65 Best Overboard Quotes On Success In Life

These overboard quotes will inspire you. Overboard over the side of a ship or boat into the water.

A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging overboard quotes, overboard sayings, and overboard proverbs.

Famous Overboard Quotes

1. “I quickly found that the American church is a difficult place to fit in if you want to live out New Testament Christianity. The goals of American Christianity are often a nice marriage, children who don’t swear, and good church attendance. Taking the words of Christ literally, and seriously, is rarely considered. That’s for the ‘radicals’ who are ‘unbalanced’ and who go ‘overboard.’ Most of us want a balanced life we can control, that is safe, and that does not involve suffering.” ~ Francis Chan
2. “I used the diabetes as my weapon. Of course, I was only hurting myself and making myself sicker, but I guess it was something I had to go through. I never went overboard so much that I really hurt myself, but my early teenage years were very tough.” ~ Dana Hill
3. “Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.” ~ James A. Garfield

4. “I typically go overboard when I research new projects.” ~ Will Wright

5. “You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington.” ~ Grace Hopper
6. “Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.” ~ Ronald Reagan
7. “You know, as long as you do everything in moderation, you don’t go overboard, you don’t, you know, turn your lips into guppy lips – I mean, a little zip or a little zap, that is not a big deal.” ~ Suzanne Somers

8. “We’ve gone overboard on every Queen album. But that’s Queen.” ~ Freddie Mercury

9. “Don’t go overboard in praising required behavior: ‘We have only done our duty’ (Luke 17:10). But do go overboard when your child confesses the truth, repents honestly, takes chances, and loves openly. Praise the developing character in your child as it emerges in active, loving, responsible behavior.” ~ Henry Cloud
10. “I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt … she personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him – and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status – that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman – a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.” ~ Ella Fitzgerald
11. “I felt despair. The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture — a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It’s maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It’s wanting to jump overboard.” ~ David Foster Wallace

12. “Every time I reform in one direction I go overboard in another.” ~ Mark Twain

13. “The nightingales are sobbing in The orchards of our mothers, And hearts that we broke long ago Have long been breaking others; Tears are round, the sea is deep: Roll them overboard and sleep.” ~ W. H. Auden
14. “The work to me is everything, and I would throw every rule overboard and send them to the bottom of the sea tomorrow, if I felt there were a more excellent way.” ~ Thomas John Barnardo
15. “Lagos was a city that had been turned against itself. There was a bridge that became the perfect trap for crimes, which began with nails being scattered to cause flat tyres. If the driver stopped, the car would be dismantled in 20 minutes and the parts thrown overboard [to people waiting below]. The system had turned into a kind of destructive device that could be used against people. That was the narrative.” ~ Rem Koolhaas

16. “A capacity for going overboard is a requisite for a full-grown mind.” ~ Dawn Powell

17. “The deep-read is when you get gut-hooked and dragged overboard down and down through the maze of print and find, to your amazement, you can breathe down there after all and there’s a whole other world. I’m talking about the kind of reading when you realize that books are indeed interactive. . . . I’m talking about the kind of deep-read where it isn’t just the plot or the characters that matter, but the words and the way they fit together and the meandering evanescent thoughts you think between the lines: the kind of reading where you are fleetingly aware of your own mind at work.” ~ Tim Wynne-Jones
18. “I thought they were helping me. I was so full of trust in them that I felt grateful as they carried me in the air. Only when they threw me overboard did I begin to have doubts.” ~ Yann Martel
19. “My dad’s a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity – intuition and compassion and tenderness – and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.” ~ Carlos Santana

20. “But all the love in the world won’t save a sinking ship. You have to either bail or jump overboard.” ~ Sarah Dessen

21. “It was just so in the American Revolution, in 1776, the first delicacy the men threw overboard in Boston harbor was the tea, woman’s favorite beverage. The tobacco and whiskey, though heavily taxed, they clung to with the tenacity of the devil-fish.” ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton
22. “The majority of people are ready to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on DESPITE all opposition, until they attain their goal. These few are the Fords, Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Edisons. There may be no heroic connotation to the word persistence, but the quality is to the character of man what carbon is to steel.” ~ Napoleon Hill
23. “You have ten minutes. Tops. (Carlos) I have been knocked overboard, shot at, kidnapped, handcuffed, terrified, and held prisoner. I will not be told how long to take in the loo. (Gabrielle)” ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

24. “Rick: Can you swim? Evelyn: Well, of course I can swim if the occasion calls for it. Rick: [throwing her overboard] Trust me. It calls for it.” ~ Max Allan Collins

