What Not To Do Quotes

If I accomplish nothing else in this life, I can at least serve as an example of what not to do with my life. ~ Jerrie Brock

I spent a year in Professor Baker's famous class at Harvard. There, too, I learned some things that were useful to me-particularly what not to do. Not to take ten lines, for instance, to say something that can be said in one line. ~ Eugene O'Neill

And I don't want to use my troubles as an example of what to do and what not to do. ~ William Hurt

Never give up! Keep practicing - it's the only way to get better. But don't lose sight of the outside world. As an artist, you have to connect with the world around you, or you've got nothing to inspire you. Learn from everything and everyone, good or bad. It's just as important to learn what not to do, as well as what to do, in art, in life. ~ Steve Landes

Everyone teaches you something. Some teach you what to do, and others teach you what not to do. ~ Hilda Charlton

The ideal boss for a growing leader is probably a good boss with major flaws, so that one can learn all the complex lessons of what to do and what not to do simultaneously. ~ Warren G. Bennis

Strategy is all about combining choices of what to do and what not to do into a system that creates the requisite fit between what the environment needs and what the company does. ~ Constantinos C. Markides

With every effort, I learned a lot. With every mistake and failure, not only mine, but of those around me, I learned what not to do. I also got to study the success of those I did business with as well. I had more than a healthy dose of fear, and an unlimited amount of hope, and more importantly, no limit on time and effort. ~ Mark Cuban

History is the roadmap to a better tomorrow. Destroying it is getting rid of any chance of what not to do for future generations. ~ Jason E. Hodges

How did humans guide themselves? How did they know what to do and what not to do? ~ Ian Tregillis

I may do some good before I am dead
be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story. ~ Thomas Hardy

View everyone around you as a teacher; from some, seek to learn what not to do and from others, what to do. ~ Amey Hegde

A fox should not be of the jury at a goose's trial. ~ Thomas Fuller

You give a lot of great advice about what to do. Do you have any advice of what not to do?


Don't do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to do. Don't stay when you know you should go or go when you know you should stay. Don't fight when you should hold steady or hold steady when you should fight. Don't focus on the short-term fun instead of the long-term fall out. Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore. Don't seek joy at all costs. I know it's hard to know what to do when you have a conflicting set of emotions and desires, but it's not as hard as we pretend it is. Saying it's hard is ultimately a justification to do whatever seems like the easiest thing to do - have the affair, stay at that horrible job, end a friendship over a slight, keep loving someone who treats you terribly. I don't think there's a single dumbass thing I've done in my adult life that I didn't know was a dumbass thing to do while I was doing it. Even when I justified it to myself - as I did every damn time - the truest part of me knew I was doing the wrong thing. Always. As the years pass, I'm learning how to better trust my gut and not do the wrong thing, but every so often I get a harsh reminder that I've still got work to do. ~ Cheryl Strayed

I made my share of mistakes. People can look at that as what not to do, and if they choose to make fun of it, that's fine. I can't control that. All I know is that I can control myself. And at that point in my life, I wasn't even able to do that. ~ Tiger Woods

Failing isn't bad when you learn what not to do. ~ Albert Einstein

I constantly remind myself that there are terrible movies out there. I try to watch them, some of them, to give myself an understanding of what not to do. ~ Taika Waititi

Of course, you only live one life, and you make all your mistakes, and learn what not to do, and that's the end of you. ~ Richard Feynman

First, where the law is the major source for bioethics, morality is too easily confused with legality and moral questions too quickly reduced to legal questions. Moreover, the law is better at
telling us what not to do than at providing ends and goals worthy of our humanity. ~ Allen Verhey

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time. ~ Anthony J. D'Angelo

focusing on what not to do has made all the difference. Good habits are important, but it's often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential. You can have all the good habits in the world, but if you keep doing the bad habits alongside the good ones, you'll struggle to reach your goals. Think of it this way: you're only as good as your worst habits. Bad ~ Amy Morin

What looks like a failure teaches us what not to do, what does not work. We have lessons to learn from our experiences. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

