Top 100 Would If Quotes
#1. We are simple-minded enough to think that if we were saying something we would use words. We are rather doing something. The meaning of what we do is determined by each one who sees and hears it.
John Cage
#2. Our ... advantage was that we had evolved unstated but fruitful methods of collaboration ... If either of us suggested a new idea, the other, while taking it seriously, would attempt to demolish it in a candid but non-hostile manner.
Francis Crick
#3. I would not be standing here today if my skin were white or my religion were Presbyterian. I am here today only because my skin is yellow and my religion is Unification Church. The ugliest things in this beautiful country of America are religious bigotry and racism.
Sun Myung Moon
#4. A man has integrity if his interest in the good of the service is at all times greater than his personal pride, and when he holds himself to the same line of duty when unobserved as he would follow if his superiors were present
Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall
#5. P.S. - This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.
Mitch Hedberg
#6. If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, but the longest life too short for the full accomplishment of so grand and so noble an ambition.
Charles Caleb Colton
#7. If I took myself too seriously, I would be a mess every day because the world keeps my ego in check.
Anna Kendrick
#8. Can you get it? (Jaden) If I swear myself to eternal slavery to Artemis. Yes. (Acheron) I'd rather trade places with Prometheus and have my innards ripped out every day. (Jaden) So would I. (Acheron)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#9. I'm not a masochistic reader. If something is just too dense or not enjoyable, even though I'm told it should be good for me, I'll put it down. That said, most of what I read would be considered high-end or good for you, I suppose. But, I also think that reading should be enjoyable.
Josh Radnor
#10. In a voice that sounds the way a can of cheap dog food would sound if a can of cheap dog food could speak, he tells you you are looking well.
Tom Robbins
#11. For if there was to be any transformation in the spiritual orientation of the pilgrim's soul, that change would take place not on arrival as if by magic, but in the long, hard work of The Way.
Stephen R. Lawhead
#12. I don't know if my agent will be upset but I quoted him saying that he would jump out a window if I turn down another project.
Erika Christensen
#13. Nor did he think of Celia any more, though he could sometimes remember having dreamt of her. If only he had been able to think of her, he would not have needed to dream of her.
Samuel Beckett
#14. Can you see the future, Kerbouchard?"
"Who would wish to? Our lives hold a veil between anticipation and horror. Anticipation is the carrot suspended before the jackass to keep him moving forward. Horror is what he would see if he took his eyes off the carrot.
Louis L'Amour
#15. I would not be happy if I had not become a monk.
Nhat Hanh
#16. I would never dream of telling people how to dress. but I do say to them, however you are dressing, accept responsibility for it. And also, unless asked, I don't judge. And if asked to judge - I would approach it socratically, I would approach it with questions.
Tim Gunn
#17. If you would stop, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally - about anything. Yes, anything.
Albert Ellis
#18. He would be damned if he fell prey to love's debilitating thrall.
Sophie Jordan
#20. If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank.
Woody Allen
#21. There is a general kind of praying which fails for lack of precision. It is as if a regiment of soldiers should all fire off their guns anywhere. Possibly somebody would be killed, but the majority of the enemy would be missed.
Charles Spurgeon
#22. A friend of mine who works for naval intelligence said an aerial satellite revealed that 1.9 million attended the event in 1995. But if they would have had a rumble at the march the newspapers would have said that 75 million Afro-Americans were there.
Dick Gregory
#23. The reason why we are disenchanted with ourselves is because we entertain in the depths of our psyche a kind of vision-an anticipated vision of what we could be if we would be what we might be.
Vilayat Inayat Khan
#24. Glorfindel smiled. 'I doubt very much,' he said, 'if your friends would be in danger if you were not with them! The pursuit would follow you and leave us in peace, I think. It is you, Frodo, and that which you bear that brings us all in peril.
J.R.R. Tolkien
#25. Is that what death would feel like? The nicest, warmest, heaviest never-ending nap? If that's what it's like, I wouldn't mind.
