Quotes & Sayings About Being Compared

Adele doesn't need any ironic detachment. She can love and appreciate the talent of others without feeling threatened herself. This is often very hard for people. We usually worry that someone else's talent or success is being compared with our own so we take the role of a critic and evaluate people harshly in order to protect our own egos.

People like Adele focus on what they like and they ignore the comparisons. Plus, they let the people around them know when they found something that they love about their work or their art. — Charlie Houpert

I've done all kinds of cool things as an actor - I've jumped out of helicopters and done some daring stunts and played baseball in a professional stadium, but none of it means anything compared to being somebody's daddy. — Chris Pratt

Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend. — Jane Austen

It is a great honor for me to be compared to Henri Cartier-BressonBut I believe there is a very big difference in the way we put ourselves inside the stories we photograph. He always strove for the decisive moment as being the most important. I always work for a group of pictures, to tell a story. If you ask which picture in a story I like most, it is impossible for me to tell you this. I don't work for an individual picture. If I must select one individual picture for a client, it is very difficult for me. — Sebastiao Salgado

No one can deny that the feudal wars, which were quite localized and subject moreover to restrictive regulation by the spiritual authority, were nothing compared to the national wars that have resulted, following the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire, in armed nations, and we have seen in our own day new developments hardly reassuring for the future.
By compelling all men indiscriminately lo take part in modern wars, the essential distinctions among the social functions are entirely ignored, this being moreover a logical consequence of 'egalitarianism'. — Rene Guenon

I think everyone's a little afraid of being part of a trend, because you get compared to each other. Writers tend to have a lot of camaraderie, and when you're constantly compared to someone else, it kind of damages that camaraderie, but I think this is a great trend. I'm honored to be a part of it in many ways. — Veronica Roth

I would love to have read about myself being compared to Lauren Bacall. — Rhea Seehorn

In this day and age, especially with all the media and television, social media, and the Internet, we are constantly being compared and comparing ourselves to others' lives and journeys. Keep your eyes on your own road. — Sanaa Lathan

I sleep for an entire day. And when I wake up I'm a new person. I'm empty. I've cried out everything I had in me. I'm an empty shell waiting to be filled with what comes next. Or I'm just being a total drama queen. I'm not empty. I'm still a person. I cried over a bad thing that happened in my life, but I probably shouldn't have. Compared to Mom's crisis, mine was small. Compared to a thousand other girls' around the world, mine is insignificant. It wasn't bad. Not compared to everyone else. It was just a couple seconds. It wasn't years. It wasn't months, like Mom. It wasn't a family member. Wasn't someone I see anymore. It didn't even hurt. There was no blood. It wasn't bad. Not compared to others'. So I should stop crying. — Sara Wolf

Lehi, in counseling his son Jacob, makes a very challenging statement: "All things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things." (2 Ne. 2:24.) If I interpret this statement correctly, it means that one's wisdom is proportionate to his knowledge. This being so, how insignificant is the wisdom of man, which is based upon his limited mortal experience, when compared with the wisdom of God, which is based upon his knowledge of all things. — Marion G. Romney

It amazes me, every single time, to see so much certainty backed by so much ignorance and neglect on what is being believed and shared. The mass wisdom of the fools can only be compared to the egotistical need of schizophrenics with many imaginary friends. — Robin Sacredfire

When I was there at Marvel, everybody thought if you could draw well and you could do sensational panels, that you were going to be a success. The truth is that no matter how good or bad you are as a draftsman, if you can't tell a story, you don't last in comics ... About halfway through my stay at Marvel, I realized I was being paid to tell a story, not do a drawing. That's why my stuff is always rather simple and uncomplicated compared to a lot of guys. — John Romita, Sr.