Oh! Thanks for the public service announcement about what not to do in college, Mr. Eighteen-year-old-frat-boy-with-eleventy-billion-'serious'-girlfriends-under-his-belt!
Get in the fucking car. You're a mean drunk.
You haven't seen me mean, mama's boy!
I told you we're close!
Yeah, so are me and my asshole! Doesn't mean I'm going to call it twice a day!
You're a bitch!
Take. Me. Home.
I'd love to, if you'd get in the fucking car! ~ Jamie McGuire

I don't have family members calling me and saying, "Is this rumor about you in the newspaper true?," because they know it's all bullshit. I already have that support system, and it's actually been really helpful. My parents have been in the entertainment business for so long that they really know what not to do. ~ Eve Hewson

If there's one thing I love, its people who wear their failures on their sleeve. And go on to teach the unspoken/spoken gospel of what not to do. And who still maintain that it CAN be done, and aren't going around preaching defeat to those who are still eager to try. ~ Njabulo P. Vilakazi

It is very important what not to do. ~ Iggy Pop

Strategy is figuring out what not to do. ~ Steve Jobs

If our intellectual part is common, the reason also, in respect of which we are rational beings, is common: if this is so, common also is the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do; if this is so, there is a common law also; if this is so, we are fellow-citizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community; if this is so, the world is in a manner a state. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Dogs aren't born knowing what or what not to do; they only learn like children. ~ Barbara Woodhouse

The problem with not having anybody to tell you what to do, I understood, is that there was nobody to tell you what not to do. ~ Augusten Burroughs

I'd definitely be the kind of parent who enabled my child's dreams. I'd just watch and nurture and guide them. I have the blueprints of what not to do ... I think I'd be a good parent, actually. ~ Drew Barrymore

Experience is knowing what not to do and knowing when not to do it. ~ Dennis Coates

Fright never injures anyone. What injures the spirit is having someone always on your back, beating you, telling you what to do and what not to do ~ Carlos Castaneda

Wisdom is seeing that there are templates in the universe that you can follow. They will show you what to do and what not to do. In order to see them you have to make your mind very quiet, very still. ~ Frederick Lenz

California is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do. Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries-and squandered that gift within a generation. ~ Victor Davis Hanson

I use to think being a warning was not meant to be apart of anyone's life purpose. However, how could you teach anything in life, without the deepest understanding of what not to do? Personally, I don't want someone offering advice, unless they have been to hell and back with a map and a compass. ~ Shannon L. Alder

One of Job's great strengths was knowing how to focus. " Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do, " he said. " That's true for companies, and it's true for products. ~ Walter Isaacson

What I've learned, more than anything, as a young actor who has been in the business for 10 years, is just to be around guys and girls, like Ron Perlman, Bill Lucking, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Katey Sagal, who have been in this business for a very long time, and to learn what to do and what not to do from them, every day, and to see how they navigate through their Hollywood life. ~ Theo Rossi

I think that sometimes you can be an example of what to do and what not to do, and I think most of the time I'm an example of what not to do. ~ Taya Kyle

Everyone I've worked with has been good. You learn from the good, what's good, and you learn from the bad what not to do. ~ Ben Vereen

Some people advise you what to do and some people forbid what not to do, but the genuine people just ask you if they can do anything for you. ~ Anuj

After the slowing, every action required a little more force than it used to. The physics had changed. Take, for example, the slightly increased drag of a hand on a knife or a finger on a trigger. From then on, we all had a little more time to decide what not to do. And who knows how fast a second-guess can travel? Who has ever measured the exact speed of a regret? But the new gravity was not enough to overcome the pull of certain other forces, more powerful, less known
no law of physics can account for desire. ~ Karen Thompson Walker

As we walked along the flatblock marina, I was calm on the outside, but thinking all the time - Now it was to be Georgie the general, saying what we should do and what not to do, and Dim as his mindless greeding bulldog. But suddenly, I viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones, and that the oomny ones use like, inspiration and what Bog sends. Now it was lovely music that came into my aid. There was a window open with the stereo on, and I viddied right at once what to do. ~ Anthony Burgess

Be Bold. It's just canvas, just paint. If it doesn't work for you, paint over it and start again. Don't be afraid that you are wasting supplies. Every failure teaches something, if only what not to do. ~ Tiko Kerr

So what if you fail? At least you'll know what not to do when you try again. ~ Venus Williams

