Top 290 Firsthand Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

Adventure is a path. Real adventure - self-determined, self-motivated, often risky - forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind - and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.

We in politics are accustomed to seeing reality firsthand and then watching its distant cousin, events as portrayed by the media, unfold on our televisions. We know that what happened in Congress and what is reported to have taken place are two very different things. But that disjuncture, so familiar to politicians, is new to the viewing public. By seeing war and war coverage juxtaposed nightly on their screens, Americans have learned the crucial lesson: not to trust the news anchors.

In researching this volume, I interviewed veterans who had been at the front during World War II. I read countless books, examined film footage, and listened to many detailed and intense stories firsthand, but the one comment that affected me the most came from a former soldier who lowered his gaze to the tabletop and said, ‘I never watch war movies.

I certainly firsthand know and love people who didn't fall in love with a woman or didn't even realize they were attracted to women until much later in life, and I'm sure that's true for many men who find themselves attracted to men as well. It doesn't always happen in adolescence. And that experience is completely valid and OK.

My grandmother was a single mother. My mother's a single mother, and I have four daughters. I've experienced firsthand the challenges of what it is to be a single mother. And many of those challenges are challenges that, if we all just got together and worked together and thought about it together, we could help solve.

For the dharma to become firsthand knowledge-to feel the ‘ouch’ of it-you have to live intimately with it, hold it up to scrutiny, and let it hold you up to scrutiny. In the end, the ball is always thrown back to you: ‘Be a lamp unto yourself,’ says the Buddha. In other words, you must ultimately find the way on your own, by putting your ideas of the truth to the test. Your questions light the way.

I had a very blessed journey with the upbringing I had. When you're working on sets as a stuntman, you have a firsthand account of the dynamics between actors and directors, because you're working hand in hand with them. You're not sitting outside the process watching. You become part of the process. You also see your tradecraft and see how movies are made.

As a kid who failed out of high school as a freshman, I know firsthand and personally that sense of hopelessness and just being - drifting in the wrong direction, having really no hope. And being able to harness that frustration was incredibly valuable in my life. That's one of the reasons I focus so consistently on the foundation of education, because it helps to eviscerate those things that - unemployment, high jobless rates, poverty.

I went to Catholic school my entire life. Elementary school was probably my worst time - those are the years when you're figurin' out who you are, and then you've got the added pressure of being on the light-skinned side of things. I've been around - excuse me saying - predominantly white people in Catholic school, who sit around and just talk about black people because they thought they were in the presence of themselves, and they used to talk cool. I felt firsthand the racial prejudice that is still alive today.

The gulf coast region has been hit hard by two major hurricanes and is going to need federal assistance at several levels, The best way to make sure that the resources are targeted properly is for us to see this area firsthand. I am pleased that members from both sides of the aisle share my commitment to making sure that the relief effort is targeted and managed as efficiently as possible.

I have worked in the homes of many successful people and have seen firsthand that everyone fails in life, but failure can be a gift if you don't give up and are willing to learn, improve, and grow because of it. You see, failure often serves as a defining moment, a crossroads on the journey of your life. It gives you a test designed to measure your courage, perseverance, commitment, and a dedication. Are you a pretender who gives up after a little adversity or a contender who keeps getting up after getting knocked down?

One of my first priorities as a new member of Congress in 2019 was to visit the CDC and learn firsthand about what they needed to help protect Americans. After my visit, I learned their budget had previously been cut, and that they needed funding to modernize their data systems to help prevent pandemics and other public health crises.

You know, I spent parts of six seasons in the minor leagues and I dealt with some injuries there, I saw a lot of things. I had the safety net of being a first-round pick, so I didn't maybe necessarily experience some of that hardship firsthand, but I watched it break a lot of guys. The strain that it puts on you and your family, it's really tough.

I worked for 20 directors as a production designer, most male. I was on the set to witness firsthand a range of sometimes atrocious emotions - well-documented firings, yellings, fights between directors and actors, hookers, abusive things, budget overages, lack of preparation. A man gets a standing ovation for crying because he's so sensitive, but a woman is shamed.

During my eleven years as a New York City public school teacher, I saw firsthand the impact that poverty has on the classroom. In low-income neighborhoods like Sunset Park, where I taught, students as young as five years old enter school affected by the stresses often created by poverty: domestic violence, drug abuse, gang activity.

I don't think I would ever write a book with what anybody could call pornography in it, because I feel that pornography is a cheat. It is an attempt to provide sexual experience by secondhand means. Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars. It's not the same thing. Sex is primarily a question of relationships. Pornography is a do-it-yourself kit--a twenty-second best.

I know firsthand how much work has usually gone into a screenplay, so if there's something that rings false or a line that I would think would need a tweak or something, I will think long and hard before I even recommend changing it. In that sense, I'm very faithful to the scripts that I get - if they're good scripts.

