Taken For Granted Quotes

By Alan Reiner – July 21, 2024

‘Being taken for granted is an unpleasant but sincere form of praise. Ironically, the more reliable you are, and the less you complain, the more likely you are to be taken for granted.’ – Gretchen Rubin

‘An adult human can last 40 days without food, a week without any sleep, three days without water, but only five minutes without air. Yet nothing is more taken for granted than the air we breathe. However, not just any air will do – it must be exquisitely designed to meet our needs. Too little oxygen in the atmosphere will kill us, as will too much.’ – Hugh Ross

‘In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.’ – Bertrand Russell

‘Creativity is an energy. It’s a precious energy, and it’s something to be protected. A lot of people take for granted that they’re a creative person, but I know from experience, feeling it in myself, it is a magic; it is an energy. And it can’t be taken for granted.’ – Ava DuVernay

‘Fresh, clean water cannot be taken for granted. And it is not – water is political, and litigious. Transporting water is impractical for both political and physical reasons, so buying up water rights did not make a lot of sense to me, unless I was pursuing a greater fool theory of investment – which was not my intention.’ – Michael Burry

‘One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity.’ – Edward de Bono

‘Injuries give you perspective. They teach you to cherish the moments that I might have taken for granted before.’ – Ali Krieger

‘Nothing should be taken for granted, even if everybody believes it.’ – Yuval Noah Harari

‘Our democracy is not something to be taken for granted. You have to fight for it. You have to commit yourself to working for it – for the long haul.’ – Keith Ellison

‘As trust in institutions erodes, the basic assumptions of fairness, shared values, and equal opportunity traditionally upheld by ‘the system’ are no longer taken for granted.’ – Richard Edelman

‘Postmodernism is, of course, the dead end from which hauntology starts – but one of its role is to denaturalise what postmodernism has taken for granted, to conceive of postmodernism as a condition in the sense of a sickness.’ – Mark Fisher

‘Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means that you’ve become a comfortable, trusted element in another person’s life.’ – Joyce Brothers

‘Women are just as violently minded as men are, but with men, it’s taken for granted.’ – Gillian Flynn

‘The way I love monsters is a Mexican way of loving monsters, which is that I am not judgmental. The Anglo way of seeing things is that monsters are exceptional and bad, and people are good. But in my movies, creatures are taken for granted.’ – Guillermo del Toro

‘In life, so many things are taken for granted, but one thing I can honestly say is that I took every day, enjoyed the game of putting on that uniform and playing the great game of baseball.’ – Wade Boggs

‘Not only are police officers often taken for granted, many people are highly vocal about their dislike for cops.’ – Karen Salmansohn

‘It was taken for granted that we had to make something of ourselves. Not much was said about it; it was just in the atmosphere of the home.’ – Thurgood Marshall

‘I’m thankful for my family’s health, that everybody’s healthy. That’s something that can be taken for granted, so I’m grateful for that.’ – Ayesha Curry

‘I guess everyone’s had an experience when they felt overlooked, ditched, hurt or taken for granted. Where they felt like the only one behaving with common sense but still got the short end of the stick. We all feel like the odd one out at some point.’ – Shannon Purser

‘I have not been that wise. Health I have taken for granted. Love I have demanded, perhaps too much and too often. As for money, I have only realized its true worth when I didn’t have it.’ – Hedy Lamarr

‘Your talent is your art. It is not to be taken for granted.’ – Paula Abdul

‘Happiness is perhaps painlessness, a state one rarely appreciates. Happiness, then, is very much like a great talent. It rarely gets appreciated and is taken for granted.’ – Kamal Haasan

‘All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.’ – Elizabeth Bowen

‘I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.’ – Christopher Hitchens

‘One of the things I find depressing about some of the upper echelons of Anglicanism on both sides of the Atlantic is that it’s sort of taken for granted that we all basically know what’s in the Bible, and so we just glance at a few verses for devotional purposes and then get on to the real business.’ – N. T. Wright

‘The long view of the Census bureau allows some changes that are taken for granted to be studied in more detail. Everyone knows, for example, that people get married later than they used to.’ – Bill Dedman

‘We’ve shown people that you don’t have to be taken for granted. You don’t have to settle for less!’ – Jagmeet Singh

‘Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life. Too many of us divide and dissipate our energies in debating actions which should be taken for granted.’ – Ralph W. Sockman

‘I want justice to be so pervasive that it will be taken for granted, just as injustice is taken for granted today.’ – Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

‘The horrors of the Second World War, the chilling winds of the Cold War and the crushing weight of the Iron Curtain are little more than fading memories. Ideals that once commanded great loyalty are now taken for granted.’ – Jan Peter Balkenende

