A Quote by Mata Hari

I have encountered in this world riff-raff and good people. I lose. I win. I defend myself when I am attacked. I take when someone has taken from me. But I beg you to believe me; I have never done an act of espionage against France. Never. Never.
I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite sure that if God had not chosen me I should never have chosen him; and I am sure he chose me before I was born, or else he never would have chosen me afterwards; and he must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why he should have looked upon me with special love.
I remember someone said to me, "Never stand up when you can sit down, never sit down when you can lie down, never lie down when you can be asleep." Those are bits of advice that I haven't taken, really. I've done the opposite of them, but they have stayed with me.
Everybody said you're never going to win this whole Classic. You're not strong enough. You're big, you're athletic, you're fast - but you will never win this Arnold Classic. Those were the people who didn't believe in me... I put in the work every single day - and here I am, three times champ!
I'd never be where I am if more successful writers hadn't taken an interest in me and done me a good turn - be it chiming in with constructive criticism or giving me sound advice about my career plan.
I've learned to be more reserved, watch what I'm saying; I got in a little bit of trouble. People tell me 'Never lose that, never lose that,' but then I get in trouble so I have to lose it. I'm trying to keep a little bit; I'm never going to lose who I am, I just gotta tone it down a little bit.
If you never play you will never lose, but you won't win either. If you never climb a mountain you will never know for sure how good the view is.
I love a drink. But I've never, ever in my life been on a stage and done a performance with an alcoholic drink inside me. Never have, never would. I've seen people who do and invariably they're never as good as they think they are.
One thing with Garry, and I think it is due in a large part to his Soviet training, he'll never quite understand that you have to be able to criticize constructively. When you have someone who is always on your case and it's never good enough no matter how you win a game, it just brings you down, you lose confidence. And as a chess player you have to be confident, you have to believe in yourself.
For years and years, I convinced myself that I was unbreakable, an animal with an animal strength or something not human at all. Me, I told people, I take damage like a wall, a brick wall that never falls down, never feels anything, never flinches or remembers. I am one woman but I carry in my body all the stories I have ever been told, women I have known, women who have taken damage until they tell themselves they can feel no pain at all.
I am against performance-enhancing drugs. I have never taken them and I never will take them.
I have crossed over to a place where I never thought I’d be. I am someone I would have never imagined. A secret. A dream. I am this, body and soul. Burn me. Drown me. Tell me lies. I will still be who I am.
I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me.
Let me tell you what I literally told every world leader I've met with, and I've met them all: It's never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. We have the finest fighting force in the world.
White people scare the crap out of me. I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord, never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, never had a black person bury my movie, and I've never heard a black person say, 'We're going to eliminate ten thousand jobs here - have a nice day!'
It's probably simply a matter of temperament that I never stopped to wonder if I could "match" what I had done, never choked off my writing by competing with myself, or with anybody else for that matter. My ambition was absolutely centered on the work itself, never on what it would bring me, or "who" it would make me. I never cared about that at all.
I never envisioned myself playing for the U.S. Olympic team -- growing up, I never envisioned playing in the NBA, to be real with you. I never envisioned that type of stuff. So this is like a dream that I never had come true. It's like I'm a part of what's really going on. It's still very hard for me to believe that I am really going to be a part of the biggest thing in the whole entire world.
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