Even though Lyndon Johnson's presidency was in many ways scarred forever by the war in Vietnam, and destroyed in a lot of ways, he - as a character - was even larger than his presidency. Being able to get to know him well, that firsthand relationship with this large character, I think is what drew me to writing books about presidents.

Coming from a single parent household, I witnessed firsthand the strength and courage of the single mother. I always had my father in my life but my household was run by my mother and my grandmother. As a result, I have always had the utmost respect for women and have chosen to strongly convey that in my music.

Donald Trump is a man who just absorbs information and people and experiences. And I've witnessed him firsthand with his five children, his 10 year old son, his wife Melania, who's just an incredible first lady for all of us, amazing. God bless her, we're all very luck to have her leadership, as well. And I've witnessed him with his four adult children and his eight grandchildren. He's a family man.

An artists job is to see. And to go out in the world and see it firsthand, just as it is; to report with line and words what is seen. To be in the world, not just study about the world, that is the artists task

I think this is exactly where the action is, is in the middle. I have seen it when I was governor of the state of California. I have seen it firsthand, that the only way we brought Democrats and Republicans together, we could really solve very important issues. I remember that's how we really started rebuilding California and invested $60 billion in infrastructure.

if i have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over - only living with the mistakes you've made. but then, caleb taught me long ago you can't build anything without some sort of foundation. maybe we learn to live our lives by understanding, firsthand, how not to live them.

Living in the present is the way to go. I know firsthand about getting caught up in the hurts of the past and the anxieties of the future and thinking that we are somehow making ourselves feel better by doing so. We become lost in being everywhere but here and now, and the ironic part is that the present is the only place that will make us feel better.

At Planned Parenthood, we see the impact of abortion stigma firsthand, in the women who delay getting reproductive health care because they fear they’ll be labeled and judged. We see the effect of stigma on doctors, health center staffers, and others who help provide abortion services. And we see the impact in laws that regulate and restrict abortion in ways that would never happen with any other medical procedure.

[I]n contrast to the common belief that they are the world's greatest cynics, the best journalists are the world's great idealists. They have experienced firsthand the great soothing balance of human existence. For every disgrace there is triumph, for every wrong there is a moment of justice, for every funeral a wedding, for every obituary a birth announcement.

Gore Vidal, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, talk about how the U.S. became a national security state after World War II. Essentially there's this bipartisan foreign policy elite who've been calling the shots for the last few decades and they're clearly still in control regardless of how clownish or absurd they demonstrate themselves to be. There's no shaking their orthodoxy. To me it was the most depressing thing, these full-scale military interventions firsthand for a number of years, seeing how quickly we can get involved in another war with very little debate.

We are all animals of this planet. We are all creatures. And nonhuman animals experience pain sensations just like we do. They too are strong, intelligent, industrious, mobile, and evolutional. They too are capable of growth and adaptation. Like us, firsthand foremost, they are earthlings. And like us, they are surviving. Like us they also seek their own comfort rather than discomfort. And like us they express degrees of emotion. In short like us, they are alive.

The most rewarding possible thing that a songwriter or an artist of any kind can experience is to hear firsthand from the mouth of somebody else that they don't know the weight or gravity or intensity that something they've made has brought out in somebody else's life. It's simultaneously flattering and humbling. It makes me so thankful that I've been so lucky to be able to do this work.

I know firsthand that many employers who comply with other labor standards still hire the undocumented. Many businesses pay the minimum wage and have barely tolerable working conditions because there are sufficient undocumented workers willing to accept those terms. If we care about low-income workers in this country, we need to create pressure to improve their economic condition by reducing the supply of unauthorized workers.

I know firsthand how alone you can feel when you’re being broken down in a relationship and forced to defend it or stay silent. Just being able to send a text message is anonymous and safe. Mary Kay and I believe that everyone deserves a safe, healthy relationship that makes you stronger and better and I want to make sure people know how to get the help they need.

Historically, girls have not been encouraged to be scientists, to be explorers, and there's a social kind of constraint, of course. Having the responsibility, a disproportionate part of the responsibility, for caring for families, caring for children. I know this challenge from firsthand experience because I have three children and four grandsons.And some of the time I have spent as a scientist and as an explorer has meant choosing to not be with my children and grandchildren as much as I might otherwise have done had I not been a scientist, an explorer.

I know firsthand that immigrants make enormous contributions to our nation, but I also know that we need to secure our borders and make sure that those who came here illegally wait their turn, pay a fine and any unpaid taxes, and pass a criminal background check before becoming citizens.

Poverty became something one could see and experience firsthand, no matter where one was on the economic ladder; it became something you could viscerally experience through the lives of friends, family, neighbors, colleagues. I'd venture to say it's a rare person in 2013 America who knows nobody who lost a job in the recession, or knows nobody whose home went underwater or who went into foreclosure.

