Best 93 quotes of Dan Groat on MyQuotes

A government that thinks it can remedy personal failure is an intrusion in everybody’s life. No law is going to cure a human’s lack of physical or mental effectiveness. I’d rather see democracy promote strength than reward weakness.

A person gets built and stands for a few years and then nature’s demolition team comes in.

As an adult I had mastered the art of looking without seeing and listening without hearing and eating without tasting and maybe even existing without living.

As I have aged, I’ve been lucky never to reach old. Old is always at least five or ten years beyond my current calendar stage.

A silence overtook the odd family in their odd surroundings as loss became the mockery of the moment, and they were caught up in the emotional release that is common in a theater audience after the sudden ending of a tragic movie; the curtain closes and the people are still in their seats, numb and sighing their way back into reality.

As you get older, you have to be willing and able to choose your own path for your life. And once you choose it, you walk it with strength. If you meet evil along the way, know that it is supposed to make you afraid, but it’s not supposed to stop you. You walk through the fear and you walk through the evil, and you don’t let either one become your master.

Back home. What wonderful words. What a wonderful place.

Being tough today might cause you to be weak in the future.

Books required no interchanges of thoughts and feelings, no trading of expectations, no traffic of words, no menace of real loss. Reading books required far less energy than reading people; the pages seldom disappointed him and they never died.

Despite his best efforts, maintaining dignity in a head attached to an unclean body wrapped in unclean garments was a battle that encouraged surrender.

Devotion to self is necessary. First, place the mask on yourself and breathe deeply. Then help the others. If you don’t save yourself, they will die.

Does the plain, simple beauty of life get buried under society’s so-called required daily activities or is that just true of me? No, I know I’m not alone in that feeling. We all get caught up in the making and spending of money. I know it’s not just me.

Doing without will wear on you until temptation is stronger than character, sometimes.

Don’t ever use a shovel to swat a fly.

Everybody dies. It’s no risk to lose your life. You knew it was lost from the beginning.

Everything will be fine. I’ve heard that my whole life. Everything will be fine. That’s baloney.

Evil stinks and it doesn’t disappear just because you want it to. You can still smell it with your eyes closed.

Evil won’t leave you alone until you take a stand or until you’re dead.

Fear was the hand of the devil holding a scalding hot branding iron and touching your brain and your stomach and yelling at you to run with leaden feet.

Giants bleed like everybody else.

Gifford Ulrich didn’t know the distance from despair to hope, but he knew hope didn’t sleep in alleys.

Governments have absolutely no interest in self-reliance. It defeats one of the purposes for their existence. They encourage and thrive on dependency. The more of it they sell, the more necessary they are, and the more power and money they need.

He had no ability to give up. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to quit, he couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. It never had been.

He knew most men only heard what they wanted to hear, and he had no desire to be like most men.

He knew that prejudice was a necessary part of the weak spirit of some men.

Hope was always hard to find in the darkness.

How do we keep convincing young people to die in fights they didn’t start for reasons we’re too devious to tell the truth about? It’s way too easy for governments to spend other people’s blood. Maybe only the sons and daughters of those who declare the wars should be allowed to fight and die.

Human thought and human caring go on in one brain and one heart at a time. Groups are necessary. Regulations are necessary. Government, I would hope limited government, is necessary. But it all starts with the individual. Everything that is accomplished starts with one person, even if the group steps in and helps; it’s still one brain and one heart at a time.

I am not wise enough to know if there is ever purpose in tragedy, if there is ever virtue in resisting it. If it cannot be overcome, then grief has beaten you, and you are right to say so.

I assumed that looking back reminded older guys of what they had shot at and missed, the what-ifs, the good memories, the bad, the people left behind, the people who moved on.

I can’t tell you what’s in all of God’s plans, but I do know part of them. He empowers you with reason and will. Those are your strengths. That’s what gives you the chance to be great in his sight. He gave you a mind and codes to live by so you could be in charge of your own actions.

I don’t know how a reporter would ever understand a politician. Your job is supposed to be about finding the truth and enlightening people. Right? A politician’s job is about hiding the truth and fooling people. Right? You want us to be better informed so we get smarter. They think we’re dumb and it’s to their advantage to keep us that way.

If all you do is think about what you need, you’re no better than an animal in the woods, and no smarter either. To be human, you’ve got to want. It makes you smarter and stronger.

If the forest has a day of fire and the heat of the flames does not consume a special tree, it will still be changed; charred, but still standing.

If you decide to take somebody on, don’t look behind you, because there won’t be anybody there. You’ll be all alone.

I had always been a boy in this place, and many of the trees and rocks and streams had been old men when I knew them. Some had died. All had changed. I knew that. I had changed the most.

I’m not lookin’ to be anybody’s keeper. What I say and do is meant to protect me. If it works for somebody else, that’s okay, but I don’t want people depending on me to save them.

I need to work. It’s the one time my thoughts will cooperate with me.

In this country our principles should not be silent.

It made him wonder if all things taken from their home too soon lost some of their bloom.

It must be great to spend time in a spot and if you walk away, it’s so much better than before because of something you did.

It remains for you to save one before saving others, to lead one before leading others.

It’s a funny thing, one day you’re living and the next day you’re not sometimes, whether you have plans or not. Wishes and wants get trumped by the reaper every time. I don’t even know if I would want a warning if it was my time. I think I’d rather be surprised.

It’s as close to true freedom as I have come. Not freedom of, but freedom from; freedom from the debris of life that piles up and forces us to dig and dig for our original self, who we were once upon a time, innocent and wonderfully naïve, as authentically pure as a human can be.

It seems to me that smart people seem to know things and wise people know how to use what they know. Smart is a big help to a man; wise is a big help to lots of men.

I wish but to share your gifts as a young boy on his birthday would excitedly rip open his packages to the view of others.

I wonder how long it takes for these people we elect to forget who they work for?

I wonder if God hears prayers if the only time you make them is when you’re in trouble.

Memories with laughter are the best ones to keep.

Men who have been in war have a different attitude about being wronged.