What We Want Quotes

demanding what we want ignores the other person's sense of control and they will want to resist us. ~ Bob Bray

If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I've learned that asking ourselves not just what we want to be, but who we want to be is important at every stage of our lives, not just when we're starting out in the world. That's because in a way, we're starting out fresh in the world every single day. ~ Maria Shriver

Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely this glow that we can offer as our specific contribution to international politics. ~ Vaclav Havel

What we want to see is the development of human rights and greater democracy, not just because it is our system but because we think that's the best way that economic and political development go hand in hand. ~ Tony Blair

You don't have to shine to prove that you are a star, but you need to reason to show that you have the ability. We can think that we have all the answers in the world even though we don't have it, how we can feel jealous of something or someone that was never ours, but we must have a single certainty: that we must take a risk for what we want to achieve and we must never fail to show our opinion . ~ Abraham Schneersohn

Making a beautiful, happy home is not about what we don't have or what we want to buy. It's all about what we do have, and how incredibly precious it all is. It's about how we spend the days we're given with this family of ours, and making the home we share a place our kids will love to describe to our grandchildren. It's about making our kids' memories delightful. ~ Gabrielle Stanley Blair

Most of us don't mind doing what we ought to do when it doesn't interfere with what we want to do, but it takes discipline and maturity to do what we ought to do whether we want to or not. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

[We need to push] for what we want, not just what we can get. ~ Eleanor Smeal

I would like to tell her all about Josef, but she already dismissed me once when I tried to confide in her. It is like he said: we believe what we want to, what we need to. The corollary is that we choose not to see what we'd rather pretend doesn't exist. Mary can't accept the thought that Josef Weber might be a monster, because that implies that she was duped by him. ~ Jodi Picoult

The mind is a curious thing, Abby. We see what we want to see, we hear what we're hoping to hear. The one thing we all do well is fool ourselves. ~ Shelley Peterson

Perhaps we should all settle down and think about what's good in the world and what we want to do here. If we find this planet and its history and its story to be sacred, let's preserve and nourish it, and then we can go home at night and say whatever prayers we choose. ~ Ursula Goodenough

When we aren't honest with ourselves about who we are and what we want, we allow other people and circumstance to determine our life course. ~ Cortney S. Warren

That's what we want, he thinks: help in prosperity. . . We never know how to take it when our life begins to be charmed. ~ Hilary Mantel

We want what we want ~ Jess Walter

And you are a useless princess who knows absolutely nothing of the real world. You would be the very last person I'd choose to chain myself to. But apparently both our kingdoms - no. The whole realm needs this alliance, so what we want doesn't matter. I will do what I have to do, regardless of my personal feelings, and you will do the same. So sit down, grow up, and start acting like the kind of princess your people deserve." He snapped off the last syllable and abruptly let go at the same time so that I stumbled backward. ~ Betsy Schow

Sometimes what we want isn't what's best for us - Della ~ Abbi Glines

that He is committed to meeting our needs, but not our wants. That concept comes in reaction to those who have taken the wonderful Gospel and made it a self-centered lifestyle, in which we use the name of God, along with His principles, to get what we want. While that is a tragic misuse of Scripture, so is the concept that God cares only for our needs. He is not the director of an orphanage, guaranteeing us three meals a day and a cot to sleep on at night. He is a Father who delights in His children by becoming involved in their dreams. He fulfills dreams and desires out of His nature. It is who He is. ~ Bill Johnson

I think the iPod is the true face of Republican politics, and I'm in favor of the music industry ... standing up proud and saying it out loud: We in the Chiclet-manufacturing business are not about social justice, ... we're not about a coherent set of national ideals, we're not about wisdom. We're about choosing what WE want to listen to and ignoring everything else ... . We're about giving ourselves a mindless feel-good treat every five minutes. ... We're about persuading ten-year-old children to spend twenty-five dollars on a cool little silicone iPod case that costs a licensed Apple Computer subsidiary thirty-nine cents to manufacture. ~ Jonathan Franzen

