Doing Our Best Quotes

We each do the best we can. My best may not be as good as your best, but it's my best. The fact is we know when we are doing our best and when we are not. If we are not doing our best, it leaves us with a gnawing hunger and frustration. But when we do our best, we experience a peace. ~ Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Let us begin by doing our best to do our best, every single time, no matter what, forever. ~ Edward Albert

Maybe individual people seem irrational because they aren't really individuals! Each one of us is a little nation-state, doing our best to settle disputes and broker compromises between the squabbling voices that drive us. ~ Jordan Ellenberg

Well this week's all about Seattle, so we've been doing our best to prepare for the Seahawks. I'm doing that, our team's doing that and we'll be ready to go Sunday. That's our focus. ~ Bill Belichick

Extinction, that's where it's going, that's where we're headed. And we're going that way because we're all so fucking afraid of it. We're so afraid of dying off that we're setting ourselves up for exactly that. Keeping away from each other, rarely making eye contact with those we don't already know. Not helping when folks need help. Avoiding confrontation and staying away when we see anything which might instill fear. Doing our best to stay out of trouble, while in effect creating more trouble. ~ Trent Zelazny

We're trying, despite having done research and having obviously preconceived ideas, we try our best to be as open-hearted as possible, and try to create context. So that's always going to be the challenge, making a program like 'Gaycation', and we are always thinking about it, reflecting on it, and doing our best to show the whole picture as much as possible in a 45-minute span. Hopefully that comes across. ~ Ellen Page

We are fond of saying that the Bible has all the answers. And that is certainly correct. The text of the Bible sets us in a reality that is congruent with who we are as created beings in God's image and what we are destined for in the purposes of Christ. But the Bible also has all the questions, many of them that we would just as soon were never asked of us, and some of which we will spend the rest of our lives doing our best to dodge. The Bible is a most comforting book; it is also a most discomfiting book. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

We're just doing our best to live in this world, Davy." Sean's voice stretches into the fading dark. "We're not perfect, but we're not monsters, either. We're just human. ~ Sophie Jordan

There is no such thing as always doing our best. How utterly exhausting that would be. We just do what we do. And maybe it's enough. ~ Carolyn Wall

Changing the world is like trying to straighten a dog's tail. However much you may try, you won't succeed. But although the tail won't straighten, if you keep trying every day, at least you will put on some muscle. Similarly, even though it is difficult to make a change, our effort to do so in itself brings positive results. It will help us change. Without waiting for others to change,if we change ourselves first, that will make a difference. Instead of worrying about results, focus on doing our best in what we are engaged in. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

So who is God? No one can finally say. That is not within human competence. All we can ever say is how we believe we have experienced God, doing our best to dispel our human delusions. Let me try to do just that. I experience God as the source of life calling me to live fully and thus to respect life in every form as embodying the holy. ~ John Shelby Spong

I have to smile, remembering myself as a very much younger man. I was still looking for a way to say -- whatever it was, if anything, I had to say.

"Although it didn't feel that way at the time, those years were a blessing, heavily disguised. Or, say, the kind of gift the enchantresses Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch bestow on the unwitting recipient. Perhaps we have to serve an apprenticeship to life before we can serve one to art. We can't begin doing our best for children until we ourselves begin growing up. ~ Lloyd Alexander

All I can tell you is that every family on the planet is dysfunctional and we celebrate occasions as generously as we know how to do. We are all doing our best to appear grateful to have one another. Weren't appearances worth something? ~ Dorothea Benton Frank

At the most fundamental level, the level that is the most useful for doing insight practices, we wish desperately that there was some separate, permanent self, and we spend huge amounts of time doing our best to prop up this illusion. In order to do this, we habitually ignore lots of useful information about our reality and give our mental impressions and simplifications of reality much more importance than they are necessarily due. It is this illusion that adds a problematic element to the normal and understandable ways in which we go about trying to be happy. We constantly struggle with reality because we misunderstand it, i.e. because reality misunderstands itself. ~ Daniel M. Ingram

It's easy to look back and say if things had been perfect, I could have accommodated all of those things into my life. But as a therapist I do not allow that word to be uttered in my office after the first session, because I believe the only reason for the existence of that word is to make us feel bad. It's the only word in the language (that I know of) that is defined in common usage by what can't be. It sets a vague standard that can't be met because it is never truly characterized. I prefer to think that we're all out here doing our best under the circumstances, looking at our world through the only eyes through which we can look at it: our own. ~ Chris Crutcher

No one replaces anyone else. No one substitutes for another person. Every person is unique. Every relationship is unique. Every relationship's purpose is unique. Life is fluid; it moves. It doesn't die; it reforms. Each day is new. We can only try and do our best for today. It's enough, don't you think? No more is asked. But also no less. ~ Donna Goddard

Not everyone knows how to be a good parent. Not everyone knows the right things to do or the right things to say. We are all just doing the best we can with the tools we were given. What matters is that we educate ourselves and keep doing our best. ~ Leticia Rae

It is possible to be too stable. No Outer World has colonized a new planet in two and a half centuries.. are lives too long to risk and too comfortable to upset.

