Unrealized Quotes

It's hardly ever the destination we've been anticipating, is it? Our hopes may seem unrealized, but we were in all likelihood hoping for the wrong thing. Where did we - the species, that is - pick up that strange and perverse habit? ~ Michael Cunningham

Quote from "Unexpected Tales from the Ends of the Earth":
"The only one everlasting love is the unrealized one. The love to this thing that you'd never had. Behind it is hidden the love to your own ego and feelings". ~ Alexandar Tomov

The most common commodity in this country is unrealized potential. ~ Calvin Coolidge

The danger of abusing the discovery of the truth value of imagination for retrogressive tendencies is exemplified by the work of Carl Jung. More empathically than Freud, he has insisted on the cognitive force of imagination. According to Jung, phantasy is 'undistinguishably' united with all other mental functions, it appears 'now as primeval, now as the ultimate and most audacious synthesis of all capabilities.' Phantasy is above all the 'creative activity out of which flow the answers to all answerable questions'; it is 'the mother of all possibilities, in which all mental opposites as well as the conflict between internal and external world are united.' Phantasy has always built the bridge between the irreconcilable demands of object and subject, extroversion and introversion. The simultaneously retrospective and expectant character of imagination is thus clearly stated: it looks not only back to an aboriginal golden past, but also forward to still unrealized but realizable possibilities. ~ Herbert Marcuse

Writers allow us to see ourselves more clearly, they express spiritual signposts that assist us find ourselves. Writers' self-revelations allow us to grasp personal reflections that remain unrealized and indistinct within ourselves. Nuggets of personal perception remain veiled, until we read carefully chosen words sharing the author's crystallized perceptions. Provocative authors resolutely tap into that robust vein of common yearning and assiduously engineer their way through humankind's rampant library of collective neurosis. Reading a master's scintillating prose allows our own inchoate thoughts to shape up under the splendid beam of sunlight that they cast onto pages bearing their soul's freshly minted words. Their astutely crafted pages conveying everlasting imagery immunizes their work from the harshness of time's relentless march forward. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The notebook smelled the way old books do, like dust and unrealized potential. ~ Alex Flinn

There is no such thing as a good father because the role itself is bad. Strict fathers, soft fathers, nice moderate fathers - one's as bad as another. They stand in the way of our progress while they try to burden us with their inferiority complexes, and their unrealized aspirations, and their resentments, and their ideals, and the weaknesses they've never told anyone about, and their sins, and their sweeter-than-honey dreams, and the maxims they've never had the courage to live by - they'd like to unload all that silly crap on us, all of it! ~ Yukio Mishima

Because he thinks he is a thief!" Jethro cried. "He thinks he stole what he is. He's fighting his own shadow and his own heart. ~ Marek Halter

If there have been mute inglorious Miltons in rural villages, presumably there have been unrealized Washingtons born in unpropitious times. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

It seemed to her there was a peacefulness about him that came with resignation, with the extinction of that last hope, like a perfect humility undistracted by the possible, the unrealized, the yet to be determined. ~ Marilynne Robinson

The thought of how much happiness lay scattered across the universe, unrealized, in fragments, waiting for the right twist of fate to bring it together. ~ Leah Raeder

Because of fear, I had forfeited strength, life, and beauty. I had lost a sense of my true self, and with that loss so much of what God wanted for me was yet unrealized. ~ Lisa Bevere

Moreover, we were to each other aspects of a dream unrealized. I emblemized the excitement of freedom, a life untethered by the confines of constructs. She illustrated a sense of belonging, of ongoing laughter in the face of those constructs, a true lifeline within the walking dead. We were standing in different places, yet the same, seeing within each other a sense of truth within the lies, a radiant light that illuminated the dark. ~ Jackie Haze

What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations of wishes. ~ Sigmund Freud

The true danger of romanticism is that the principles through which it rules itself are of such nature that everybody can invoke them to grant themselves the category of artist. Taking the anxiety of an unreachable happiness, the angst of unrealized dreams, the indifference towards action and life, as the defining criteria of genius or talent, immediately facilitates everyone who feels or has felt that same anxiety, suffers that same angst and is prey of that particular indifference, to feel themselves convinced that they themselves are an interesting individuality, and that Destiny, granting them that longing, suffering and dreams, implicitly bestowed on them intellectual greatness. ~ Fernando Pessoa

Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. ~ D.H. Lawrence

In his earliest memories he was sitting on the floor in the family room, in front of the giant stereo his parents had bought themselves as a wedding present, his face pressed into the padded fabric of one speaker. The fabric was prickly against his forehead but his nose fit perfectly into a little groove, and he could feel music spilling like molten gold through his entire body. He'd sit back on his heels when the song was over and his father, an accountant and amateur drummer whose (still-unrealized) dream was to open a jazz club and coffee house, would say, "Order up!" and put another record on the turntable. Rabbit's favorite albums were by Earth, Wind & Fire (syncopation made his brain feel like it was laughing) and Also sprach Zarathustra, its opening rumbling like an earthquake. And he loved The White Album, and when his mother played ABBA on the piano and they'd sing together (though Alice couldn't do it without being a total showoff), and the Star Wars soundtrack, and of _course_ Zeppelin. For six months in 1984, he had asked his parents to play "Stairway to Heaven" instead of a bedtime story. ~ Kate Racculia