In order to protect our emotional wounds, and because of our fear of being hurt, humans create something very sophisticated in the mind: a big denial system. In that denial system we become the perfect liars. We lie so perfectly that we lie to ourselves and we even believe our own lies. We don't notice we are lying, and sometimes even when we know we are lying, we justify the lie and excuse the lie to protect ourselves from the pain of our wounds. The denial system is like a wall of fog in front of our eyes that blinds us from seeing the truth. We wear a social mask because it's too painful to see ourselves or to let others see us as we really are. And the denial system lets us pretend that everyone believes what we want them to believe about us. We put up these barriers for protection, to keep other people away, ~ Miguel Ruiz

Words never mean what we want them to mean. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

Whatever condition we are in, we must always do what we want to do, and if we want to go on a journey, then we must do so and not worry about our condition, even if it's the worst possible condition, because, if it is, we're finished anyway, whether we go on the journey or not, and it's better to die having made the journey we're been longing for than to be stifled by our longing. ~ Thomas Bernhard

Struggle is not an act; it is an attitude. If we believe that we must fight to get what we want, we will toil over everything we do. If we recognize, however, that the universe works more efficiently for us when we approach it with ease, life will serve us in miraculous ways. ~ Alan Cohen

...as long as we have the choice to read what we want, I suspect Twain and Homer and the rest will always be with us. The stoutest old writers ebb and flow in popularity; tastes and political correctness and educational trends also ebb and flow, and we have a tendency to embrace the short view because it makes better news stories. So the joy of literature may not be at a high water mark right now, and yet you can walk into the Target store of your choice and pick up Catcher in the Rye. Beauty floats, I guess, along with sorrow and hope. (http://www.wab.org/events/allofroches...) ~ Leif Enger

Why is it that we spend so much of our time preparing for when we can do what we want, instead of just doing what we want right now? ~ John P. Strelecky

Patience is a virtue Savannah, to tolerate delay. It implies self control and forbearance, as opposed to wanting what we want when we want it. Something to think about ... ~ Catherine Weaver

But, sometimes in life, things don't end how we want them to. Sometimes, what we want to happen and what has to happen are two very different things. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

Girls are the only ones who can really give each other close attention, the kind we equate with being loved. They noticed what we want noticed. ~ Emma Cline

Apparently, before we are born, each of us experiences a vision of what our life can be, complete with reflections on our parents and our tendencies to engage in particular control dramas, even how we might work through these dramas with these parents and go on to be prepared for what we want to accomplish. ~ James Redfield

Life includes unforeseen incidents that prove critical to promote personal growth. Life rarely gives us what we want. We are lucky if life gives us what we need in order to fulfill the path that was in place at our birthing. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

We're all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don't spend any time, or think they don't, on preparing themselves for the world out there - I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world. ~ Cindy Sherman

While we don't always get what we want, we always get what we choose. ~ John C. Maxwell

We believe what we want to believe, and once we believe something, it becomes a self-fulfilling truth. ~ Seth

I don't want anyone to think being able to buy what we want makes us happy ... being able to do what we want makes us happy. ~ Jim Taylor

Life is our battlefield. We must do what we know to do, not what we want to do. ~ Brent Weeks

Feminism will be just as oppressive to women as the media if it compels us to change who we are. The ends will not justify the means. It is like a corset that, although originally intended to make us feel good, about ourselves, has been pulled so tight that we are not left with enough room to breathe. Feminism often seems to be looking down its nose at us these days, as it militantly tells us how to behave- focusing on appearances according to a male dominated society. Have they forgotten that it is the societal viewpoint which needs to be changed? Somewhere along the line this movement got off track.


After all, we are constantly being told how to look, how to age, how to eat, how to act. Can't we at least think what we want? ~ Nancy Madore

Our rulers rule by consent, which means that we like having them as rulers, if they do what we want them to do. ~ Terry Pratchett

We do what we have to so we can do what we want to. ~ Denzel Washington

I believe this is a mistake a great many of us are making; we are trying to do God's work with the grace God gave us ten years ago. We say, if it is necessary, we will go on with the same grace. Now, what we want is a fresh supply, a fresh anointing and fresh power, and if we seek it, and seek it with all our hearts, we will obtain it. ~ Dwight L. Moody

The fans like the idea we do what we want. It's not an act. Screw the record company and the beaten path. Without MTV or radio, we still have a huge underground following. ~ James Hetfield

They said you had to take what the defense gave you. No, we are going to take what we want. ~ Al Davis

What we want is never simple. ~ Linda Pastan

Ideals are great as long as they don't get in the way of what we want to do. ~ Lawrence Fagg