25. “I’ve been a straight man for so many years that from force of habit I repeat everything. I went out fishing with a fellow the other day and he fell overboard. He yelled, Help! Help! Help! so I said, Help? Help? Help? And while I was waiting for him to get his laugh, he drowned.” ~ George Burns
26. “So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light and right.” ~ Herman Melville
27. “You see, Mademoiselle, I have experience, I know the world. To pass the time, why don’t you ask every passenger to tell you his life’s story? And if there is a single one among them who has never cursed his life, who has not often told himself that he was the unhappiest of men, then you may throw me overboard, headfirst!” ~ Voltaire

28. “I turned around, stepped over the Zebra and threw myself overboard.” ~ Yann Martel

29. “Advice to expectant mothers: you must remember that when you are pregnant, you are eating for two. But you must remember that the other one of you is about the size of a golf ball, so let’s not go overboard with it. I mean, a lot of pregnant women eat as though the other person they’re eating for is Orson Welles.” ~ Dave Barry
30. “One night I was on my [Navy] ship… on my first cruise crossing the North Atlantic in a horrible storm, chained to the rails so I wouldn’t fall overboard. In this lightning and thunder and hail, in this misery, I shouted at the heavens with my little squeaky voice and said, Someday I’m going to be a photographer! It was as big an epiphany as any man ever had.” ~ Ralph Gibson
31. “If a person who lives in God becomes miserable, what is the use of living in God? What is the use of such a God? Throw such a God overboard into the Pacific Ocean. We do not want such a God!” ~ Swami Vivekananda

32. “Sometimes my natural instincts take over and I just go overboard.” ~ Bill Goldberg

33. “The pain of losing my child was a cleansing experience. I had to throw overboard all excess baggage and keep only what is essential.” ~ Isabel Allende
34. “I want to be able to get my point across. I respect people expressing their freedoms and their liberties and their rights, but at the same time I’m almost mindful that my freedoms can be other people’s downfalls. I don’t want to flash my freedoms in your face all the time, especially if they’re going to be detrimental. I can get you to understand my point without going overboard, and we’re cool.” ~ LeCrae
35. “The more that accrues, the more depth, weight, and breadth we can bring to the poems, which we then need to throw overboard so we don’t sink.” ~ Dorianne Laux

36. “We must read the Bible through the eyes of shipwrecked people for whom everything has gone overboard.” ~ Karl Barth

37. “Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell Then shriek’d the timid, and stood still the brave, Then some leap’d overboard with fearful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave.” ~ Lord Byron
38. “The only thing I consciously avoid is playing the victim. I think women are portrayed as the victim in so many things, and I really like women with strength – although I feel now I may have gone overboard by playing so many strong, sassy women.” ~ Kristen Bell
39. “Donald Trump is doing well. Trump is shocking everybody. He’s shocking the Democrats. He’s shocking the Republicans. He’s shocking world. Contrast what’s happened here in just the last three days with eight years of Barack Obama. We have had no apologizing. We’ve had no bowing. We’ve had a president of the United States actually tell the heads of state of countries where terrorism is rampant to get rid of it, to drive it out. We’ve had a president of the United States directly confront Iran where his our previous president threw everybody else overboard for Iran.” ~ Rush Limbaugh

40. “Clearly the anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1930s went overboard and it was clearly a terrible moment in history.” ~ Peter Eisenman

41. “I do believe the world is a pretty sad, troubled, and violent place. Maybe that’s why I focus on the trouble. Even though there are good people and good things, there’s also a bunch of messed up stuff. And I learned early on, you have to have some trouble in your stories. I definitely go overboard on that, but I have a lot more fun writing about the trouble.” ~ Donald Ray Pollock
42. “For the purpose of acquiring gain, everything else is pushed aside or thrown overboard, for example, as is philosophy by the professors of philosophy.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
43. “The solid waste is returned to Earth with the shuttle. If we [astronauts] ever dump solid waste overboard, it’s going to give new meaning to wishing upon a falling star.” ~ Mike Mullane

44. “Don’t go overboard with too many accessories and too many different things.” ~ Freja Beha Erichsen

45. “I am very fascinated by the idea of hyperbole in subject matter as well as production. I like the idea of going overboard in producing an art piece and I like the way it brings the work away from a meditative space of reflection to a more direct, impactful tool that can compete with the mainstream. I like all these power plays, which have a lot to do with contextualization. In turn, I’m interested in creating crossovers between creative disciplines and in a way in subverting the expected role of the artist in society.” ~ Larissa Sansour
46. “I’m very strong in who I am, I’m very happy where I am. And wherever, as you know some people go overboard with criticism, but you know what? I would say look in your mirror, and see who you are, and what did you do.” ~ Tommy Wiseau
47. “What’s the good thing about being an actor, you can do more things. Not just being a comedian, not going overboard but expressing myself within the confines of a film.” ~ Brandon T. Jackson

