Everything That Counts Quotes & Sayings

It had never occurred to Giles that there was something perfectly sensible about wanting to hold onto innocence. He had always gone in for the idea that since we only pass this way once, experience counts for everything. — Andrew Norman Wilson

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. — Albert Einstein

It's not their fault. It's because they've been taught that 'Work is holy, good and beautiful. It counts above everything else, and the workers alone will inherit the earth.' Only things have been arranged so that they have to spend all their time working and there's no time left for the rest of it to come true. — Boris Vian

He who believes in Me ... out of his heart will flow ... " John 7:38 Jesus did not say, "He who believes in Me will realize all the blessings of the fullness of God," but, in essence, "He who believes in Me will have everything he receives escape out of him." Our Lord's teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person - His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God's purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us - and we cannot measure that at all. — Oswald Chambers

Once practice starts, we work hard, and that's the best conditioning there is. Everything counts. Every little thing counts. Run hard, play hard, go after the ball hard, guard hard. If you play soft (what I call signing a 'non-aggression pact' with your teammates), you won't ever get into shape. — Pete Carril

Gospel was the root of everything in my house, so there's a touch of that in everything that I do. If soul counts as a genre, I would also say that's the common thread throughout everything I do. There's rock and soul influence, too. The pop element comes at the very end and making the song catchy so people will remember it. — Tori Kelly

People who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They have not been content with mediocrity. They have not confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others so them, but always a little better. They always pushed things that came to their hands a little higher up, this little farther on, that counts in the quality of life's work. It is constant effort to be first-class in everything one attempts that conquers the heights of excellence. — Orison Swett Marden

Luckily for both the tech industry and Hollywood, there is only one thing that counts - use of the Internet is still growing exponentially, as consumers shift to digital everything from analog. — Kara Swisher

To ignore [the] great social facts
political facts, if you please
and over-emphasize the old moral responsibility of the 'domestic' mother is a hollow mockery and betrays a hopeless ignorance of industrial and urban conditions in the Twentieth Century ... Everything that counts in the common life is political. — Mary Ritter Beard

Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time. — Meryl Streep

Everything that happens before Death is what counts. — Ray Bradbury

The Cult of Done Bre Pettis wrote this manifesto on his blog: 1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion. 2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done. 3. There is no editing stage. 4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it. 5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it. 6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done. 7. Once you're done you can throw it away. 8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done. 9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right. 10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes. 11. Destruction is a variant of done. 12. If you have an idea and publish it on the Internet, that counts as a ghost of done. 13. Done is the engine of more. — Seth Godin

At one point, trying to explain her unhappiness, Sanna was to say to Miss Love, "I read some psychology books in college. Everything that's supposed to warp a child happened to me." Miss Love, who had been raped as an adolescent, replies, "Everything that could warp a child happened to me, too. But understanding that doesn't help. It's interesting but it doesn't help. I figure that what you do with your life now is all that counts. I try not to look back. — Olive Ann Burns

Popular,
You're gonna be
Popular!
I'll teach you the proper ploys
when you talk to boys!
Little ways to flirt
and flounce!
I'll show you what shoes to wear,
how to fix your hair,
everything that really counts,
to be
POPULAR!! — Stephen Schwartz

Finance people should remember Albert Einstein's wise words: "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. — Bjarte Bogsnes

Words are really a mask,' he said. 'They rarely express the true meaning; in fact they tend to hide it. If you can live in fantasy, then you don't need religion, since with fantasy you can understand that after death, man is reincorporated in the Universe. Once again I will say that it is not important to know whether there is something beyond this life. What counts is having done the right sort of work; if that is right, then everything else will be all right. The Universe, or Nature, is for me what God is for others. It is wrong to think that Nature is the enemy of man, something to be conquered. Rather, we should look upon Nature as a mother, and should peaceably surrender ourselves to it. If we take that attitude, we will simply feel that we are returning to the Universe as all other things do, all animals and plants. We are all just infinitesimal parts of the Whole. It is absurd to rebel; we must deliver ourselves up to the great current ... — Miguel Serrano

It's only the essence of a thing that counts. When time strips everything else away, it's only the hardness of the bone that's left. — Diana Gabaldon

When you know that everything matters - that every move counts as much as any other - you will begin living a life of permanent purpose. — Andy Andrews