When we meet an Imago match, that chemical reaction occurs, and love ignites. All other bets, all other ideas about what we want in a mate, are off. We feel alive and whole, confident that we have met the person who will make everything all right. ~ Harville Hendrix

If we are going to love, we will be able to love someone else even if we never get what we want. ~ Michael DiMarco

There is a difference between a military mission and the aspiration for the long-term plans for the country. What we want is a stable enough Afghanistan, able to look after its own security so we can leave without the fear of it imploding ... But let's be clear - it's not going to be perfect. ~ Liam Fox

What we want most is only to be held ... and told ... that everything (everything is a funny thing, is baby milk and Papa's eyes, is roaring logs on a cold morning, is hoot-owls and the boy who makes you cry after school, is Mama's long hair, is being afraid, and twisted faces on the bedroom wall) ... everything is going to be all right. ~ Truman Capote

We are impatient for the future and try to craft it with our own powers, but the future will come as it comes and will not be hurried. If we are good at waiting, we discover that what we wanted of the future, in our impatience, is no longer what we want, that waiting has brought wisdom. ~ Dean Koontz

Lifelong boundaries in the area of food make our lives better because they keep us safe. Yes, they cramp our style, but you know what? Our style needs to be cramped because there are consequences to eating what we want when we want. ~ Barb Raveling

Safe gender is being who and what we want to be when we
want to be that, with no threat of censure or violence.
Safe gender is going as far in any direction as we wish,
With no threat to our health, or anyone else's.
Safe gender is not being pressured into passing, not
Having to lie, not having to hide.
Sane gender is asking questions about gender - talking
To people who do gender, and opening up about our
Gender histories and our gender desires.
Sane gender is probably very, very funny.
Consensual gender is respecting each others' definition
Of gender, and respecting the wishes of some to be alone,
And respecting the intentions of others to be inclusive in
Their own time.
Consensual gender is non-violent in that it doesn't force
Its way in on anyone.
Consensual gender opens its arms and welcomes all
People as gender outcasts - whoever is willing to admit it. ~ Kate Bornstein

Our plump predicament comes from the way we think. In America life has
become a daily quest for instant gratification. Do we think about the long term? Rarely. We ask ourselves, "What sounds good?" That's where we get into trouble focusing on what we want rather than what we need. Then we invent new ways to satisfy ourselves. ~ Aaron Blaylock

Posted 7/17/18

The Breath – Let the Breath be the Boss

When we begin sitting, it's good to begin with several big breaths, filling up the abdominal area,, the middle chest, and the upper chest until we're full of air, and then just letting it out and holding the exhalation for a moment. Do this three or four times. In a sense, it's artificial, but it helps to create a certain balance and forms a good basis for sitting.

Once we've done this, the next step is to forget it: forget controlling our breath. We won't entirely forget, of course, but it's useless to control the breath. Instead, just experience it, which is very different. We're not trying to make the breath long, slow, and even, as many books suggest. Instead, what we want is to let the breath be the boss, so that the breath is breathing us.

If the breath is shallow, let it be that. As we become our breathing, the breath of its own accord starts to slow down. The breath stays shallow because we want to think rather than experience our lives. When we do this everything becomes more shallow and controlled.

Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special, pg. 249 ~ Charlotte Joko Beck

We have to keep trusting God. We can't just trust God when he's doing what we want. We have to trust him even when things are not as we would like them. ~ Akhil Sharma

The purpose of foreign policy is to persuade others to do what we want or, better yet, to want what we want. ~ Madeleine Albright

Contentment comes from wanting what we need, not needing what we want. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

All the Tauruses I know have this connection to the earth and the environment. We are very curious people, very loyal, very aware of and respectful of our surroundings. Also, we're stubborn, but that's our way. We understand what we want, which is not bad. ~ Francisco Costa

His will isn't always obvious, it doesn't always make sense, and it isn't always what we want. But that doesn't mean it's not good. ~ S.N. Clemens

We ought not to have or let ourselves be satisfied with any thought of God. When the thought goes, our God goes with it. No, what we want is a real (subsistent) God who far transcends the thoughts of men and creatures. This God does not disappear unless we turn our back on him of our own accord. He who has God thus, in reality, has gotten God divinely; to him God is apparent in all things. Everything smacks to him of God; everywhere God's image stares him in the face. God is gleaming in him all the time. In him there is riddance and return; the vision of his God is ever present to his mind. ~ Meister Eckhart