The damage done through abuse is awful and heinous, but minor compared to the dynamics that distort the victim's relationship with God and rob her of the joy of loving and being loved by others. — Dan B. Allender

Being compared to Biggie, that's the best feeling a rapper could have — Black Rob

Being male and being female, and working out what that means, is something most of creation is called to do and be, and unless we are to collapse into a kind of gnosticism, where the way things are in creation is regarded as secondary and shabby compared to what we are now to do with it, we have to recognize, respect, and respond to this call of God to live in the world he has made and as the people he has made us. It's just that we can't use the argument that being male-plus-female is somehow what being God's image bearers actually means. — N. T. Wright

I will be judged as a human being by what readers find here. There are hazards to openness, but they seem minor compared with the possibility that some readers may find comfort, perhaps even inspiration, from a close examination of how an ordinary person, with strengths and weaknesses like anyone else, has managed an extraordinary journey. — Sonia Sotomayor

The man who is unable to people his solitude is equally unable to be alone in a bustling crowd. The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself or some one else, as he chooses. [ ... ] The solitary and thoughtful stroller finds a singular intoxication in this universal communion. [ ... ] What men call love is a very small, restricted, feeble thing compared with this ineffable orgy, this divine prostitution of the soul giving itself entire ... to the unexpected as it comes along, the stranger as he passes. — Charles Baudelaire

I am told the Cheney-Bush team dislikes their junta being compared to the Nazis. If they ceased behaving like Nazis, no comparison would come to mind. — Gore Vidal

Being a feminist in principle is easy compared to being a feminist in practice. For men and women, living each day in practical defiance of thousands of years of gender-based streaming is so much harder than walking in marches, running workshops, and writing blog posts. It means questioning everything you do, moment by moment, day by day. It means thinking differently and making dozens of conscious decisions every day that you might have made on auto-pilot before. It's hard. It's taxing. It's tiring. — Terry Fallis

From the very beginning you are being told to compare yourself with others. This is the greatest disease; it is like a cancer that goes on destroying your very soul because each individual is unique, and comparison is not possible. I am just myself and you are just yourself. There is nobody else in the world you can be compared with. — Rajneesh

What I complain of is that life is not like a novel where there are hard-hearted fathers, and goblins and trolls to fight with, enchanted princesses to free. What are all such enemies taken together compared to the pallid, bloodless, glutinous nocturnal shapes with which I fight and to which I myself give life and being. — Soren Kierkegaard

One result of this productive system is that the middle class has grown from being about 15 percent of the population in 1920 to being 86 percent of the population in 2011. While some of the population always seem to live at the poverty line, the vast majority of Americans today are affluent compared to their grandparents. They have the money to buy the products produced by American industry. In the process, the definition of poverty has changed. The majority of Americans who are classified by the government as living at the poverty level have indoor plumbing, color television sets, cell phones, air-conditioning, washers and dryers, microwaves, automobiles, and access to free health care. They are also a significant buying group. — Arthur Hughes

So let us no more think of being compared to women as an insult." It — Ken Liu

Veeva should count her blessings. Three years ago it was cocaine and a year ago it was crack and lemme tell you, that stuff you got to have. You do anything for that high." He laughed again, savoring his memories. "Where do you think the furniture went? Up my nose, that's where. She finally had me carted out of here screaming like an insane man. Spent some time in Bellevue with little sparkly bugs coming out my orifices. Compared to that being a drunk is practically a sensible existence. — Dan Ahearn

One has only to set a loved human being against the fact that we are all in peril all the time to get back a sense of proportion. What does anything matter compared to the reality of love and its span, so brief at best, maintained against such odds? — May Sarton

Everything I have written up to now is trifling compared to that which I would like to write and would write with great pleasureEither I am a fool and a self-conceited person, or I am a being capable of becoming a good writer; I am displeased and bored with everything now being written, while everything in my head interests, moves, and excites me-whence I draw the conclusion that no one is doing what is needed, and I alone know the secret of how it should be done. In all likelihood everyone who writes thinks that. In fact, the devil himself will be brought to his knees by these questions. — Anton Chekhov

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. — Terry Pratchett

We adorn graves with flowers and redolent plants, just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in the Holy Scriptures to those fading beauties whose roots, being buried in dishonor, rise again in glory. — John Evelyn

