Profoundly inspirational leaving quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
Famous Leaving Quotes
Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging reality. — Irving Howe
I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism. — Whittaker Chambers
Thanks be to God. Since my leaving the drinking of wine, I do find myself much better, and do mind my business better, and do spend less money, and less time lost in idle company. — Samuel Pepys
The myths have always condemned those who ‘looked back.’ Condemned them, whatever the paradise may have been which they were leaving. Hence this shadow over each departure from your decision. — Dag Hammarskjold
Finishing books – and leaving the world you’ve created – is always a kind of emotionally wrenching experience. I usually cry. — Lauren Oliver
Leaving American disaster victims to languish is morally reprehensible and un-American. — Cedric Richmond
I always liked the story of Noah’s Ark and the idea of starting anew by rescuing the things you like and leaving the rest behind. — Zach Braff
I had a chance to play for the Cuban national team during the 2009 World Baseball Classic, but at the time I never thought about leaving Cuba. — Yoenis Cespedes
Equity is the cushion that protects financial institutions from unexpected changes in the value of their assets. The greater the leverage, the smaller the losses required to wipe out a company’s equity, leaving it without enough money to repay the people who hold its debt. — Alex Berenson
I hate when a movie just sort of ends and is so open-ended you feel like it wasn’t finished. I appreciate leaving things up to the interpretation of the audience and letting them make decisions about where things will go in the future – but the director has to make a decision; otherwise it is sort of a cop-out. — Zach Gilford
When the media defines something, you have to question: Is it the definition that you want applied to your culture? I’m trying to determine who’s leaving the legacy, and if the legacy that is being left is a positive one. — Tim Reid
If the small government concept grows, we have fewer dollars leaving our pockets, we have more folks motivated to make a profit. — Tim Scott
Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. — Marian Wright Edelman
The Chinese foreign ministry has said more than once that I am a free person. Did I do anything wrong by leaving my home? — Chen Guangcheng
When it comes to sending my children to college, I want the best education. It’s the only thing I’m really leaving them – a good education. — Sloan Wilson
Many of the Iroquois and Huron houses were of similar construction, the partitions being at the sides only, leaving a wide passage down the middle of the house. — Francis Parkman
Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all passed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant and more or less feudal civilization with its aristocracy and slaves has departed with the economic system upon which it rested. — Hervey Allen
We were the victims of the new producer but what annoyed me was they told the press we were leaving before us. — Louise Jameson
As we had no part of our will on our entrance into this life, we should not presume to any on our leaving it, but soberly learn to will which He wills. — William Drummond
Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That’s the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let’s say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success. — Mike Figgis
When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. — Shunryu Suzuki
I remember being infuriated from the top of my head to the tip of my toes the first time a screen was put around Bob Carter and me on a train leaving Washington in the 1940s. — Constance Baker Motley
The women’s movement will present a growing threat to patriarchal religion less by attacking it than by simply leaving it behind. — Carol P. Christ
With nearly all students leaving public high school having taken some vocational education, this bill continues to provide communities with the funding necessary to give students an edge on career training. — John M. McHugh
Who can’t relate to the idea of leaving one chapter behind and moving on to the next? — Mike Shinoda
Michael Eisner let it be known last week that he had no intention of leaving the entertainment business once he steps down as CEO of Disney in October. — Peter Bart
I am not leaving twitter. If the mindless few defeat the thoughtful majority we are all doomed. — Gary Lineker
Dictators cause the world’s worst problems: all the collapsed states, and all the devastated economies. All the vapid cases of corruption, grand theft, and naked plunder of the treasury are caused by dictators, leaving in their wake trails of wanton destruction, horrendous carnage and human debris. — George Ayittey
There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale. — Ralph Ellison
When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places. — John Cheever
I think people thought I was crazy for leaving Mexico when I had any project I wanted falling at my feet. But I risked everything to come to Los Angeles, where no one knew who I was, and start all over again. It was a very hard step to take. However, it was the moment I thought it was right to take a risk in my career. — Karla Souza
Around the holidays, or anytime I’m going on vacation, I try to bump up my cardio or lose a pound before leaving. — Stacy Keibler
I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing. — Katherine Anne Porter
Our world is drowning in a sea of self-centeredness. You can make yourself quite unique right away by leaving this ocean of selfishness and choosing to be curious about other people. — John Bytheway
My most radical shift was leaving Intel and joining Google, a small startup at the time, even though I was pregnant. — Susan Wojcicki
I’m proud of the fact that I made my way in life very rigorously. I was a bit too stubborn when it came to certain things, which was unnecessary, like getting independent from and leaving Germany. — Thomas Kretschmann
At thirteen, when I arrived in Hong Kong after leaving China, I made a living by working in a restaurant. — Martin Yan