‘Father was the eldest son and the heir apparent, and he set the standard for being a Rockefeller very high, so every achievement was taken for granted and perfection was the norm.’ – David Rockefeller

‘Patriotism is strong nationalistic feeling for a country whose borders and whose legitimacy and whose ethnic composition is taken for granted.’ – Michael Ignatieff

‘A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense.’ – Lawrence Lessig

‘The popular will cannot be taken for granted, it must be created.’ – Herbert Croly

‘Yet food is something that is taken for granted by most world leaders despite the fact that more than half of the population of the world is hungry.’ – Norman Borlaug

‘Revolution today is taken for granted, and in consequence becomes rather dull.’ – Wyndham Lewis

‘We don’t really make bad records, though some people might like some more than others. And we have never really done a bad show. So I think in a way maybe we’ve been taken for granted.’ – Tom Petty

‘The principal achievement of Europe is peace, which we often forget about as it has become so taken for granted by Europeans.’ – Dominique de Villepin

‘Well, one thing, you got to stand in a courtroom and listen to a judge sentencing you to 25 years in prison before you realize that freedom of expression can no longer be taken for granted.’ – Larry Flynt

‘Being born and raised as a Californian, I somewhat ignorantly had taken for granted the diversity and liberal mindset that shaped my childhood and adult life.’ – Carre Otis

‘I read things like theology, and I read about science, ‘Scientific American’ and publications like that, because they stimulate again and again my sense of the almost arbitrary given-ness of experience, the fact that nothing can be taken for granted.’ – Marilynne Robinson

‘The media tends to portray the teenage world as one where drinking and sex is taken for granted. In fact, I think most teenagers don’t drink, are unsure of themselves, and feel awkward around members of the opposite sex.’ – Louis Sachar

‘I now know that things I always thought I could depend on can crash in an instant. Because of the love that I have been shown, I now know what it means to be ‘beloved.’ I now know that no breath is to be taken for granted.’ – Rebecca Wells

‘It’s now taken for granted that women are in bands and you can say feminist things in your songs. But back in the early ’90s, there was a lot of violence at Bikini Kill shows that people don’t realize happened.’ – Kathleen Hanna

‘My years with failing vision have prompted me to learn about the nature of the eye and the incredible gift of sight, which I had always taken for granted until it began to slip away.’ – Henry Grunwald

‘Periods of cooperation between political parties shouldn’t be taken for granted; they are a stunning human achievement.’ – Paul Bloom

‘I lived in a world where social arrangements were taken for granted and assumed to be timeless. A child’s obligation was to learn these usages, not to question them. The complexities of racial deportment were of a piece with learning manners and etiquette more generally.’ – Drew Gilpin Faust

‘For as long as anyone can remember, reliable, cheap electricity has been taken for granted in the United States.’ – Alex Berenson

‘It may be taken for granted that, rash as Americans usually are, when they are prudent, there is good reason for it.’ – Jules Verne

‘Franklin D. Roosevelt was fortunate: He didn’t take office until nearly four years after the Wall Street crash, by which time the Republicans’ responsibility for the Depression was taken for granted.’ – Tina Brown

‘I don’t like being taken for granted anywhere in life. I don’t want my vote taken for granted.’ – Rob Lowe

‘I love trade magazines – any trade’s magazine: by entering into what is taken for granted in a world not your own, you better recognize the vastness of the social universe – for there are so, so many worlds that are not your own.’ – Rick Perlstein

‘Once upon a time, soft toys were for babies. Now they’re taken for granted as a feature of adult life.’ – Brian Sutton-Smith

”Theogony’ should be read before the great Homeric epics because it gives an account of the cosmology that is taken for granted by Homer. It does for paganism what the Old Testament attempted to do for monotheism.’ – Tariq Ali

‘The relationships we have with dogs seem simple enough and often are taken for granted. But these relationships can be deep and mysterious, and not at all simple.’ – Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

‘I totally commit and completely give myself to a relationship. Be warned, though – I don’t like being taken for granted, so I can be pretty high-maintenance sometimes!’ – Priyanka Chopra

‘I think the key to the whole appeal of Amazons is the egalitarian society. There was once a time and place where equality was taken for granted – it was logical and necessary – and I think most people can get the message that if it happened once, it could happen again.’ – Adrienne Mayor

‘Unlike life, a work of art never gets taken for granted: it is always viewed against its precursors and predecessors.’ – Joseph Brodsky

‘Confidence is sky high, but we’re also all very grounded. We know, in football, nothing can be taken for granted.’ – Jamie Vardy