Firstly, that God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. Secondly, the Earth's a Libra. — Terry Pratchett

Religion robs the soul of its independence; patriotism is the stupid worship of the world for which the well-being and the peace of the inhabitants were sacrificed by those who profit by it, while the laws of the land, in restraining natural desires, were waging war on the manifest spirit of the law of our beings. Compared with this," he concluded, "thieving is an honorable pursuit."[5] — Emma Goldman

The reason we feel disillusioned about our life and faith is not because Christianity isn't fulfilling, but because we've stopped thinking and acting like a Christian - someone who has sold all she has for the pearl of great value, someone who considers everything a loss compared to the greatness of knowing Jesus Christ. Without this opportunity to suffer we will, like Lance, "go crazy," becoming undisciplined robots who think that relief is found in leisure and irresponsibility when in fact it comes from being wholly devoted to God's kingdom. — Gary L. Thomas

I remembered the taste of good Italian coffee in my London flat, brewed at the expense of time and a good deal of mess, compared to the sort that came out of machines in the office at the press of a button. I remembered walking to art school, through the windy winter, over hills and heaths: how much gladder I was to reach the rich warmth and to toast my hands on a radiator, than if I had gone by car. I remembered the nickels my father gave me as a child for being good: how much more I valued them than I would a dollar bill given all at once for no reason. Of course God as the ultimate parent could give happiness for the asking, just as my father could have given a handful of dollar bills, but at the age of five would I have known its value, or would it have looked to me just like a wad of grubby green paper? — Sumangali Morhall

Prison's a walk in the park compared with being sectioned, mate, it really is. — Adam Ant

I didn't like it when he looked at me like that. I could never escape the feeling that i was being compared to someone else. — Jojo Moyes

Stop attaching so much weight to being right. In the grand scheme of things, being right is insignificant compared with being happy. — Deepak Chopra

Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared. — Erica Jong

There's no shame compared to being beautiful with nothing in your brain, an ugly devil with wits is much better that the former. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Norway's a very gender-aware country, and we're very liberal. There are lots of women's voices being heard here compared to many other countries. — Jenny Hval

The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Another school of opinion followed Mr. Fearenside, and either accepted the piebald view or some modification of it; as, for instance, Silas Durgan, who was heard to assert that "if he chooses to show enself at fairs he'd make his fortune in no time," and being a bit of a theologian, compared the stranger to the man with the one talent. Yet another view explained the entire matter by regarding the stranger as a harmless lunatic. That had the advantage of accounting for everything straight away. Between — H.G.Wells

I keep getting compared to Marina and the Diamonds because she's kind of in the same place as me at the moment. It's quite annoying being compared, actually, because it almost downgrades your work and makes you feel like you're just another female artist. — Ellie Goulding

If people insist that honor is dearer than life itself, what they really mean is that existence and well-being are as nothing compared with other people's opinions. Of course, this may be only an exaggerated way of stating the prosaic truth that reputation, that is, the opinion others have of us, is indispensable if we are to make any progress in the world. — Arthur Schopenhauer

It takes no more research than a trip to almost any public library or college to show the incredibly lopsided coverage of slavery in the United States or in the Western Hemisphere, as compared to the meager writings on even larger number of Africans enslaved in the Islamic countries of the Middle East and North Africa, not to mention the vast numbers of Europeans also enslaved in centuries past in the Islamic world and within Europe itself. At least a million Europeans were enslaved by North African pirates alone from 1500 to 1800, and some Europeans slaves were still being sold on the auction blocks in the Egypt, years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed blacks in the United States. — Thomas Sowell

It is a mass language only in the same sense that its baseball slang is born of baseball players. That is, it is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be within the grasp of superficially educated people. It is not a natural growth, much as its proletarian writers would like to think so. But compared with it at its best, English has reached the Alexandrian stage of formalism and decay. — Raymond Chandler

I do not enjoy the promotional side of being a writer, to be blunt about it. Even with the little amount that is expected of me, which is nothing compared to the life of an artist. Writers can live in obscurity and come out of the woodwork with a book, then go back in. Artists don't have that luxury. — Rachel Kushner