"I don't know about that, Dr. Fastolfe. You've come to Earth. You risk disease."

"Yes, I do. There are some of us, Mr. Baley, who feel that the future of the human race is even worth the possible loss of an extended lifetime. Too few of us, I am sorry to say."

"In trying to introduce robots here on Earth, we're doing our best to upset the balance of your City economy."

"You mean you're creating a growing group of displaced and declassified men on purpose?"

"Not out of cruelty or callousness, believe me. A group of displaced men, as you call them, are what we need to serve as a nucleus for colonization. Your ancient America was discovered by ships fitted out with men from the prisons. Don't you see that the City's womb has failed the displaced man. He has nothing to lose and worlds to gain by leaving Earth. ~ Isaac Asimov

We are poor in character when we think getting by is a substitute for doing our best. ~ Marvin J. Ashton

There aren't any good guys, and there aren't any bad guys. There's just us. People. Doing our best to get by ~ Neil Gaiman

It occurred to me, then, how nearly real life resembles the first rehearsal of a play. We are all of us stumbling through it, doing our best to say the proper lines and make the proper moves, but not quite comfortable yet in the parts we've been given. Still, like players who trust that -despite all evidence to the contrary- the whole mess will make sense eventually, we keep on going, hoping that somehow things will work out for the best. ~ Gary L. Blackwood

The antiquated rhetoric of 'having it all' disregards the basis of every economic relationship: the idea of trade-offs. All of us are dealing with the constrained optimization that is life, attempting to maximize our utility based on parameters like career, kids, relationships, etc., doing our best to allocate the resource of time. Due to the scarcity of this resource, therefore, none of us can 'have it all,' and those who claim to are most likely lying."1 ~ Sheryl Sandberg

It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary. ~ Winston Churchill

Contrary to what most of us believe, happiness does not simply happen to us. It's something that we make happen, and it results from doing our best. Feeling fulfilled when we live up to our potentialities is what motivates differentiation and leads to evolution. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In the end, we are only tiny frightened animals, doing our best to survive amid other tiny frightened animals. ~ James Hollis

It was like we were exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like we'd read about it in a manual, translated from another language, and were doing our best with what we could understand. ~ Aimee Bender

Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. ~ Jessica Valenti

Because this is the beauty of strangers: we're all just doing our best to help each other out, motivated not by karma but by a natural instinct to help the greater whole. ~ Sloane Crosley

Experience shows that great enterprises seldom end with a tidy and satisfactory flourish. Together, we are doing our best to re-establish peace and civil order in the Gulf region, and to help those members of civil and ethnic minorities who continue to suffer through no fault of their own. If we succeed, our military success will have achieved its true objective. ~ Queen Elizabeth II

Funny that the people who aren't doing the fighting are the most tired of it," Evan said. "We never knew anything about people being sick of it, or protests, or people thinking we were the bad guys. All our news was censored. We thought everyone would be proud of us, like they are of our dads. We were out there, putting everything on the line every day because that's what our country told us to do, under conditions that would make a saint afraid to look God in the face, and we were doing our best. I knew there were a few anti-war protests before I left, but I never expected it to be like this… ~ Sabrina Fedel

Our lives are like the talents in the parable of the three stewards. It is something that has been given to us for the time being and we have the opportunity and privilege of doing our best with this precious gift. ~ George Vaillant

We should try our best to pour out all the burdens in our spirit by prayer until all of them have left us. ~ Watchman Nee

We don't want a third party who may or may not have our best interests in mind or our crew members' best interests in mind because they may be serving a union of one of our competitors. They are trying to equalize us and take away our competitive advantage. ~ David Neeleman

Unless we're willing to spend eons striving for perfection every time we encounter a hitch, hard problems demand that instead of spinning our tires we imagine easier versions and tackle those first. When applied correctly, this is not just wishful thinking, not fantasy or idle daydreaming. It's one of our best ways of making progress. ~ Brian Christian

