
Neil M. Gunn
#97. I wish that I spoke more languages. I speak a couple languages, but not well enough to really dub myself. French is really the only one, and it's a difficult thing.
Jodie Foster
#98. There's just one thing I want you to remember. You know those chemicals women have in them, when they've got PMS? Well, men have the very same chemicals in them all the time.
Margaret Atwood
#99. The case is similar with the idea as well: even if there is some one good thing that is predicated [of things] in common, or there is some separate thing, itself by itself, it is clear that it would not be subject to action or capable of being possessed by a human being.
Aristotle.
#100. I gaped at what I saw next. She yanked his arm off and ate it. Gross! I knew she was hungry, but that was just ... well, against the school rules for one thing.
Imogen Rose