We like to say that India has the advantage of being a large market. We have provinces, we have the rule of law, we have a system of justice. But those are also weaknesses when compared with China. On the other hand, one of our strengths is that we are very individualistic, and as individuals we are very creative. But that, too, is a weakness, because it keeps us from working well together. Everyone thinks only about his own profit. — Ratan Tata

I never mind talking about my dad. I'm proud of who he is, and being his son is one of the things I'm most proud of. To be constantly compared to someone so brilliant, who happens to be your dad, is cool. — Rafe Spall

If you can't relax during your interview, then nothing you do to prepare will matter. Being yourself is essential to the selection process, and interviewers will feel it if you're too nervous. Showing fear or anxiety appears weak compared to a relaxed smile and genuine confidence. — Travis Bradberry

But some of the greatest achievements in philosophy could only be compared with taking up some books which seemed to belong together, and putting them on different shelves; nothing more being final about their positions than that they no longer lie side by side. The onlooker who doesn't know the difficulty of the task might well think in such a case that nothing at all had been achieved. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The lifetime of a human being is measured by decades, the lifetime of the Sun is a hundred million times longer. Compared to a star, we are like mayflies, fleeting ephemeral creatures who live out their lives in the course of a single day. — Carl Sagan

I do gravitate toward 19th century writers, and I never mind being compared with some of the most memorable writers from that era. I mean, George Eliot is my absolute heroine. — Julia Glass

Trying to navigate the halls of Hogwarts was like ... probably not quite as bad as wandering around inside an Escher painting, that was the sort of thing you said for rhetorical effect rather than for its being true.
A short time later, Harry was thinking that in fact an Escher painting would have both pluses and minuses compared to Hogwarts. Minuses: No consistent gravitational orientation. Pluses: At least the stairs wouldn't move around WHILE YOU WERE STILL ON THEM. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

It was like wanting ice cream instead of meat loaf, and being told that children in refugee camps would be grateful for the meat loaf. Yes, of course she had nothing to complain about, compared to so many people, but when had that ever stopped anyone from complaining? Happiness was a balloon that always hovered just out of arm's reach. — Emma Donoghue

Did you hear what I said?"
"I'm still getting over being chased by a bear." The bear was nothing compared to seeing Lori naked.
"Right." Then she pulled on her jeans. — Terry Spear

So the challenge, as you contemplate your next opportunity to be boring or remarkable, is to answer these two questions: (1) "If I get criticized for this, will I suffer any measurable impact? Will I lose my job, get hit upside the head with a softball bat, or lose important friendships?" If the only side effect of the criticism is that you will feel bad about the criticism, then you have to compare that bad feeling with the benefits you'll get from actually doing something worth doing. Being remarkable is exciting, fun, profitable, and great for your career. Feeling bad wears off.
And then, once you've compared the bad feeling and the benefits, and you've sold yourself on taking the remarkable path, answer this one: (2) How can I create something that critics will criticize? — Seth Godin

I'm looking at some comedic horror films because I have often been accused of being too dark. I'm not dark, not compared with 'Saw' or anything like that. So I'm looking at live-action horror films, but not slasher ones - ones that have humor and maybe some social satire. — Henry Selick

We heard later through the grapevine that we were being compared to the Furious 5, and because of that we were getting feedback that they were saying that we werent all that, that we were copying them ... blah blah blah. — Kool Moe Dee

One thing I want to emphasize is that, like any human being, we can discuss our view of the economy and the market. Fortunately for our clients, we don't tend to operate based on the view. Our investment strategy is to invest bottom up, one stock at a time, based on price compared to value. And while we may have a macro view that things aren't very good right now - which in fact we feel very strongly we will put money to work regardless of that macro view if we find bargains. So tomorrow, if we found half a dozen bargains, we would invest all our cash. — Seth Klarman

The best compliment I've gotten was being compared to Randy Johnson. We're both hard-throwing. — Jennie Finch