It has often been our best instincts, not our worst, that have led us to do harm in the world ~ Rosa Brooks

All will be as it should, if we just do our best. ~ Louise Penny

We all leave one another. We die, we change - it's mostly change - we outgrow our best friends; but even if I do leave you, I will have passed on to you something of myself; you will be a different person because of knowing me; it's inescapable ... ~ Edna O'Brien

Our employees are so enthusiastic about The Container Store, in fact, that they're also our best recruiters. We only have a few "official" full-time employees in our recruiting department in our Dallas headquarters, mostly to fill specialized job openings. Instead, we train every employee in the company in how to recruit new members of our team, and we offer constant reminders about the importance of always being on the lookout for talent. It's not the recruiting department's job to recruit. It's the recruiting department's job to make sure everyone takes on the personal responsibility of recruiting - that we all do it. ~ Kip Tindell

The wonder of a free-market society is that we can all do our best to package our message in an entertaining fashion and present it - and then everybody votes with their footsteps. ~ Max Lucado

We typically think of stress as being a risk factor for disease," said Cole. "And it is, somewhat. But if you actually measure stress, using our best available instruments, it can't hold a candle to social isolation. Social isolation is the best-established, most robust social or psychological risk factor for disease out there. Nothing can compete. ~ Anonymous

It is a most gratifying sign of the rapid progress of our time that our best text-books become antiquated so quickly. ~ Theodor Billroth

The truth was our best weapon. ~ Samantha Shannon

Women's studies needed a syllabus and so invented a canon overnight. It puffed up clunky, mundane contemporary women authors into Oz-like, skywriting dirigibles. Our best women students are being force-fed an appalling diet of cant, drivel and malarkey. ~ Camille Paglia

What we need is a culture where the common experience of trauma leads to a normalization of healing. Being able to say I have good reasons to be scared of the dark, of raised voices, of being swallowed up by love, of being alone. And being able to offer each other: I know a healer for you. I'll hold your hand in the dark. Let's begin a meditation practice. Perhaps talk therapy is not enough. We should celebrate love in our community as a measure of healing. The expectation should be -- I know we are all in need of healing -- so how are we doing our healing work? ~ Adrienne Maree Brown

Are you sure this is a good idea?' whispered the unicorn.
'No,' said Rupert. 'But it's our best chance to find a dragon.'
'Frankly, that doesn't strike me as such a hot idea either,' muttered the unicorn. ~ Simon R. Green

We might not win today" But Time is our best friend, HE will catch up with you and drag you down... Vengeance will be ours ~ RSM

God has created us and poured love into our hearts so that we may do our best to alleviate the suffering that is around us. ~ Dada Vaswani

Whether the task is writing, design, or hanging a picture straight, it is obvious that we do our best work when healthy, rested, refreshed, alert, and eager to do the job for its own sake. ~ Jeffrey Zeldman

Fire is one of our best friends in this cold universe. Put some wood in it to show your gratitude. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Marriage can be a magnificent lesson in becoming our best selves; that is true. ~ Marianne Williamson

We tried our best for the longest time to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the matter, and at each step, we were thwarted by those that said, No, we will not turn the boy over to his father. ~ Janet Reno

We are above all things loved--that is the good news of the gospel--and loved not just the way we turn up on Sundays in our best clothes and on our best behavior and with our best feet forward, but loved as we alone know ourselves to be, the weakest and shabbiest of what we are along with the strongest and gladdest. To come together as people who believe that just maybe this gospel is actually true should be to come together like people who have just won the Irish Sweepstakes. It should have us throwing our arms around each other like people who have just discovered that every single man and woman in those pews is not just another familiar or unfamiliar face but is our long-lost brother and our long-lost sister because despite the fact that we have all walked in different gardens and knelt at different graves, we have all, humanly speaking, come from the same place and are heading out into the same blessed mystery that awaits us all. This is the joy that is so apt to be missing, and missing not just from church but from our own lives--the joy of not just managing to believe at least part of the time that it is true that life is holy, but of actually running into that holiness head-on. ~ Frederick Buechner

The motives even of our best actions will not always bear examination. ~ Charlotte Lennox

...sometimes we go, and we try, and we suffer, and despite it all, we learn nothing. Sometimes we are left with more questions than when we started. Sometimes we do harm, despite our best efforts. We are human. We are fragile. ~ Becky Chambers

