Taken quotes
5.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside taken — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"When I did some research on child marriage, I realized there were no photographs that showed what it looked like. But the more you dig into something complex, the more you realize how much there is to learn. That's why I've taken so many years to unravel the complexities of the issue and how it continues to be similar and different in different countries and communities."
"There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work."
"Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously because it is 'too much."
"You left ground and sky weeping, mind and soul full of grief. No one can take your place in existence, or in absence. Both mourn, the angels, the prophets, and this sadness I feel has taken from me the taste of language, so that I cannot say the flavor of my being apart."
"Taken with the archaeological data, we can say that the old hypothesis of an invasion of people - not merely their language - from the steppe appears to be true."
"A truly Suppressive Person or group has no rights of any kind and actions taken against them are not punishable."
"More education for women. More jobs for women. More equal opportunities for women. More women to be taken seriously. And I think more than anything we wish to be heard and not to be shut down. I think this is a good thing to think about for any community; what is important is that our voices be heard and not swallowed in an abyss of history."
"It was the last that remained of a past whose annihilation had not taken place because it was still in a process of annihilation, consuming itself from within, ending at every moment but never ending its ending."
"For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us."
"For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one's cell, as it is always twilight in one's heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more."
"The hunter follows things which flee from him; he leaves them when they are taken; and ever seeks for that which is beyond what he has found. [Lat., Venator sequitur fugientia; capta relinquit; Semper et inventis ulteriora petit.]"
"To lose yourself in a book is the desire of the bookworm. I mean to be taken. That is my desire."
"I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends, as I have moderate civil ends: for I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
"At the meeting I argued that the state had given us no alternative to violence. I said it was wrong and immoral to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative. I mentioned again that people on their own had taken up arms. Violence would begin whether we initiated it or not. Would it not be better to guide this violence ourselves, according to principles where we saved lives by attacking symbols of oppression, and not people? If we did not take the lead now, I said, we would soon be latecomers and followers to a movement we did not control."
"He who has seen present things has seen all, both everything which has taken place from all eternity and everything which will be for time without end; for all things are of one kin and of one form."
"Remember that even if you were to live for three thousand years, or thirty thousand, you could not lose any other life than the one you have, and there will be no other life after it. So the longest and the shortest lives are the same. The present moment is shared by all living creatures, but the time that is past is gone forever. No one can lose the past or the future, for if they don't belong to you, how can they be taken from you?"
"Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that."
"Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves."
"I bet the reason people are afraid of going bald is because it makes them think of the end of life. I mean, when your hair starts to thin, it must feel as if your life is being worn away ... as if you've taken a giant step in the direction of death, the last Big Consumption."
"Those who most obstinately oppose the most widely-held opinions more often do so because of pride than lack of intelligence. They find the best places in the right set already taken, and they do not want back seats."