What's the big deal? I have really strong morals, and just because I look sexy on the cover of Rolling Stone doesn't mean I'm a naughty girl. I'd do it again. I thought the pictures were fine. And I was tired of being compared to Debbie Gibson and all of this bubblegum pop all the time. — Britney Spears

Other perks of working for Disney are primarily in the form of discounts. The money I've saved through Disney discounts is unbelievable. I remember working at Staples and being excited when they finally gave us a 10% discount, which is nothing compared to what Disney offers. I got up to 60% off hotel rooms, 20-40% off merchandise, 20-40% off dining, a variety of discounts on Disney recreational offerings, 20% off quick service meals at Animal Kingdom and the resorts, and a holiday coupon book which included 30%, 40%, and 50% off meal coupons, free popcorn and soda coupons, free PhotoPass downloads, free rounds of mini golf, and extra park tickets. — Brittany DiCologero

Protestantism and Catholicism must not be compared to Sunnism and Shi'ism in the Islamic context as has been done by certain scholars. Sunnism and Shi'ism both go back to the origins of Islam and the very beginning of Islamic history whereas Protestantism is a later protest against the existing Catholic Church and came into being some fifteen hundred years after the foundation of Christianity. — Seyyed Hossein Nasr

The human being is that space in which the comprehensive compassion that pervades the universe from the very beginning now begins to surface
within consciousness. (As compared with the natural displays of compassion by other creatures that is not necessarily 'within consciousness. ') That's the only difference. We didn't create compassion, but it's flowing through us-or it could. The phase change that we're in seems, to me, to depend upon that comprehensive compassion unfurling in the human species. — Brian Swimme

For all the pain I saw at Paterson, it is nothing compared to the pain that people inflict upon each other in the real world. All I can think of now is that it is not right for me to be unaware of that pain, including the pain that I inflict on others. Only how is it possible to live without being either numb to it or overwhelmed by it? — Francisco X Stork

Hamlet misspoke, Strawl decided. It is consciousness that makes cowards of us all, not conscience. Right and wrong are venomless when compared to the simple awareness of being alive. The knowledge that existence can equal something past the sum of our circulation and digestion, that those corporeal purposes serve a galaxy of space between a man's ears, whose suns and planets obey his own peculiar science, but one in which he alone recognizes the order, and only in glimpses, epiphanies that melt before he can speak or even think them--and the knowledge even this distant self is not his possession but belongs to others weighing and judging the dim and distant light he emits. — Bruce Holbert

Granted, many of them replied, that socialism may not result in riches for all but rather in a smaller production of wealth; nevertheless the masses will be happier under socialism, because they will share their worries with all their fellow citizens, and there will not be wealthier classes to be envied by poorer ones. The starving and ragged workers of Soviet Russia, they tell us, are a thousand times more joyful than the workers of the West who live under conditions which are luxurious compared to Russian standards; equality in poverty is a more satisfactory state than well-being where there are people who can flaunt more luxuries than the average man. — Ludwig Von Mises

It's interesting how Obama's adorers in the press keep comparing him to Lincoln and Reagan. Apparently they can't think of a Democrat president worthy of being compared to. — Ann Coulter

Compared with members of other nations of Western civilization, the ordinary American is a rationalistic being, and there are close relations between his moralism and his rationalism. Even romanticism, transcendentalism, and mysticism tend to be, in the American culture, rational, pragmatic and optimistic. — Gunnar Myrdal

Nicholas is sometimes compared with his half-crazy great-great-grandfather Paul, who was strangled by a camarilla acting in agreement with his own son, Alexander "the Blessed." These two Romanovs were actually alike in their distrust of everybody due to a distrust of themselves, their touchiness as of omnipotent nobodies, their feeling of abnegation, their consciousness, as you might say, of being crowned pariahs. But Paul was incomparably more colorful; there was an element of fancy in his rantings, however irresponsible. In his descendant everything was dim; there was not one sharp trait. Nicholas — Leon Trotsky

