QuoteProject
You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.
Billie Holiday
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Basic needs and love are essential before accepting outside opinions on behavior.

Billie Holiday emphasizes the importance of fulfilling one's basic needs, such as food and love, before being able to accept external advice or opinions on how to live one's life. This highlights the necessity of personal stability and emotional well-being as prerequisites for external guidance.

Themes

Basic NeedsLoveSelf-CareAdviceBehavior

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about self-love and self-care, this quote can emphasize the importance of prioritizing one’s own needs.

More from Billie Holiday

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.
Billie HolidayRead
I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.
Billie HolidayRead
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
Billie HolidayRead
Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.
Billie HolidayRead
I joined Count Basie's band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn't see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.
Billie HolidayRead
Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.
Billie HolidayRead

Similar quotes

Her life her life had taken on the shape of a terrible mistake. She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hair-brush and told, "There you go." She'd stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush.
Lorrie MooreRead
The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
PlutarchRead
If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion.
Robert M. PirsigRead
I don't think that you can let the storms of life overwhelm you. When you do that, you are no better than the craziness that caused you to be under attack.
T. D. JakesRead
To lose a passport was the least of one’s worries. To lose a notebook was a catastrophe.
Bruce ChatwinRead
That was the worst part about having cancer, sometimes: The physical evidence of disease separates you from other people.
John GreenRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.