48. “Clearly the anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1930s went overboard and it was clearly a terrible moment in history.” ~ Peter Eisenman

49. “I had some pretty weird fan mail growing up, sometimes from prison and wherever else. Nothing too intense. Some superfans that maybe went a little overboard with gifts and whatnot, expecting something other than what it could be with a kid. That’s a little weird. But at the same time, it’s like, “Hey, I’m getting free video games. I’m not going to return it if you sent it!” Thankfully we never felt unsafe.” ~ Lindsey Haun
50. “Politics in Iran is not played like American football. It’s played like chess. There are multiple moves. You’re jumping ahead. And a lot of it is very subtle, and it catches you by surprise later on. So I don’t want to go overboard on this.” ~ Gary Sick
51. “You can go overboard in how quickly you might expect new technologies to transform people’s lives. But I very much believe the way software is used, the way information gets distributed, will be dramatically different within 10 years. There is fire to go with all this smoke.” ~ Bill Gates

52. “Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and they will jump overboard to get away.” ~ William Zinsser

53. “It’s really a trade-off: you’re always having to decide whether you’re going to say the more ambitious thing, and lose a little clarity – or are you going to say something really clearly, and sacrifice a little nuance? Get too obscure, and you sound like a pretentious asshole; go overboard with the clarity, and you sound like you’re talking down to your audience, or like you yourself are a reductive simpleton.” ~ Elif Batuman
54. “I’ve lived long enough to see the triumph of zealots and absolutists, to watch money swallow politics, to witness the rise of the corporate state. See the party of working and poor people become a sycophant of crony capitalism. Watch the union of church and state become fashionable again. Witness the coupling of news and entertainment. See everyday people cast overboard as the pirates and predators of Wall Street seized the ship of state. I didn’t drift; I moved left just by standing still.” ~ Bill Moyers
55. “Nobody wants a nanny state, where the government is stamping out initiative and telling us what to do, but the idea that the only alternative to that is to throw the American people overboard into a global economy with no protections to cushion us from some of these blows is absurd on its face. That’s why I think there’s been a concerted effort to distort my message. When you hear me speak beyond the sound bites taken out of context, I think I make a lot of sense to people, even those in Red States like the one where I grew up.” ~ Van Jones

56. “I think [Hillary] Clinton owes the press some thanks for going so far overboard on the emails and the Clinton Foundation over the past year.” ~ Kevin Drum

57. “It was all for the eventual payoff and thank-you by giving Hillary Clinton the Democrat Party presidential nomination. And it went awry in 2008 because somebody they liked better came along. Somebody they really liked better. I mean, somebody they loved better. They threw her overboard like an unwanted sack of potatoes down on the farm for Barack Hussein Obama. And she seethed, felt betrayed. Don’t blame her a bit. They betrayed her big time.” ~ Rush Limbaugh
58. “There is no more reason to accuse ourselves excessively of our failings than to excuse them overmuch. He who goes overboard in self-criticism often does so in order not to suffer others’ criticisms, or else does so out of a kind of vanity that wishes to make others believe that he knows how to confess his faults.” ~ Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
59. “In our man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, cursesmix with tears; and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own.” ~ Herman Melville

60. “I’ve always wanted to be thrown into the ocean when I die – to be rowed out to sea and thrown overboard into the Atlantic.” ~ Aoife O’Donovan

61. “Donald Trump is the least unpopular thing about today’s Republican Party. I mean, the idea that a Mitch McConnell or a Paul Ryan could say, “Let’s toss Trump overboard and return to our program of plutocratic politics, health care removal, massive income tax cuts for the affluent, deregulation of finance” – if they cut loose from Donald Trump, it’s like, you know, storm in channel, continent cut off. If they cut loose from him, they are much likelier to sink.” ~ David Frum
62. “A lot of people are now criticizing Attorney General John Ashcroft for his policy on detaining what he considers suspicious people. I think he’s going a little overboard. Today, he arrested the entire band Foreigner.” ~ Jay Leno

63. “Maybe when I die and I’m thrown overboard, I’ll turn into a mermaid.” ~ Aoife O’Donovan

64. “People accuse me of going overboard preparing for my first ten million years in eternity; in my opinion, people go overboard in worrying about their last ten on earth.” ~ Francis Chan
65. “When priorities are proper, the power to endure is increased. And when internalized, those priorities will help keep you from “going overboard.”” ~ Russell M. Nelson

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