We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are. ~ Max DePree

It's amazing how we can make ourselves believe what we want to. ~ Terry McMillan

One of the things I admire so much about Atom Egoyan is that again and again he makes movies about the human condition, who we are, what we want, how we communicate to one another and this is also an exploration of a long-term relationship and what happens in it. There's human sexuality and all those kinds of things, so that helps - it all helps. You realise that I'm not a Playboy bunny. ~ Julianne Moore

Yes, I suppose God is the only one we can really trust. He's all-good and all-powerful. Some people want to do right, and they try to, but none of us are all-powerful. No matter what we want, we can't always make it happen. ~ Stefani Carmichael

It's a funny thing, how much time we spend planning our lives. We so convince ourselves of what we want to do, that sometimes we don't see what we're meant to do. ~ Susan Gregg Gilmore

The overriding thing has to be a love for people. If you don't love people, you don't care if we live in a morally degrading society. Christ is about love, and that's what we want to be about as well. ~ Lance Berkman

We depend on one another in very deep and complex ways, yet most boundary discussions are focused on how to cut off or distance ourselves from unwanted behaviors or people. ... Boundary work is just as much about negotiating and asking for what we want and need as what we don't want and don't need. To this end, if we are working towards not just our own individual safety but towards changing the conditions in which people are not safe or are harmed, boundaries are about imagining radical possibilities as much as responding to events in the present. ~ Cristien Storm

I'm utterly convinced of the One-ness of Love and us as its perfect reflection. I am absolutely convinced that the world around us is a world of appearances and anyone who wants to can practice it. Change your thought and your environment will change. It's not instantaneous and sometimes we have to work very hard to make what we want happen. Working hard and holding that thought, it will change. ~ Richard Bach

The success of the Hollywood marketing machine is to limit what we see. Not just to limit what we can see, but also to limit our expectations - to limit what we want to see. ~ Terry Gilliam

We need a stable government, fast!" I kept saying. "Elections are great in principle but this is no time for high ideals."


The president was cool, a lot cooler than me. Maybe it was all that military training…he said to me, "This is the only time for high ideals because those ideals are all that we have. We aren't just fighting for our physical survival, but for the survival of our civilization. We don't have the luxury of old-world pillars. We don't have a common heritage, we don't have a millennia of history. All we have are the dreams and promises that bind us together. All we have…[struggling to remember]…all we have is what we want to be." You see what he was saying. Our country only exists because people believed in it, and if it wasn't strong enough to protect us from this crisis, then what future could it ever hope to have? He knew that America wanted a Caesar, but to be one would mean the end of America. They say great times make great men. I don't buy it. I saw a lot of weakness, a lot of filth. People who should have risen to the challenge and either couldn't or wouldn't. Greed, fear, stupidity, and hate. I saw it before the war, I see it today. My boss was a great man. We were damn lucky to have him. ~ Max Brooks

Watching a tree grow will likely drive you crazy. It's a boring process if you stand there, impatiently tapping your foot, waiting for it to do something. But if you step away and come back later, you'll be surprised to see something beautiful emerge. The fact is the plant is doing something: it's growing. Just not as quickly as you might like. Our culture has conditioned us to expect instant results and overnight success; this impatience runs so rampant that we dress it up in terms like "efficiency" and "productivity." But really what's happening is we are conditioning ourselves to get what we want now, all the time. This mindset robs us of the lessons that waiting can teach us, causing us to miss out on the slow but important stuff of life. ~ Jeff Goins

We are free within the confines of the cross to love God and ask what we want.12 ~ Matthew Lee Anderson

Freedom is not doing what we want, but what we should. ~ Victor Manuel Rivera

Cutting edge, breakthrough, television. That's what we want to do. ~ Anthony Michael Hall

Sometimes what we want to do and what we must do are not the same. Pasquo, the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be. ~ Jess Walter

I think we've put ourselves in a position that if we can go into the Big East and compete at the level that we aspire to compete at, we'll get out of this what we want. ~ Andy Kennedy

As children, we learn that if we cry, we'll receive affection , that if we show we're sad we'll be consoled. If we can't get what we want with a smile, then surely we can do so with our tears . ~ Paulo Coelho