Gayle Forman
#26. It will be a nuisance if he even suspects I spare the merest moment to ponder the Intruder, and he would willfully misinterpret it. I think of her only because I am concerned with their security. The thought was so lame and uncertain in his own mind, it made him growl.
K.M. Shea
#27. I do play all the characters, when I write them, one after another. If they actually had to film me, the only one I could play would be Samwell Tarly or Hot Pie.
George R R Martin
#28. The world would be a better place for man, if man were not in it.
Allyson Jones
#29. True, we might never have arrived, but the fact is we did. If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worth worrying about so much.
Mikhail Lermontov
#30. If he had uttered the word "come" she would have followed him to the bitter ends of the earth; if he had said, "There is no hope," she would have known the finality of despair.
Ford Madox Ford
#31. If you want to know what an ultimate goal would be, of course it would be utter peace.
David Miscavige
#32. The song 'If I Had a Hammer' is geared toward people who don't have a hammer. Maybe before I had a hammer I thought I'd hammer in the morning and hammer in the evening. But once you get a hammer, you find you don't really hammer as much as you thought you would.
Ellen DeGeneres
#33. Emily wondered whether Artie would be so carefree if he knew The Book Club was performing grand theft imagination.
S.A. Tawks
#34. If all men saw the fair and wise the same men would not have debaters' double strife.
Euripides
#35. If I had to sit in Heaven forever, knowing that there are these people, millions and millions- probably billions of people, suffering these eternal horrible torments and there was nothing I could ever do for them, that, to me, would be Hell.
Richard Carrier
#36. If you said to people you can cast a secret ballot on whether to turn back the clock and have Morsi in power again, I don't think very many people in Washington would turn back that clock.
Elliott Abrams
#37. If Hell were possible, it would be the shortest cut to the highest heaven. For verily God loveth.
Sri Aurobindo
#38. And if he is lying and he double-crosses you, I'll kill him for you. From anyone else, it would have been an idle threat, and I smiled, feeling loved. (Ivy and Rachel)
Kim Harrison
#39. One cup poured into another makes different waters; tears shed by one eye would blind if wept into another's eye. The breast we strike in joy is not the breast we strike in pain; any man's smile would be consternation on another's mouth.
Djuna Barnes
#40. It's amazing how books change. The chapter you're working on today would not have been the same if you wrote it yesterday or tomorrow.
Raymond Bolton
#41. If someone tied me down and made me answer the question, singer, actress, clothing designer, I most likely - it could change on any given day, but mostly likely I would lean towards singing. It's where I feel most like myself - on stage singing.
Mandy Moore
#42. I focused very hard on the dead geranium in his line of vision. I thought if I could make it bloom he would have his answer. In my heaven it bloomed. In my heaven geranium petals swirled in eddies up to my waist. On Earth nothing happened ... I stood alone in a sea of bright petals.
Alice Sebold
#43. If I don't write it, who will? No one; at least not the way I would because the idea is uniquely mine.
Tanika L. Smith
#44. Persistence is victory. Just . . . keep . . . going. It doesn't matter if things aren't going the way you thought they would or if you're facing a disappointment. The only defeat is in quitting. If you keep going, you're winning.
Mara Schiavocampo
#45. If time stood still for a moment, what would you be grateful for? And will it be enough to allow time to have meaning when it begins?
Steven Cuoco
#46. If I wasn't an actor? Hmm, I'd probably be a serial killer. I'm just so damn likeable, no one would ever suspect me.
Zach Braff
#47. I felt shame for living in a nation of unprecedented prosperity-a nation that spends a smaller percentage of income on food than any other civilization has in human history-but in the name of affordability treats the animals it eats with cruelty so extreme it would be illegal if inflicted on a dog.
Jonathan Safran Foer
#48. God makes me play well. That is why I always make the sign of a cross when I walk out on to the pitch. I feel I would be betraying him if I didn't.
Diego Maradona
#49. I am not and will never again be a young writer, a young homeowner, a young teacher. I was never a young wife. The only thing I could do now for which my youth would be a truly notable feature would be to die. If I died now, I'd die young. Everything else, I'm doing middle-aged.