[I]f you set out to mention everything you would never be done, and that's what counts, to be done, to have done. Oh, I know, even when you mention only a few of the things there are you do not get done either, I know, I know. But it's a change of muck. And if all muck is the same muck that doesn't matter, it's good to have a change of muck, to move from one heap to another, from time to time, fluttering you might say, like a butterfly, as if you were ephemeral. — Samuel Beckett

Maybe your dream is to go to school or get a degree or accomplish a certain task or find a spouse or start a business or move to a certain place or create a movement or carry the gospel to people who've never heard it before. Those may be great dreams, but there's a bigger dream that overrides everything else: it's that your life counts for the glory of God. That's the overriding dream of God's heart. If we don't embrace that dream, then we are in trouble, because all our smaller dreams are subject to change. — Louie Giglio

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts
for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient,
self-explanatory and complete.
Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the
experience of experiences is being alive. — Carlos Castaneda

The emotion I'd held back for years assaulted me with staggering intensity. Everything. All of it. I cried for Clay, for the lost years with Courtney, but most of all for myself and the cowardly person I'd become. They were right. I was a shell of who I used to be and lived a lonely little life. I'd been certain that protecting my heart had been the right way to go. That Courtney and I didn't mix in the long term. That love was not for me. I'd been wrong on all counts. — Melissa Brayden

I've never written poetry. I'm not a poet, but I think the nearest you get is either the short story or the novella, in that you can't waste a word. There is no hiding place: everything's got to be seen to relate, and the prose counts. — Susan Hill

In order to be really good as a librarian, everything counts towards your work, every play you go see, every concert you hear, every trip you take, everything you read, everything you know. I don't know of another occupation like that. The more you know, the better you're going to be. — Allen Smith

Certainly, a clear line must be preserved by strict discipline, and on the other hand the men must know that everything is done for them that hard times permit. On the top of that it follows that, among real men, what counts is deeds, not words; and then it comes of itself, when such are the relations between men and their leaders, that instead of opposition there is harmony between them. The leader is merely a clearer expression of the common will and an example of life and death. And there is no science in all this. It is a practical quality, the simple manly commonsense that is native to a sound and vigorous race. — Ernst Junger

So, what counts is that you think this is the best choice.

Once you've decided that, you should chase it down with everything you've got. — Maki Murakami

It's not what you spend but how you wear it that counts. The key is often to dress up inexpensive basics with accessories. Something like a beautiful designer bag or belt can make everything else look richer and more luxurious. — Chloe Sevigny

To reject any vast group of one's cultural ancestors in the cause of some current theory is not just arrogance; it's posthumous mass murder. It's the same kind of thinking that makes genocide possible. The masses (albeit the dead masses) and the pathetic little lives they lived are irrelevant compared to this greater purpose we have at hand. Write them out of the record. They never existed.
...
One could not judge things by the brief span of one's own lifetime. That was at the core of modern arrogance: only my lifetime counts. My lifetime is 'forever.' Time before it and time after it do not exist. Everything of importance must come to pass in my lifetime. This is what drives the frenzy for change. — Tony Hendra

It's sweet and everything, but it's like you're not even there sometimes. It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things."
"Like what?" I asked. My mouth was dry.
"I don't know. Like take their hands when the slow song comes up for a change. Or be the one who asks someone for a date. Or tell people what you need. Or what you want. — Stephen Chbosky

Most adults assume that the feelings of adolescence don't count, somehow, and that those searing passions of rage and hate and embarrassment and horror and hopeless, abject love are something your grow out of, something hormonal, a practice run for the Real Thing. It wasn't. At 13 *everything* counts; there are sharp edges on everything, and all of them cut. — Joanne Harris

Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein — Joshua Becker

Facing death means facing the ultimate question of the meaning of life. If we really want to live we must have the courage to recognize that life is ultimately very short, and that everything we do counts. — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The principles are important. First, the interest of the state or society counts for everything, that of the individual for nothing. Second, the only difference between men and women is one of physical function- one begets, the other bears children. Apart from that, they both can and should perform the same functions - though men on a whole, perform them better and should receive the same education to enable them to do so; for in this way society will get the best value from both. — Plato

We didn't always get on, you know that, but ... yes. We respected each other; that counts for a lot. And we liked each other, in spite of everything. Yes, — Diana Gabaldon

Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost, she was just there across the river, waiting for him to find her. Nick was not lost either
not entirely.
It was then that Mikey McGill realized something. It must have been his sister who first called this place Everlost, because by naming it so, it stripped away all hope except for a faith in her, and the "safety" she could provide. Well, Mary was wrong on all counts, because nothing in Everlost was lost forever, if one had the courage to search for it.
Mikey held tightly on to this shining truth as he and the golem sunk into the earth. Then with all the force of his heart, his mind, and his soul, Mikey McGill began to dig. — Neal Shusterman

You invest a lot in your kids, from the sleepless nights early on and the frightening trips to the emergency room, to homework assignments and a million miles of taxi driving. The great thing is that everything you put in counts, and with a bit of luck, one day they will realize it. Love adds up to something. It's indestructible and immortal and carries long on after your own life is over. Who could ask for more? — Steve Biddulph

I would attack any squadron blockading a port. Nothing could prevent me from dropping out of the clear blue sky on to a battleship with 400 kilos of explosives in the cockpit. Of course it is true that the pilot would be killed, but everything would blow up, and that's what counts. — Jules Vedrines

I learned in school that money isn't everything. It's happiness that counts. So momma sent me to a different school. — Zsa Zsa Gabor

Your life will always be the perfect classroom journey for you and every experience that shows up in your journey is here to serve you. There is meaning and purpose behind everything that happens. There are no accidents which means your suffering through difficulties is never for nothing. Your life matters and everything you experience matters. Your trials are there to help you become a better person and trusting this is truth will take some of the sting out of them. Suffering becomes more bearable if it at least counts for something. — Kimberly Giles

It's the spirit here that counts. The time may be long, the vehicle may be strange or unexpected. But if the dream is held close to the heart, and imagination is applied to what there is close at hand, everything is still possible. — Robert Fulghum

The only thing that counts in life is solid, material assets. It's no time for theories when everything is falling to pieces around us. — Ayn Rand

A trip to a Central American jungle to watch how Indians behave near a bridge won't make you see either the jungle or the bridge or the Indians if you believe that the civilization you were born into is the only one that counts. Go and look around with the idea that everything you learned in school and college is wrong. — B. Traven

Bit by bit, putting it together ...
Piece by piece, only way to make a work of art.
Every moment makes a contribution,
Every little detail plays a part.
Having just the vision's no solution,
Everything depends on execution,
Putting it together, that's what counts. — Stephen Sondheim

People think that their vote counts. They go to college, and everything gets mixed up. People stop caring, ... They raise the gas prices, but what the Everyman makes and welfare never seem to keep up. The HMO system is so ridiculous. I'm slightly educated. No one wants to hear what Hilary Duff thinks of the economy. — Shia Labeouf

They can go about collecting every material thing of worldly value, but they're missing everything that truly counts. When you've got nothing else, family means everything to you. — Megan Thomason

I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of anything."
"Yes, you are, on both counts. You're afraid of everything. In England there are castles with stone walls that go up over a hundred feet, built during a time when it was the strength of your fortress that won battles. Each time I look at you, I marvel at the feat of organic engineering that's allowed you to create such a fortification within a perfect composition of female flesh. — Joey W. Hill

There is a bit [in Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal?] where I talk about 'keeping the heart awake to love and beauty.' That's very difficult in our world, even when things are going well. It's not a world with much room for love and beauty. The daily news is [filled with] everything that goes wrong in our world, and everything horrible and unpleasant. I think that saturates your mind with negativity. I really think we need something to counteract that. I don't think it's Pollyanna or sentimental to focus on the ways we support one another on the micro level.
(from "It is the Imagination that Counts") — Jeanette Winterson

When material is in profusion, the mind gets lazy and leaves everything to it, forgetting that for a successful feast of joy its internal equipment counts for more than the external. This is the chief lesson which his infant state has to teach to man. There his possessions are few and trivial, yet he needs no more for his happiness. The world of play is spoilt for the unfortunate youngster who is burdened with an unlimited quantity of playthings. — Rabindranath Tagore

Like everything in life, it is not what happens to you but how you respond to it that counts. — Steve Backley

You can viddy that everything in this wicked world counts. You can pony that one thing always leads to another. Right right right. — Anthony Burgess