I've worked with some very good directors and some very bad ones. I learned a great deal from both. From the bad, untalented people, you learn what not to do. And when you work with very highly talented people, you want to emulate them. ~ Tommy Lee Jones

I don't think that I could ever be a strict dad. I never grew up with anybody strict in my life ... I'm not saying I'm a role model by any means or anything. I think the fact that I wasn't told what not to do all the time - my spirit kind of told me things that I shouldn't - I got to develop on my own. It's part of your common sense. ~ Randy Houser

After a while, you just don't do things you don't wanna do - that's the great freedom you get, the older you get. You learn what to do and what not to do, and what will be a waste of time and what won't be a waste of time. ~ Nick Cave

Results are often negative. We learn what something is not - and that is as important as a positive discovery to the man who is going to pick up from there. At least he knows what not to do. ~ Daniel Keyes

There is plenty to be learned even from a bad teacher: what not to do, how not to be. ~ J.K. Rowling

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. ~ Michael E. Porter

The key to a productive and contented life is "planned neglect" - knowing what not to do and being content with saying no to truly good, sometimes fantastic, opportunities. This happens only when you realize how truly limited you are, that you must steward your little life, and that of all the best things to do on the planet, God wants you to do only a miniscule number. ~ Tim Challies

During her school days, especially her earlier school days, the world had been very explicit with her, telling her what to do, what not to do, giving her lessons to learn and games to play and interests of the most suitable and various kinds. Presently she woke up to the fact that there was a considerable group of interests called being in love and getting married, with certain attractive and amusing subsidiary developments, such as flirtation and "being interested" in people of the opposite sex. She approached this field with her usual liveliness of apprehension. But here she met with a check. These interests her world promptly, through the agency of schoolmistresses, older school-mates, her aunt, and a number of other responsible and authoritative people, assured her she must on no account think about. Miss ~ H.G.Wells

Punishment teaches what not to do, pain ofter teaches what to do. ~ Ben Tolosa

I never really think of something in terms of what not to do. It's always what's appealing or what's cool. ~ Neill Blomkamp

Men and women who come to the closing chapter of life disappointed because they did not attain the goal which they had set their hearts upon achieving, they teach you what not to do. ~ Napoleon Hill

Just by nature, I think in comedy. I think in sketches and what have you. In every drama or action movie I've been in, I have to make a concerted effort not to turn it into a comedy. Every shot, before action is called and after cut is called, I'm usually in some goofy head space. It feels natural to me. ~ Michael Jai White

Leave an imprint.
You're young now. But when you get older and look back at your life, you'll ask yourself a whole bunch of questions. Did I make a difference? Did I contribute something? Did my being here matter? Dud I do something that left an imprint?
I'm not asking you to end hunger or repair the ozone. But I am asking you to think about your purpose
to recognize that your life isn't infinite, and that you should use your limited time here to do something that matters. ~ Daniel H. Pink

I still have a fear of theater. I don't know if I will manage that. I used to do it. I developed a bit of a phobia. It's not a real phobia. I can go in and watch. ~ Laura Fraser

The best swordsman in the world doesn't need to fear the second best swordsman in the world; no, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before; he doesn't do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn't prepared for him; he does the thing he ought not to do; and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot. ~ Mark Twain

I did not attend any Academy so it is not my job to police you or try to catch you in any act. If I get to the point where I feel the need to do that, I'd rather just walk away cuz it means you've lost my trust and without that, we have nothing left. Our foundation is cracked and I'm not living in a shaky house. ~ Luvvie Ajayi Jones

If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage. ~ John Adams

Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Man is always seeking a power, a power to overcome something or destroy something; and therefore he is not living in the awareness of God, because in the realization of the presence of God there is no need to overcome, to destroy, or to do anything. ~ Joel S. Goldsmith

He is just your type," Uncle Meng said gently. "Please, do try not to fuck him."
"How come it's okay for James Bond? ~ Neal Stephenson

I would love to do both but I think I believe there's a thing as overexposure and I think people will get sick of me real quick. I kind of basically looked at it as my retirement plan now. That's definitely something I can do when I'm not wrestling anymore. And believe it or not - this sounds horrible - but it was really easy for me. I would really love to do both. I'd love to wrestle and do commentary, I think that would be awesome. ~ CM Punk