Meghan Daum
#50. How happily some people would live if they troubled themselves as little about other people's business as about their own.
Georg C. Lichtenberg
#51. But because their ancestors were men of righteousness, shall we consent to the abuses of their degenerate descendants? Because they did us a great good, would we be guilty if we prevented them from doing us evil?
Jose Rizal
#52. I would not want to be a politician ... Let me tell you this: If I was campaigning, and I go against my opponent and he started attacking my character, and I leap over the table and choke him unconscious, would that help my campaign?
Chuck Norris
#53. If I physically made every work myself, I would get only one or two paintings done a year, if that.
Jeff Koons
#54. Educators must resist the quest for certainty. If there were certainty there would be no scientific advancement. So it is with morals and patriotism.
John Goodlad
#55. I imagine what would happen if everyone turned their regrets into wishes, went around shouting them.
Nina LaCour
#56. If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.
Arlen Specter
#57. Thou shalt not steal unless thou hast a majority vote in Congress ... I'm healthy; subsidized prescription drugs won't do me much good. I'd be willing to forego my prescription drugs if Congress would force some young American to mow my lawn.
Walter E. Williams
#58. Suddenly, the world I had scrutinised for so long was all around me, as if I had leaned forward and climbed into the television like Alice through the looking-glass. I had no idea just how deep the rabbit hole would go.
Simon Pegg
#59. On the other hand, there is a certain advantage in traveling with someone who has a reputation for shooting rather than being shot: as Keram said, in a self-satisfied way, they might kill me, but they would know that, if I was with him, there would be unpleasantness afterwards.
Freya Stark
#60. I laugh when Floyd Mayweather says that if he went back in time he would beat us all. I'll tell you this: if he was in the same era as Hagler and Hearns and Leonard and me, I don't think he would be such a big name. There is too much talk.
Roberto Duran
#61. The sign outside the juice store had said CHANGE YOUR FUTURE WITH SUNSHINE IN A GLASS. My future was looking pretty great already, and I couldn't wait to see what would happen if I added orange juice to it.
Maggie Stiefvater
#62. She took a deep breath and forgot to exhale. She wondered what it would be like if she licked him up one side and down the other.
"What are you thinking?"
She suddely felt kind of hot and dizzy and accidetally let Layla out.
"That i want to lick yout tattoo" she whispered.
Rachel Gibson
#63. It is said that most people judge themselves too harshly. I disagree. If they judged themselves harshly enough, they would come to the conclusion that they're the last person on Earth to be judging anyone.
Silvia Hartmann
#64. If it were purely up to me, my kids would probably be vegetarian Catholic Marxists.
Martin Freeman
#65. I ain't no saint, but I've tried never to do anything that would hurt my family or offend God ... I figure all any kid needs is hope and the feeling he or she belongs. If I could do or say anything that would give some kid that feeling, I would believe I had contributed something to the world.
Elvis Presley
#66. (On her work in Keep Your Powder Dry) I didn't want to do it, but they said if I did it they would give me Undercurrent with Robert Taylor. Then they gave Undercurrent to Katharine Hepburn, so I left MGM.
Laraine Day
#67. There's no direction I can go in. If I met someone else, what meaning would there be left? If the pain goes, does that mean I never loved her? How can I get over it? I can't, I mustn't. But what else am I going to do?
Marie Phillips
#68. a tyrant, and a conqueror. He was never elected to the office. He would probably laugh at the idea. And if he did somehow decide to hold elections, he would magic the masses into electing him, because he would honestly believe that he was best qualified to rule wisely. Having
Ilona Andrews
#69. If we would follow the Lord wholly, we must go right away into the wilderness of separation, and leave the Egypt of the carnal world behind us.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
#70. If I could eat only one thing for the rest of my life, it would be rhubarb fool, which I make with ginger and a hint of elderflower cordial.
Sebastian Faulks
#71. If I were but a man who would be tall, I would be me.
Ryan Stiles
#72. I'm one of those people who really wants to do everything. And if I had enough time, I really would.