We always try to interpret things in accordance with what we want and not as they are. ~ Paulo Coelho

We do not find happiness by being assertive. We don't find happiness by running over people because we see what we want and they are in the way of that happiness so we either abandon them or we smash them. The Scriptures don't teach us to be assertive. The Scriptures teach us - and this is remarkable - the Scriptures teach us to be submissive. This is not a popular idea. ~ Rich Mullins

We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I thought of my dad telling me that the universe wants to be noticed but what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us- not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us as individuals. ~ John Green

Let eloquence be flung to the dogs rather than souls be lost. What we want is to win souls. They are not won by flowery speeches. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

We could all be lucky. We could all be what we want to be, instead of who someone else told us to be. ~ Jodi Picoult

We can always find noble reasons for what we want to do. ~ Mary Heaton Vorse

Believe that sometimes choices in life aren't always what we WANT. But sometimes, they're what we NEED ~ Kathryn Le Veque

We've been able to have our cake and eat it, too. Every song, every T-shirt, is absolutely a pure expression of what we want to do. And it connects. ~ Tom Morello

We have to set our own agenda, we have to set our own standards, we have to be very strong about what we want, we have to be very strong about our passion and if it's not right for you, you shouldn't do it just because you're advised by so-called geniuses. ~ Jackie DeShannon

Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs: Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. ~ Vikram Chandra

In theater, you really work out the kinks and figure out exactly what you want to do and what we want to say, so by the time we have an audience, we're really prepared. With TV, you have a day ... Sometimes, just a few hours. ~ Amber Stevens

We generally have what we need. The general misperception is that we need what we want. ~ Ridley Pearson

In order to feel loved, be respected and stay connected, we humans have a tendency to lie. We lie about who we are, what we want, what we need, what we have done or will do. Perhaps 'lie' is too strong a word. Let me say that what we do is withhold the truth. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

What we want, of course, what lies in the cupboard marked 'important,' is connection, love: If the deepest source of human hunger had a name, that would be it; if the boxes of constraint in which so many women live could be smashed to bits, that would be the tool, the sledgehammer that shatters emptiness and uncovers the hope buried beneath it. ~ Caroline Knapp

We all know in our mind what we want, but nobody know exactly what we Get. ~ Jan Jansen

The mind was designed not to defend what we want, but to discover what is ultimately true, which should shape our wants and satisfy them more deeply with God. The purpose of the mind is not to rationalize subjective preferences, but to recognize objective reality and to help the heart revel in God. ~ John Piper

we act on what we believe in. we're the ones who decide on who and what we want to be. we are the one making the choices ~ Hlovate

A proper drink at the right time - one mixed with care and skill and served in a true spirit of hospitality - is better than any other made thing at giving us the illusion, at least, that we're getting what we want from life. A cat can gaze upon a king, as the proverb goes, and after a Dry Martini or a Sazerac Cocktail or two, we're all cats. ~ David Wondrich

Since ancient times, people have bowed down to idols in the appearance of humility and contrition. But their goal wasn't to be mastered by the idol. People worship to get things. We choose idols in part because we believe that they will give us what we want. The god of drugs brings fearlessness; the god of sex promises pleasure and intimacy; the god of wealth holds out power and influence. We can feel miserable about ourselves because we want to be great, at least at something, and we are not feeling very great. Like the prophets of Baal, we are arrogant enough to believe that we can manipulate the idol - whether by cutting or some other form of works righteousness - so it will relent and give us what we want. ~ Edward T. Welch

This ought to be a season for cooperation in terms of pushing our economy forward, job creation, steadying the middle class, and laying the groundwork for a better future. And that's what we want to work on with Republicans and Democrats. ~ David Axelrod

We only see what we want to see. ~ Anthony Horowitz

What we want, we have for our pains
The promise that if we but wait
Till the want has burned out of our brains,
Every means shall be present to state;
While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,
While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,
When we've matched our buttons the pattern is sold,
And everything comes too late-too late. ~ Fitz Hugh Ludlow

The phrase "having it all" has little to do with having what we want. ~ Jennifer Senior

Designers can show us a better future, can present us with all kinds of new possibilities so that we can decide: Is this what we want? Before any of that can happen, though, the designer must first commit - by taking what is just a faint glimmer in the mind's eye and giving it shape and life. ~ Warren Berger