The Divine mind does not think for us, or inspite of us, but works in us to think, and to will, and to do. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

See what no one else sees. See what everyone chooses not to see - out of fear, conformity, or laziness. See the whole world anew each day. ~ Patch Adams

We often treat children as if they're not very competent to do anything on their own. So we make them stop learning in a natural way - by exploring. Logo [the computer programming language ] allows them to find their way around the computer, as they would find their way around the house, uncontaminated by the bureaucracies of schools. ~ Seymour Papert

A King may move a man, a father may claim a son, but remember that even when those who move you be Kings, or men of power, your soul is in your keeping alone. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus." Or that, "Virtue was not convenient at the time." This will not suffice. Remember that. ~ King Baldwin IV In Kingdom Of Heaven

Be nice to your parents. When they made the decision to have a child, whether it was planned or not, they were changing their entire lives to do the best they could for this new human being. A lot of young people, we don't understand that. ~ Jason Mraz

...the terrible though occurred to her that perhaps she'd always unconsciously believed that because Sam didn't cry, he therefore didn't feel, or he felt less, not as profoundly or deeply as she did. Her focus had always been on how his actions affected her feelings, as if his role was to do things for her, to her, and all that mattered was her emotional response to him, as if a "man" were a product or service, and she'd finally chosen the right brand to get the right response. Was it possible she'd never seen or truly loved him the way he deserved to be loved? As a person? An ordinary, flawed, feeling person? ~ Liane Moriarty

The abbess may well try and force me to return to the convent, silent and in disgrace, but I will not go back. Not like this. Indeed, I can see no way I can ever return to the convent, for the abbess will not let me return in victory, and I refuse to do so in defeat. ~ Robin LaFevers

Many people forget that magick is all about change, and the greatest change is the inner, not the outer, landscape. Outer magickal changes - such as immediately getting a new job, lover, or physical healing - seem more impressive at first, but the inner changes last longer. They are the most impressive. Anyone can learn to do some basic spells and have good results, but the practitioners who develop a solid spiritual and magickal practice become more centered, calm, healthy, and truly confident over time are the magicians who impress me. ~ Christopher Penczak

It costs a lot of money to go into cafes to breastfeed when out in public. Not everyone has the money to do that. Yet, at the same time, it is often people with the least money and accompanying health inequalities that are most likely to benefit from breastfeeding ~ Jill Johnston

Then he took my arm, in a much softer grip than the one he'd used on our first date when he'd kept me from biting the dust. "No, c'mon," he said, pulling me closer to him and securing his arms around my waist. I died a thousand deaths as he whispered softly, "What's wrong?"
What could I possibly say? Oh, nothing, it's just that I've been slowly breaking up with my boyfriend from California and I uninvited him to my brother's wedding last week and I thought everything was fine and then he called last night after I got home from cooking you that Linguine and Clam Sauce you loved so much and he said he was flying here today and I told him not to because there really wasn't anything else we could possibly talk about and I thought he understood and while I was driving out here just now he called me and it just so happens he's at the airport right now but I decided not to go because I didn't want to have a big emotional drama (you mean like the one you're playing out in Marlboro Man's kitchen right now?) and I'm finding myself vacillating between sadness over the end of our four-year relationship, regret over not going to see him in person, and confusion over how to feel about my upcoming move to Chicago. And where that will leave you and me, you big hunk of burning love.
"I ran over my dog today!" I blubbered and collapsed into another heap of impossible-to-corral tears. Marlboro Man was embracing me tightly now, knowing full well that his arms were the only offering he ~ Ree Drummond

Faith must be definite, specific; an unqualified, unmistakable request for the things asked for. It is not to be a vague, indefinite, shadowy thing; it must be something more than an abstract belief in God's willingness and ability to do for us. It is to be a definite, specific, asking for, and expecting the things for which we ask. ~ E.M. Bounds

It is truly excellent to have someone believe in you and your ability to write. But I think it is just as helpful to have people who don't believe in you, people who mock you, people who doubt you, people who enrage you. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of this type of person in the world ... write for yourself. Write for the story. And write, also, for all of the people who doubt you. Write for all those people who are not brave enough to do this grand and wondrous thing themselves. Let them motivate you. ~ Kate DiCamillo