That all any of us has to give is our best. if we do that. we succeed, no matter what the outcome. ~ Sandra Brown

If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life. We are having fun, we don't get bored, we don't have frustrations. ~ Miguel Angel Ruiz

Our best successes often come after our greatest disappointments. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call 'the thing itself'. But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs: the rest is a name or an idea. ~ C.S. Lewis

I have seen that our best presidents were the do-nothing presidents: Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding. When you have a president who does things, we are all in serious trouble. If he does anything at all, if he gets up at night to go the bathroom, somehow, mystically, trouble will ensue. ~ Utah Phillips

Listen: I'm not going to tell you what to do. We cannot make decisions for you. We came to help, but we do not want to interfere. We gave you a gift, yours to do with as you will. But you've heard all that before. We're happy to talk. To answer questions about why we don't stop war and suffering, cure cancer, end poverty, point the way to heaven or point out that there is no heaven. Ask us anything. We don't mind. We try our best to be candid, but there is an inevitable degree of mutual incomprehension. Because your qualia aren't our qualia. Because we're running models of who you think you are and what you think you know, but they're just models. Because the map isn't the territory. Because we aren't gods. We aren't even close. You know? At best, we're pipers at the gates of dawn. Who have come to this little blue planet to help. ~ Paul McAuley

A vote for Japan is a vote for the future of rugby. We will do our best to make rugby a global sport. ~ Yoshiro Mori

The informality of family life is a blessed condition that allows us all to become our best while looking our worst. ~ Marge Kennedy

Failure is often our best teacher not the success. ~ Debasish Mridha

The purpose of such propaganda phrases as "war on terrorism" and attacking "those who hate freedom" is to paralyze individual thought as well as to condition people to act as one mass, as when President Bush attempted to end debate on Iraq by claiming that the American people were of one voice. The modern war president removes the individual nature of those who live in it by forcing us into a uniform state where the complexities of those we fight are erased. The enemy-terrorism, Iraq, Bin Laden, Hussein-becomes one threatening category, something to be defeated and destroyed, so that the public response will be one of reaction to fear and threat rather than creatively and independently thinking for oneself. Our best hope for overcoming perpetual thinking about war and perpetual fear about both real and imagined threats is to question our leaders and their use of empty slogans that offer little rationale, explanation or historical context. ~ Nancy Snow

Can we feel contrition for other people's crimes? Can we feel contrition for crimes we have not committed personally, but have subsequently profited from? How can we formulate the criteria for contrition to make them applicable to collective responsibility for historical crimes? Perhaps like this:
We freely admit that our predecessors have done wrong and that we are profiting from it.
We ask forgiveness of those who were wronged and of their descendants.
We promise to do our best to make amends to those who were wronged for the effects that still remain.
The larger the collective, the more diluted the personal responsibility. The less intimate the contrition, the greater the risk that it will just be hollow ceremony. ~ Sven Lindqvist

Philosophy is not politics, and we do our best, within our all-too-human limitations, to seek the truth, not to score points against opponents. There is little satisfaction in gaining an easy triumph over a weak opponent while ignoring better arguments against your views. ~ Peter Singer

The good news of the gospel is that who we are is okay. Our best is good enough. The Savior came for us
just as we are. ~ Chieko N. Okazaki

That there are many things that we cant understand. the past. the bad things that happened ... and we become afraid. of what might happen in the future. its okay to be afraid. but we have to keep hoping and believeing ... to keep hoping and trying our best to be good and do good. even when we're afraid ~ Nafisa Haji

There was a proposal in California that would keep out Wal-Mart but allow Costco. You opposed it. Are you nuts? That's true: I always oppose these kinds of things. Competition makes us better. Some of our best stores have a Sam's Club next door. ~ James Sinegal

We humans are in such a strange position - we are still animals whose behavior reflects that of our ancestors, yet we are unique - unlike any other animal on earth. Our distinctiveness separates us and makes it easy to forget where we came from. Perhaps dogs help us remember the depth of our roots, reminding us - the animals at the other end of the leash - that we may be special, but we are not alone. No wonder we call them our best friends. ~ Patricia McConnell

I think the story is our best chance for asylum. We claim persecution based on belonging to a particular social group, We weave a story about how you're afraid of going back home because you're afraid your girlfriend's family wants to kill you so you two don't get married.'
'That sounds like something that would happen in India," Winston said, "No one does anything like that in Cameroon. ~ Imbolo Mbue