Sometimes I think my past life was unrealized. I met a tragic end - it might have been a car over a cliff. But it's true, I came from another time and place, and landed in Paris Hilton's backyard. ~ Christine Ebersole

Individuality, conceived as a temporal development involves uncertainty, indeterminacy, or contingency. Individuality is the source of whatever is unpredictable in the world....genuine time, if it exists as anything else except the measure of motions in space, is all one with the existence of individuals as individuals, with the creative, with the occurrence of unpredictable novelties. Everything that can be said contrary to this conclusion is but a reminder that an individual may lose his individuality, for individuals become imprisoned in routine and fall to the level of mechanisms. Genuine time then ceases to be an integral element of their being. Our behavior becomes predictable, because it is but an external rearrangement of what went before....surrender of individuality by the many to someone who is taken to be a superindividual explains the retrograde movement of society. Dictatorships and totalitarian states, and belief in the inevitability of this or that result coming to pass are, strange as it may sound, ways of denying the reality of time and the creativeness of the individual....the artist in realizing his own individuality reveals potentialities hitherto unrealized. The revelation is the inspiration of other individuals to make the potentialities real, for it is not sheer revolt against things as they are which stirs human endeavor to its depth, but vision of what might be and is not. Subordination of the artists to any special cause no matter how worthy does vi ~ John Dewey

Man is a continent, but his conscious mind is no larger than a back garden ... man consists almost entirely of unrealized potentials. ~ Colin Wilson

I don't believe in the creativity of the curator. I don't think that the exhibition-maker has brilliant ideas around which the works of artists must fit. Instead, the process always starts with a conversation, in which I ask the artists what their unrealized projects are, and then the task is to find the means to realize them.
pg 10 ~ Hans Ulrich Obrist

Ah! the best righteousness of our man-of-war world seems but an unrealized ideal, after all; and those maxims which, in the hope of bringing about a Millennium, we busily teach to the heathen, we Christians ourselves disregard. ~ Herman Melville

Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. ~ D.H. Lawrence

And some of our fondest desires end up meaning more to us unrealized than tested - don't you think? ~ Andre Aciman

We can do things that are greater than ourselves. If you believe nothing exists beyond a certain boundary, then you will never test the veracity of that belief and you will never discover new possibilities....Maybe there are truly extraordinary people out there, but I'm not one of them. The most extraordinary acts are accomplished by ordinary people doing something a little extra and stepping ouiside their personal comfort zone....I often wonder how much human potential lies unrealized and untapped, how much we are limited by our own fears as well as by social, cultural, religious, and self-imposed limitations. If we can break through those, how far might we go as individuals, as a species? ~ Juliana Buhring

To say a person is a coward has no more meaning than to say he is lazy: It simply tells us that some vital potentiality is unrealized or blocked. ~ Rollo May

A lot of us first aspired to far-ranging travel and exotic adventure early in our teens; these ambitions are, in fact, adolescent in nature, which I find an inspiring idea ... Thus, when we allow ourselves to imagine as we once did, we know, with a sudden jarring clarity, that if we don't go right now, we're never going to do it. And we'll be haunted by our unrealized dreams and know that we have sinned against ourselves gravely. ~ Tim Cahill

We walk among worlds unrealized until we have learned the secret of love. ~ Hugh Black

I was impatient in those days, busy with work and unrealized plans, and prone to see other people as unnecessary distractions. ~ Barack Obama

We have a complete void of progressive politics in this country right now. The will of the people goes ignored and unrealized. I'm searching for the people that can enter the political system, a strong third party. We need to consolidate. ~ Ani DiFranco

I came to the conclusion that unrealized hopes, even small ones, were always wrenching. ~ Nicholas Sparks

Enlightenment remains unrealized so long as it is considered as a specific
state to be attained, and for which there are standards of success. ~ Alan Watts

You are a military man and should know better. If there is one science into which man has probed continuously and successfully, it is that of military technology. No potential weapon would remain unrealized for ten thousand years. ~ Isaac Asimov

The night was so balmy that breathing ceased to be a habitual sensation, becoming much closer to something like the gaseous ingestion of a mango, the velvet caress of a hand or the soft skin of a fresh peach. Sleeping, lying down or sitting up, was, on that night, a divine human penitence, a miracle unexpected and unrealized, intuitive and peaceful in a unique opportunity. ~ Ondjaki