‘Education is taken for granted. Teaching shops are different from building character.’ – Shiv Nadar

‘Teaching is good for me. It forces me to articulate ways of doing things or rules of thumb that I’ve sort of taken for granted.’ – Mark Waid

‘In England, unless I am mistaken, I think some of the politicians who love classical music and opera are a bit loath to be seen there in case people think it is elitist. That is a real shame because it also means we are not allowing our politicians a hinterland that an earlier generation, a Denis Healey, would have taken for granted.’ – Simon Rattle

‘The trust of the mass population can no longer be taken for granted, and any continuation of the ‘grand illusion’ is dangerous for leaders in today’s world.’ – Richard Edelman

‘The trust of the mass population can no longer be taken for granted.’ – Richard Edelman

‘It’s often taken for granted that the most dominant tech companies control the world’s most important technology and communications platforms. Instead, the truth is that these giants run on top of the world’s most important platform: the mobile communications networks.’ – Borje Ekholm

‘For too long, I think the African-American community has been taken for granted by one party and completely ignored by the other. It is not acceptable. It’s not good for the parties, for the country, or for the community.’ – Ana Navarro

‘It is to the advantage of Hispanics not to be taken for granted by one party and ignored by the other. Hispanics will realize their political power only if courted and engaged by both sides.’ – Ana Navarro

‘I think nothing can be taken for granted – be it the fact that you get to work with a certain kind of talent, certain kinds of budgets, or that the audience looks forward to your work.’ – Farhan Akhtar

‘I know that nothing can be taken for granted, and there is still a lot of hard work ahead of me. However, I am looking forward to the challenge of trying to prove to the England manager that I am worthy of a place in his team, and hopefully continuing to progress my career in the right direction.’ – Declan Rice

‘It’s something that’s almost taken for granted in sitcoms about white families. Like, ‘Oh, we’re going on a summer vacation!’ As if that’s something that everybody does.’ – Nahnatchka Khan

‘At 80 million, millennials, born between 1980 and 2000, are the largest generation in history. Yet they are a demographic Congress has historically either taken for granted or ignored altogether.’ – S.E. Cupp

‘Air superiority, which the United States has taken for granted since World War II, is no longer assured. And, without control of the skies, U.S. ships and soldiers would be vulnerable in ways that are difficult to imagine.’ – Max Boot

‘With the approaching winter the air quality in many Indian cities, especially in Delhi, becomes a public health hazard. Something so fundamental as breathing easy can no longer be taken for granted. It’s a wake-up call worthy of a civic revolution.’ – Rohini Nilekani

‘We must never forget that Singapore is home for all races and this harmonious relationship must not be taken for granted.’ – Tan Cheng Bock

‘Female actors’ contribution to films are at par with male actors. So just because they signed the film, they can’t be taken for granted.’ – Priyamani

‘I’m fortunate in one way and I can take pride from the fact that I’ve consistently performed for 10 years, which is something that not many people can do. I’ve consistently stayed near the top for 10 years which is maybe something that is overlooked and taken for granted.’ – Mark Cavendish

‘Especially women, we can relate to wanting to have a seat at the table and a lot of the time it’s not even to be more powerful than the men, it’s not even to be powerful, it’s just to feel that we’re not going to be undermined, that our ideas are not going to be taken for granted, that we won’t be sexually harassed.’ – Teresa Ruiz

‘The detailing on the sets of ‘Gandhi’ was very minute. There was immense discipline and nothing was taken for granted.’ – Rohini Hattangadi

‘I’ve taken for granted that we have clean air to breathe in cities, relatively speaking, and most people have access to clean water. But we can’t take these things for granted.’ – Tatiana Schlossberg

‘While pro-lifers and social conservatives form one of the most important blocks of support for the Republican Party, they are traditionally taken for granted. At conventions, their issues are downplayed, if not ignored.’ – Mollie Hemingway

‘I’m totally an empath, and I’m so susceptive to being walked on and being taken for granted.’ – Sara Evans

‘I want to personally thank all active military members, veterans and their families. The sacrifices made for our freedom should never be taken for granted, and on Memorial Day – and every day – we honor and thank you.’ – Phil Scott

‘Some sectors have a monopoly position, and football certainly does. If I am dissatisfied with my football club’s facilities or the players on the pitch, I’m not about to go and purchase my season ticket from the club down the road. That loyalty should be treasured and not taken for granted.’ – Penny Mordaunt

‘New York City should and must embrace crypto if it is to remain the financial capital of the world. We no longer live in a world where our central place in finance can be taken for granted.’ – Ritchie Torres