However, leaving everything to the market is not necessarily good for society. — Dorothy Denning
As we begin to leave Afghanistan, are we fooling ourselves about what we are leaving behind or what we have promised the people of Afghanistan? Especially the women and girls? — Greta Van Susteren
I don’t know about Brad Pitt leaving that beautiful woman to go hold orphans for Angelina. I mean how long is that going to last? — Michael Douglas
I am restless. I don’t mind leaving this comfortable, static life. I could live a year on my own in a remote village. — Michael Palin
Your humble critic confesses that he has been wrestling with ‘weight issues’ since leaving college lo these, uh, several years ago, so it’s hard to be receptive to the moralistic scolding and patronizing encouragement offered endlessly by the allegedly well-meaning. — Tom Shales
When I was 14, I used to have a calendar on my wall, crossing the days off until I was 15, because the school leaving age was 15. Then three months before I turned 15 they changed the leaving age to 16. — Mark E. Smith
Leaving America is like losing twenty pounds and finding a new girlfriend. — Phil Ochs
I joined the Safe Climate Caucus because I believe in leaving a safer planet for future generations. — Mark Pocan
To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator. — Maria Montessori
After leaving ImageMovers, I sold two pitches to Fox Atomic, which I then wrote for them. — Lauren Miller
A fear of the unknown keeps a lot of people from leaving bad situations. — Kathie Lee Gifford
After leaving school, I travelled around Europe for about six months. In Denmark, I thought that was my chance to get an amazing haircut, so I went to what I thought was a great hairdresser. It turned out to be the car wash of hairdressers, and I walked out sporting yet another pudding bowl, but this time with a stripe bleached down the centre. — Becki Newton
I have done a pretty good job of partitioning my life digitally, posting utterances and stories that I’m happy to share with anyone on Twitter, leaving a few sparse comments and ‘Likes’ on Facebook (I’m not a huge user of the service, I’ll be honest), and sending any number of photos to thousands of ‘followers’ on Instagram and Tumblr. — John Battelle
I’m not one of those James Joyce intellectuals who can stand back and look at the whole edifice… It was a slow process for me to just crawl out of it, like a snake leaving his skin behind. — Frank McCourt
Given the growing popularity of pop culture conventions, many of them are selling out, leaving a lot of fans out in the dark and having to trawl the Internet for bits and pieces of news that relate to these events. — Emmett Shear
If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon. — Johannes Brahms
We take our children everywhere we go. I don’t believe in having them and then leaving them to someone else to bring up — Jayne Mansfield
Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness. — Harold Kushner
I think my attitude to human beings has changed since leaving prison. — Jeffrey Archer
I don’t have specific music for when I’m writing. I’m usually listening to the same playlist or ‘artist’ before I arrive at the computer as when I’m walking somewhere after leaving the computer. — Tao Lin
I am sorry to be leaving the BBC. I have enjoyed a fascinating seven years at the corporation and am particularly proud to have played a small part in the development of the BBC’s Global News services, BBC World Service and BBC World. — Pauline Neville-Jones
One of the most important things, especially when you’re leaving school, is to realize you’re going to be dealing with a lot of idiots. And a lot of those idiots are in charge of things, so if you’re in an interview and you really want to tell the person off, don’t do it. — Lewis Black
It is important to feel the anger without judging it, without attempting to find meaning in it. It may take many forms: anger at the health-care system, at life, at your loved one for leaving. Life is unfair. Death is unfair. Anger is a natural reaction to the unfairness of loss. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
I care about my legacy that I’m leaving, not only for my fans, but for my wife and my children and my grandchildren. I want them to look back and say, ‘He did it right and he stood up for what is right.’ — Josh Turner
Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. — Hans Urs von Balthasar
Science fiction made me aware of how big and strange the universe was, leaving aside the whole question of aliens. — Ken MacLeod
Since Medicare is on track to go bankrupt in 2024, the de facto Obama Medicare plan is to rob it and watch it disappear, leaving future generations without any hope of receiving benefits and today’s seniors with an unpredictable future. — Reince Priebus
Everything you want in life has a price connected to it. There’s a price to pay if you want to make things better, a price to pay just for leaving things as they are, a price for everything. — Harry Browne
I love Winston Churchill; I think he had the grace of coming and the grace of leaving – when things were hard he was there, and when it was time to leave, he left. — Lapo Elkann
I did not like leaving them when they were little or big. You have to have priorities regarding what you will allow to take you away from your kid. — Kate Hudson
Most umpires are good about letting the argument go, but you can only go on for so long, or go so far. If you don’t leave it alone after a minute or two, you’re in trouble. They want to keep the game moving, so they’ve got to throw you out. I had trouble leaving it alone, I guess. — Bobby Cox
I watched myself put my paw in the bear trap on that one because there was this clause about leaving members — Elliott Smith
A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky. — Kenko Yoshida
I had looked forward so eagerly to leaving the horrible place, yet when my release came and I knew that God’s sunlight was to be free for me again, there was a certain pain in leaving — Nellie Bly