We were to write a short essay on one of the works we read in the course and relate it to our lives. I chose the "Allegory of the Cave" in Plato's Republic. I compared my childhood of growing up in a family of migrant workers with the prisoners who were in a dark cave chained to the floor and facing a blank wall. I wrote that, like the captives, my family and other migrant workers were shackled to the fields day after day, seven days a week, week after week, being paid very little and living in tents or old garages that had dirt floors, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. I described how the daily struggle to simply put food on our tables kept us from breaking the shackles, from turning our lives around. I explained that faith and hope for a better life kept us going. I identified with the prisoner who managed to escape and with his sense of obligation to return to the cave and help others break free. — Francisco Jimenez

No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history, or philosophy, or poetry, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? — Henry David Thoreau

Woman is not a fixed reality but a becoming; she has to be compared with man in her becoming; that is, her possibilities have to be defined: what skews the issues so much is that she is being reduced to what she was, to what she is today, while the question concerns her capacities; the fact is that her capacities manifest themselves clearly only when they have been realized: but the fact is also that when one considers a being who is transcendence and surpassing, it is never possible to close the books. — Simone De Beauvoir

Christianity is being compared with other religions as never before. Some so-called Christian leaders even advocate the working out of a system of morals, ethics, and religion that would bring together all the religions of the world. It cannot be done. Jesus Christ is unique. — Billy Graham

I have lived my life backwards as compared to my peers. Everyone did incredibly stupid things as teenagers and pre-teens. I didn't. I was the one telling everybody that they were incredibly stupid. Now that they are all past that stage and we are all much older - I am the one doing incredibly stupid things. I have figured that I've earned that right, by now! You have to earn the right to be stupid. — C. JoyBell C.

The sting and pain of my Mark was nothing compared to the pain I'm feeling now. It's a scraping deep down, a dull blade being used to dig out my heart. — RaeLynn Fry

Being on stage isn't so tough compared to the football pitch. — Eric Cantona

Life is often compared to a marathon, but I think it is more like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best. — Michael Johnson

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

God, why do I bother trying to help you? It's not like you appreciate it. It's not like the word 'thanks' is in your vocabulary. It's like you're not capable of being nice to someone you decided to despise when you were six-years-old. Sure, about twelve years have passed, but what's time compared to your rock-headed mind? - Tran — Krista Alasti

Out of the long tunnels of his eyes Adam saw his half-brother Charles as a bright being of another species, gifted with muscle and bone, speed and alertness, quite on a different plane, to be admired as one admires the sleek lazy danger of a black leopard, not by any chance to be compared with one's self. — John Steinbeck

War is being declared tomorrow here so perhaps you can understand that I have been working under difficulties, but difficulties negligible compared with what others have to go through. — Malcolm Lowry

What said those two souls communicating through the language of the eyes, more perfect than that of the lips, the language given to the soul in order that sound may not mar the ecstasy of feeling? In such moments, when the thoughts of two happy beings penetrate into each other's souls through the eyes, the spoken word is halting, rude, and weak - it is as the harsh, slow roar of the thunder compared with the rapidity of the dazzling lightning flash, expressing feelings already recognized, ideas already understood, and if words are made use of it is only because the heart's desire, dominating all the being and flooding it with happiness, wills that the whole human organism with all its physical and psychical powers give expression to the song of joy that rolls through the soul. To the questioning glance of love, as it flashes out and then conceals itself, speech has no reply; the smile, the kiss, the sigh answer. — Jose Rizal

In the past, I'll admit, I've enjoyed being compared to the protagonists in my screenplays. — Diablo Cody

The Triumph Of Achilles

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted--
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal. — Louise Gluck

Being the chief minister of a regional government is just a pastime compared with the hellish job of being prime minister of two different communities brought together. — Elio Di Rupo

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

She had already allowed her delectable lover to pluck that flower which, so different from the rose to which it is nevertheless sometimes compared, has not the same faculty of being reborn each spring. — Marquis De Sade