I know that women in the music industry get treated a lot differently than men. I've seen it firsthand with somebody in particular, where it's almost that men like to treat women in the music industry like they can't make their own decisions.

With the Holocaust - I wonder if a lot of Jewish writers of my generation have felt this way - it feels really intimidating to approach it. I feel like so many writers who have either lived through it firsthand or were part of that generation where they were closer to the people who were in it have written so beautifully about it, so there's no lack of great books about it

I'm mostly inspired by relationships and things that are going on in my everyday life. It's hard for me to write songs about things I don't experience firsthand, but most of the time it's about relationships - things that are going on in my head.

No, thanks.” Rhage laughed. “I’m a good little sewer, as you know firsthand. Now who’s your friend?” “Beth Randall, this is Rhage. An associate of mine. Rhage, this is Beth, and she doesn’t do movie stars, got it?” “Loud and clear.” Rhage leaned to one side, trying to see around Wrath. “Nice to meet you, Beth.” “Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?” she said weakly. “Nah. This one’s just messy. When you can use your large intestine as a belt loop, that’s when you hit the pros.

To an ever greater extent out experience is governed by pictures, pictures in newspapers and magazines, on television and in the cinema. Next to these pictures firsthand experience begins to retreat, to seem more and more trivial. While it once seemed that pictures had the function of interpreting reality, it now seems they have usurped it. It therefore becomes imperative to understand the picture itself, not in order to uncover a lost reality, but to determine how a picture becomes a signifying structure of its own accord.

I have witnessed firsthand the anguish of this humanitarian tragedy - in Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and other conflict and post-conflict zones. The destruction of lives and hopes, the emotional trauma, and the economic, social, and political marginalization of the displaced, the human insecurity, with real and potentially devastating consequences over generations, in ever-widening arenas of conflict. We can and must ensure the human rights of the displaced. That begins by making their voices heard.

One of the great things about design is that it's truly international. No one in the design industry would say, "This country is mine," or "I will make it look this way because it's for an American market and that way for a Chinese market." If you look at all of the Apple products, they are the same everywhere . . . I mean, I can't deny that I love traveling. It's a very healthy thing to be able to appreciate other cultures - or at least witness them firsthand. And all of that goes into helping someone be a good designer, because it's an international business.

After 'Jessica Jones' came out, I started hearing firsthand from a lot of women who were so inspired by the character, who felt represented, who felt like watching Jessica on screen helped them in their own lives. Women are devouring content like that because everybody is complicated; not everybody is one thing.

We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. The writer's business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.

Now, I can't help but feel inferior. When I'm out in public in Afghanistan, I feel inferior because I'm doing everything I can to stay hidden, silent. I feel inferior because I am seeing firsthand the impact of America's foreign policy and can't help but feel like a living, breathing representation of that - despite my own personal views about that policy. It reinforces to me that I want to be part of the solution - and I want my work to be part of the solution - not part of the problem.

I'm no shrinking violet. I played hockey until half my teeth were knocked down my throat. And I'm extremely competitive on a tennis court. . . But that experience at the slaughterhouse overwhelmed me. When I walked out of there, I knew I would never again harm an animal! I knew all the physiological, economic, and ecological arguments supporting vegetarianism, but it was firsthand experience of man's cruelty to animals that laid the real groundwork for my commitment to vegetarianism.

And yes, there definitely are many good desires. For example, without the desire for food we would not stay alive. It is when our desire becomes an unquenchable craving or obsession, or causes us to do harm to ourselves or others, that it creates suffering and unhappiness. If you have ever been hurt because you tied your happiness or well-being to a person, place, opinion, self-identity, behavior, or goal, then you have firsthand experience of desire.

Regardless of its purpose, the humpback-whale song is the most complex piece of nonhuman composition on earth. Whether it's art, prayer, or booty call, the humpback song is an amazing thing to experience firsthand, and I suspect that even once the science of it is put to bed, it will remain, as long as they sing, magic.

My platitudes don't hold their interest and I can hardly blame them for that. My real stories are all out of date. So what if I can speak firsthand about the Spanish flu, the advent of the automobile, world wars, cold wars, guerrilla wars, and Sputnik — that's all ancient history now. But what else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet.

I cannot tell you ... how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful... It is the only totally reliable get rich quick scheme.

I think in general, people look at all Olympic athletes, look at all superstar athletes, and they say, "Okay, this guy doesn't have any insecurities." They're almost like these icons who - I don't know how to say it, but like they can't make mistakes. But the reality is, and I'll tell you this firsthand, a lot of great athletes have a lot of insecurities, and they have a really hard time dealing with a lot of so-called losing or however you want to classify it.