Check bags are fun. I just make sure there won’t be anything illegal in my check bag which is forbidden at a cabin of a plane. Just leaving things like scissors and such out of my carry-on things in order to avoid troubles with some certain airline, y’know. — Kerry King
We’re leaving the House to people who either were born with a silver spoon in their mouth … or couldn’t get better jobs in the first place. — Jerry Lewis
I love when people laugh. I love when they cry, I like a story to say something, and I hope the audience feels happier leaving the theatre than when it came in. — Leo McCarey
I think of childhood as an explosion of creativity. For most people, growing up and earning a living means leaving all that behind. But an artist never leaves that behind. Edwin Mullhouse was my way of exploring the child as artist and, under the guise of childhood, something larger. — Steven Millhauser
Immortality is to live your life doing good things, and leaving your mark behind. — Brandon Lee
Leaving a great organization and a lucrative contract is not easy, but it allows me to take a deep breath and work on things that can make me a better driver and a better person. — Kurt Busch
I think people love this idea of leaving a message for the future. I was always fascinated by the idea of time capsules. — Rick Smolan
After clearing the land, planting the orchard, building the house and barn, and surviving the Great Depression, our father died suddenly one winter night when we were small, leaving us to learn about loss before we even knew its name. — Virginia Euwer Wolff
I used to be and I still am into psychology. I would like to be able to pursue something like that, but I don’t know. The older I’ve gotten, the more endearing this business has become and I can’t really imagine leaving it — Lindsey Shaw
I prefer leaving things to the market as much as possible. — Dorothy Denning
I don’t have a problem with delegation. I love to delegate. I am either lazy enough, or busy enough, or trusting enough, or congenial enough, that the notion leaving tasks in someone else’s lap doesn’t just sound wise to me, it sounds attractive. — John Ortberg
I’m leaving because I want to spend more time with my wife in Chicago. — Bill Lipinski
I take what I see work. I’m a strict believer in the scientific principle of believing nothing, only taking the best evidence available at the present time, interpreting it as best you can, and leaving your mind open to the fact that new evidence will appear tomorrow. — Adam Osborne
If George W. Bush is elected president, I’m leaving for France. — Robert Altman
My own view is that being a vegetarian or vegan is not an end in itself, but a means towards reducing both human and animal suffering and leaving a habitable planet to future generations. — Peter Singer
Life in LA is not lying in the sun for months. It is having a 4pm meeting and leaving at noon to sit in traffic for four hours. Its not glam. — Billy Boyd
What I do and where I come from, the kind of music that I’m making, it’s definitely U.K. If I turned around and did a tune with Timbaland, it would be amazing, but it would be me kind of leaving where I’m coming from. — Katy B
I grew up in the age of discount air fare, and for me, the act of joining a culture was a great way about learning about that different culture. So I grew up in the South, and went to college in the North, and found out that I learned about myself as a Southerner by leaving the South and going to the Northeast. — Bruce Feiler
I have heard repeated stories of meth users leaving their children unattended for days as they cook, use and then sleep off the intense effects of methamphetamine. — Rick Larsen
I have always said to myself, ‘I never want to say I’m leaving a job because I want to spend more time with my family.’ I feel sorry for people when they say that. But my advice to them is that you shouldn’t have taken the job in the first place. — Louis Freeh
The more I can make a person comfortable in their environment by taking my ego’s hat off and leaving it at the door, then they can dive deep within themselves and we can pull out something interesting that people have never heard before. It’s the stuff that’s – that no one’s ever heard before is really interesting. — Pharrell Williams
Even leaving aside government policy, whole industries are already making expensive changes around the perceived need to ‘go green.’ Al Gore and countless other prophets of global catastrophe are making megamillions pushing these expensive solutions. Schoolchildren around the globe are being frightened by tales of impending calamity. — Bradley A. Smith
It would be immoral to walk away from the consequences of our actions, leaving behind anarchy and civil war in Iraq. — Kenneth Clarke
All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves. — Amelia Barr
Outside of my parents, it’s my older sister, Ngum. She lives with me in Detroit and helps me with my day-to-day stuff. She’s somebody I’ve always looked up to. When she was leaving high school and going to college, I wanted to follow in her footsteps. — Ndamukong Suh
I am leaving because I have to fight simultaneously a potential recurrence of cancer the Democratic leadership, a health care bill that’s going to destroy this country, my opposition to it and a belief that my party has become what it became – what it campaigned against. — Eric Massa
Honesty works against you in the entertainment field. I try to be a journalist and a documentarian, but that doesn’t mean that people are going to embrace it at the moment. The point is I’m leaving the mark of my hysteria and the political hysteria, and that’s it… I can only do what I do. — Lydia Lunch
Individuality is the aim of political liberty. By leaving the citizen as much freedom of action and of being as comports with order and the rights of others, the institutions render him truly a freeman. He is left to pursue his means of happiness in his own manner. — James F. Cooper
Leaving the board will relieve me of formal duties and give me more flexibility, but I still expect to spend as much time as possible with the extended family of Ford people and will gladly help the company and the board in any way I can. — William Clay Ford, Sr.