Anna Popplewell
#73. If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.
Agnes Repplier
#74. I hear myself saying these words: What this movement is about is options. I say it to friends who are frustrated, or housebound, or guilty, or child-laden, and what I'm really thinking is, If you really got it together, the option you would choose is mine.
Nora Ephron
#75. If Jobs and Wozniak had believed that IBM was the be-all and end-all, there would have been no personal computers.
Jimmy Maher
#76. She'd betrayed her country because she'd believed it was the right thing to do. Yet would she have done this, if not for Arin?
He knew none of it. Had never asked for it. Kestrel had made her own choices. It was unfair to blame him.
But she wanted to.
Marie Rutkoski
#77. If you took me to Coachella for our first date, it would probably be a done deal. It would be a sure thing.
Eva Mendes
#78. Unfortunately there is a standard set for it that precedes hip-hop. It would be great if corporate America didn't do this, but there is a huge market for sex and violence and anti-Black representations in America and the world that doesn't begin or end with hip-hop.
Bakari Kitwana
#79. If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops of water ...
J.M. Barrie
#80. If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.
Albert Einstein
#81. I wish for a moment that time would lift me out of this day, and into some more benign one. But then I feel guilty for wanting to avoid the sadness; dead people need us to remember them, even if it eats us, even if all we can do is say "I'm sorry" until it is as meaningless air.
Audrey Niffenegger
#82. If you would find gold, you must search where gold is.
William Juneau
#83. I would say if you are familiar with our history and the history of our art and literature that you see a clear cut pattern of people wanting to contribute, not only artistically, but in some practical purpose, for the benefits of the community.
Gil Scott-Heron
#84. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
William Shakespeare
#85. There's so much excitement around the Phish tours, and if it stopped feeling that way, it would ruin everything we've done for seventeen years.
Trey Anastasio
#86. And there, in that phrase, the bitterness leaks again out of my pen. What a dull lifeless quality this bitterness is. If I could I would write with love, but if I could write with love I would be another man; I would never have lost love.
Graham Greene
#87. The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.
James Iha
#88. It would seem as if the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched.
Henry David Thoreau
#89. By now the two men were tied securely to their chairs. Powerscourt found he could just about move his arms. If there was a deus out there somewhere, he said to himself, he wished he would hurry up and get out of his machina.
David Dickinson
#90. If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
[Meditations Divine and Moral]
Anne Bradstreet
#91. If you went through life refusing all the bait dangled in front of you, that would be no life at all. No changes would be made and you would have nothing to fight against. Life would be dull as ditchwater.
Alan Sillitoe
#92. Would anybody be offended if we gave a $150 million bonus to Gandhi? How about a $250 million bonus to Mother Teresa? Do we have an issue with that? None at all. Great leaders would never sacrifice the people to save the numbers. They would sooner sacrifice the numbers to save the people.
Simon Sinek
#93. I'm ambitious. But if I weren't as talented as I am ambitious, I would be a gross monstrosity.
Madonna Ciccone
#94. I'm convinced that if the same opportunities were made available to everybody, people would want to better their lot in life.
Robin Leach
#95. I believe that if Israel were to put an end to the settlements in the West Bank tomorrow, as it did in Gaza, there would still be reluctance on the part of the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish secular democracy.
Alan Dershowitz
#96. If Mark Twain had had Twitter, he would have been amazing at it. But he probably wouldn't have gotten around to writing Huckleberry Finn.
Andy Borowitz
#97. Well, is true. I did know. Because if possible to paint fakes that look like that? Las Vegas would be the most beautiful city in the history of earth!
Donna Tartt
#98. You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I became mentally ill, would be your adopting a common sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded
Ludwig Wittgenstein
#99. His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness-and promised answers-he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: "Do you lie?"
But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received was true.
Lois Lowry
#100. If we can't have the courage to tell our constituents, hey, we've got to cut back, then if we can point to something and say, I would like to vote for more benefits for you, but this balanced budget amendment or statutory spending cap or whatever the device is, is preventing me from doing it.
Jeff Flake