The majority of people are not awake; it is only here and there that we find one even partially awake. Practically all of us, as a result, are living lives that are unworthy almost the name of lives, compared to those we might be living, and that lie within our easy grasp. While it is true that each life is in and of Divine Being, hence always one with it, in order that this great fact bear fruit in individual lives, each one must be conscious of it; he or she must know it in thought, and then live continually in this consciousness. — Ralph Waldo Trine

Now the spectacle was before him in its glory, and as he looked out on it he felt shy, old-fashioned, inadequate: a mere grey speck of a man compared with the ruthless magnificent fellow he had dreamed of being ... — Edith Wharton

You have the fruit of the spirit in you, because when Christ comes in you everything he is and has comes with him as a seed as a seed as a seed as a seed. If we can ever understand this we can finally get over being confused about what the Bible says we have compared to our experience. Everything the Bible says we have we have it. As believers in Christ it is in us, but it comes as a SEED! The Bible actually calls Christ THE Seed. Capital "S". So, I like to put it like this: When Christ first comes into your life the seed of everything God is comes into your spirit. The Bible says that the image of Christ is captured in us and that we are destined, you have a destiny, a destiny to be molded into his image of Jesus Christ. Your destiny and my destiny is to get out into the world and act like Jesus. — Joyce Meyer

She had imagined that the presence of of what she thought of as clever people would bring about some subtle change in the usual small talk. The sentences would be like bright jugglers' balls, spinning through the air and being deftly caught and thrown up again. But she saw now that conversation could also be compared to a series of incongruous objects, scrubbing-brushes, dish-cloths, knives, being flung or hurtling rather than spinning, which were sometimes not caught a all but fell to the ground with resounding thuds. — Barbara Pym

I now think that was distanced me from Tricia and from the Rape Crisis Center was their use of generalities. I did not want to be one of a group or compared with others. It somehow blindsided my sense that I was going to survive. Tricia prepared me for failure by saying that it would be okay if I failed. She did this by showing me that the odds out there were against me. But what she told me, I didn't want to hear. In the face of dismal statistics regarding arrest, prosecution, and even full recovery for the victim, I saw no choice but to ignore the statistics. I needed what gave me hope, like being assigned a female assistant district attorney, not the news that the number of rape prosecutions in Syracuse for that calendar year had been nil. — Alice Sebold

Being compared to the greatest-ever safety is pretty ridiculous. I continue to work toward that, but I'm not there and I know that. — Troy Polamalu

The obedience of Christ was far more acceptable to God, than the innocence of Adam; so that a thousand such as Adam could not have equalled Christ alone. For however he, had he continued in the state of innocence, would have left us an hereditary righteousness, of which we should have been possessed: notwithstanding, unspeakably greater, and more excellent, is our union with God in Christ, since he being made man, hath so purified and exalted the human nature in himself, that the primitive state of Adam is not once to be compared with it. — Johann Arndt

I dread the promotion part of my job. It's agony, especially compared to the private, at-home joy of writing. But being a grown-up means doing every part of the larger task. — Chuck Palahniuk

If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata
of creatures that worked like machines
would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free. — C.S. Lewis

In this view the body itself, with its two arms and vertical length, was compared to the Cross, on which you knew the agony of consciousness and separate being. — Saul Bellow

When we were doing 'The West Wing,' the hardest thing about doing 'The West Wing' was being compared to yourself. You go out there and want every episode to be as good as your best episode. I wrote 88 episodes of 'The West Wing,' and when you do that, one of them is going to be your 88th best, so your 88th best better be pretty good. — Aaron Sorkin

Marriage is a walk in the park compared to being a single mother or father. I'll take that walk later. — Sophie B. Hawkins

If you get stuck in the memories of those times, you won't be able to appreciate all the fun that's happening right now. So don't think 'That time was fun', instead you should be thinking 'That time was also fun'. The really fun things can't be compared with one another. Ah, but here's a piece of advice: being able to find the fun that's happening right now, that is the best way to enjoy the present. Because of that you should be try your best to value the present, since it's going to change, sooner or later. — Kozue Amano