Better not to do than to do, better to meditate than to act, better his astrophysics, the threshold of the Unkowable, than my chemistry, a mess compounded of stenches, explosions and small futile mysteries. I thought of another moral, more down to earth and concrete, and I believe that every militant chemist can confirm it: that one must distrust the almost-the-same (sodium is almost he same as potassium, but with sodium nothing would have happened_, the practically identica, the approximate, the or-even, all surrogates, and all patchwork. the difference can be small, but they can lead to radically different consequences, like a railroad's switch points; the chemist's trade consists in good part in being aware of these differences, knowing them close up, and foreseeing their effects. And not only the chemist's trade. ~ Primo Levi

The modern man says, "Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty." This is, logically rendered, "Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I can take my wife out for a lovely evening this Friday, which is a to do. But being a good husband is not an event; it needs to be part of my nature - my character, or who I am. ~ Lynn G. Robbins

Sure, they became frustrated with students at times and occasionally displayed impatience, but because they were willing to face the failures of teaching and believed in their capacity to solve problems, they tried not to become defensive with their students or build a wall around themselves. Instead, they tried to take their students seriously as human beings and treated them the way they might treat any colleague, with fairness, compassion, and concern. That approach found reflection in what they taught, how they taught it, and how they evaluated students, but it also appeared in attempts to understand their students' lives, cultures, and aspirations. It even emerged in their willingness to see their students outside of class. ~ Ken Bain

Animals are not here for us to do as we please with. We are not their superiors, we are their equals. We are their family. Be kind to them. ~ Ricky Gervais

It's hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There's a whole commotion going on inside us."
"That's bad?" I said.
"It's bad if we want to know what's going on outside ourselves."
"Don't we have eyes and ears for that?"
She nodded. "They're okay most of the time. But sometimes they just get in the way. The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are shaking. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then-maybe- the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper."
The sun was glowing orange now, clipping the mountains' purple crests.
"So how do I become this nothing?"
"I'm not sure,"she said "There's no one answer to that. You have to find your own way. Sometimes I try to erase myself. I imagine a big pink soft soap eraser, and it's going back and forth, back and forth, and it starts down at my toes, back and forth, back and forth, and there they go-poof!-my toes are gone. And then my feet. And then my ankles. But that's the easy part. The hard part is erasing my senses-my eyes,my ears,my nose, my tongue. And last to go is my brain. My thoughts, memories, all the voices inside my head. That's the hardest, erasing my thoughts." She chuckled faintly. "My pumpkin. And then, if I've done a good job, I'm erased. I'm gone. I'm nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into and emp ~ Jerry Spinelli

Someone's moved these crates away from the wall. Go up to the house, will you, and see if you can find a flashlight? I want a better look."
"Here." She pulled out the small flashlight she'd stuck in her pocket. "Do you have any idea how annoying that is?"
"I'll try not to do it again. ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

THE HOUSE OF PAIN

Unto the Prison House of Pain none willingly

repair, -
The bravest who an entrance gain
Reluctant linger there,
For Pleasure, passing by that door, stays not to

cheer the sight.
And Sympathy but muffles sound and banishes the

light.

Yet in the Prison House of Pain things full of

beauty blow, -
Like Christmas-roses, which attain
Perfection 'mid the snow, -
Love, entering, in his mild warmth the darkest

shadows melt,
And often, where the hush is deep, the waft of

wings is felt.

Ah, me ! the Prison House of Pain ! - what lessons
there are bought ! -
Lessons of a sublimer strain
Than any elsewhere taught, -
Amid its loneliness and gloom, grave meanings

grow more clear,
For to no earthly dwelling-place seems God so
strangely near ! ~ Florence Earle Coates

You think the world is one way, then you find out it's much bigger and stranger than you ever imagined. If you can't expand your thinking, you're not going to do well in the afterlife. ~ Rick Riordan

But it was this tough little character part that I was playing, a very funny little guy that I invented over a weekend, because I realized I was not contributing to the humor of this thing. And I had to do something. ~ Dabney Coleman