He had heard especially promising things about Philadelphia
the lively capital of that young nation. It was said to be a city with a good-enough shipping port, central to the eastern coast of the country, filled with pragmatic Quakers, pharmacists, and hardworking farmers. It was rumored to be a place without haughty aristocrats (unlike Boston), and without pleasure-fearing puritans (unlike Connecticut), and without troublesome self-minted feudal princes (unlike Virginia). The city had been founded on the sound principles of religious tolerance, a free press, and good landscaping, by William Penn
a man who grew tree saplings in bathtubs, and who had imagined his metropolis as a great nursery of both plants and ideas. Everyone was welcome in Philadelphia, absolutely everyone
except, of course, the Jews. Hearing all this, Henry suspected Philadelphia to be a vast landscape of unrealized profits, and he aimed to turn the place to his advantage. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Women hold up more than half the sky and represent much of the world's unrealized potential. They are the educators. They raise the children. They hold families together and increasingly drive economies. They are natural leaders. We need their full engagement ... in government, business and civil society. ~ Ban Ki-moon

Come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one's death anxiety. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

What we look for in the school is unrealized potential. ~ Donna Reed

We have unrealized capacities that sometimes only emerge in crisis. ~ Lance Armstrong

Temporary feelings of regret are a normal part of the mourning process. This helps us retrieve our lost dreams. If we hold on to regret, we risk trapping ourselves in a prison of unrealized dreams from which it is difficult to escape. ~ Barbara De Angelis

Show me a dream unrealized. Don't show me unchangeable paths. ~ Roshani Chokshi

Often, our relationships become an unrealized quest for what is perfect, unfettered, and free of flaws. We expect our partners, spouses, and our friends to avoid missteps and to be magical mind readers. These secret expectations play a sinister part in many of the great tragedies of our lives: failed marriages, dissipated dreams, abandoned careers, outcast family, deserted children, and discarded friendships.

We readily forget what we once knew as children: our flaws are not only natural but integral to our beings. They are interwoven into our soul's DNA and yet we continually reject the crooked, wrinkled, mushy parts of our life rather than embrace them as the very essence of our beings.

I once believed that aiming for perfection would land me in the realm of excellence. This, however, may not be the trajectory of how things happen. In fact, the pursuit of perfection may be the biggest obstacle to becoming whole.

It seems essential to value hard work and determination and yet recognize that the road to excellence is littered with mistakes and subsequent lessons. Imperfection and excellence are intertwined. There is joy in our pain, strength in weakness, courage in compassion, and power in forgiveness. ~ Ann Brasco

I read too much as a child; I believe now that I can bookmark unrealized events in my life to return to them later. ~ Charlotte Shane

Your subconscious is a powerful and mysterious force which can either hold you back or help you move forward. Without its cooperation, your best goals will go unrealized; with its help, you are unbeatable. ~ Jenny Davidow

Cynicism is idealism turned inside out. It stems from an expectation unrealized and a promise perverted. That is so much of Washington today in a nutshell. ~ Mark Leibovich

The writer has a grudge against society, which he documents with accounts of unsatisfying sex, unrealized ambition, unmitigated loneliness, and a sense of local and global distress. ~ Renata Adler

To weep not for the way things had once been but for the way things had been supposed to go and did not. People believed that they were haunted by bad memories, but that wasn't the truth. The most sinister hauntings were from unrealized futures. ~ Michael Koryta

When the cold front of demographics meets the warm front of unrealized dreams, the result will be a thunderstorm of purpose the likes of which the world has never seen. ~ Daniel H. Pink

Our hopes may seem unrealized, but we were in all likelihood hoping for the wrong thing. ~ Michael Cunningham

What I saw there explained everything
the reason he had stayed away, why he had come to say good-bye. I can only describe what I saw by its effect on me. Every woman should be looked at in such a way, at least once her life. With a longing that cannot be contained
with love that goes beyond mere feeling because it transforms and-like the verse of the poem he had read
it dissolves, as an offering, a gift. I felt my face flush and waves of knowing suffused every pore, every cell of my being. I was loved. And in that love, I felt beauty
my own, unrealized until that moment, suddenly rising to consciousness in a way that made everything in me come alive to the beauty all around me. Nothing more needed to be said. ~ Nafisa Haji

They say for every light on Broadway there is a broken heart, an unrealized dream. And that's the same in any profession. So you have to want it more than anyone else, and you have to be your own champion, be your own superstar, blaze your own path, say yes to opportunity, follow your instincts, be eager, and passionate, keep learning, nurture your real, lasting relationships, don't be a jerk, and free your imagination so you can become all that you want to be. ~ Sutton Foster

A sweet gum tree is the chameleon of wood, it's corky exterior hiding it's inner ability to imitate anything from cherry to mahogany. But it's real value, one unrealized by most people, is it's deep red heart, steady and strong. ~ Katherine Allred

Think about what you think about is much more than a clever grouping of words. It's largely the difference between maximized and unrealized potential. ~ B. Tom Hunsaker

The greatest story every(any)one can tell is the story of their life. Just don't let the climax of your story be unrealized dreams. ~ Unarine Ramaru

His best talent had yet to be determined, unless you counted unrealized potential. ~ Charles Frazier

Be cheerful [and grateful for the good that you have]: do not brood over fond hopes unrealized until a chain is fastened on each thought and wound around the heart. Nature intended you to be the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not the mountain of despair and melancholy. ~ Arthur Helps