Life is funny. You start out with limitless potential, but time is always shaving away the possibilities. Every choice you make is the choice not to do a thousand other things. What's important, when all is said and done, is that you made a difference. Your choices, and everything undone, have to mean something. Otherwise, what was the point? I'm lucky that way. My path was already there. I had only to walk it. I often thought even if no one knew of the good I had done with my life, it didn't matter. That it was done is all that counts in the end. But then I died. And I hadn't gotten to do any of it yet. — Brian Clevinger

I guess it's not the plan that counts, but the words in which the plan is wrapped. Semantics count for everything, and it's obvious that the resolute Republicans are better at semantics than the weak, flip-flopping Democrats. — Bruce Barnbaum

Not everything that counts can be counted. You can count sales. You can count fans and followers. You can count pins and tweets. But you can't count passion. You can't count commitment. You can't count engagement. You can't count relationships. — John Kremer

I always like to win. But I'm the big sister. I want to make sure she has everything, even if I don't have anything. It's hard. I love her too much. That's what counts. — Venus Williams

The author of IRR, who worshipped the King, said he had the valor of Hector, the magnanimity of Achilles, the liberality of Titus, the eloquence of Nestor, and the prudence of Ulysses; that he was the equal of Alexander and not inferior to Roland. But later historians tend to picture him rather as a remorseless, kindless villain. He was probably not a pleasant or a lovable character; none of the Plantagenets were. But a great soldier and a great commander he certainly was. He possessed that one quality without which nothing else in a commander counts: the determination to win. To this everything else - mercy, moderation, tact - was sacrificed. The avarice that so horrifies his critics was not simple greed: it was a quartermaster's greed for his army. His massacre of the prisoners was not simple cruelty, but a deliberate reminder to Saladin to keep faith with the terms agreed to, which that great opponent understood and respected. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Stella says when we were kids and things got bad she would go outside herself. She said she would be in a spot near the ceiling in the corner of the room. Watching. Like everything was happening to somebody else. Like you watch a movie on a screen.
Not me. I tuck in. I go into an even deeper place in myself. And I pull the covers in over me. And then I dare you to find me. You have to find me to touch me or hurt me. At least, the part of me that really counts. I go inside and just hold very still. And part of me feels dead. Like it doesn't matter. Whatever it is. It just doesn't matter. — Catherine Ryan Hyde

The father hesitated only a moment. He felt the vague pain in his chest. If I run, he thought, what will happen? Is Death important? No. Everything that happens before Death is what counts. And we've done fine tonight. Even Death can't spoil it. — Ray Bradbury

I wonder what it is about a certain novel that ticks the boxes for a reader. I mean, for me, a story can have the most fascinating plot in the world, but if the narrator's voice is dull, then the plot counts for nothing. For me, authorial charm is everything. — Victoria Connelly

How you run the race - your planning, preparation, practice, and performance - counts for everything. Winning or losing is a by-product, and aftereffect, of that effort. — John Wooden

They all know the truth, that there are only three subjects worth talking about. At least here in these parts," he says, "The weather, which, as they're farmers, affects everything else. Dying and birthing, of both people and animals. And what we eat - this last item comprising what we ate the day before and what we're planning to eat tomorrow. And all three of these major subjects encompass, in one way or another, philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, the physical sciences, history, art, literature, and religion. We get around to sparring about all that counts in life but we usually do it while we're talking about food, it being a subject inseparable from every other subject. It's the table and the bed that count in life. And everything else we do, we do so we can get back to the table, back to the bed. — Marlena De Blasi

- Is it their fault if they think that it's good to work?
- No, said Colin, it's not their fault. It's because they've been told : work is sacred, it's good, it's nice, it's what counts before anything, and only those who work have the right to everything. The only thing is, it's been set up so that they work all the time so they can't take advantage of it.
- But then they're stupid, said Chloe.
- Yes, they're stupid, said Colin. That's why they agree with those that made them believe that work is the best thing there is. That saves them from thinking and finding a way to progress and to no longer work. — Boris Vian

And if I failed to mention this detail in its proper place, it is because you cannot mention everything in its proper place, you much choose, between the things not worth mentioning and those even less so. For if you set out to mention everything you would never be done, and that's what counts, to be done, to have done. Oh I know, even when you mention only a few of the things there are, you do not get done either, I know, I know. But it's a change of muck. And if all muck is the same muck that doesn't matter, it's good to have a change of muck, to move from one heap to another a little further on, from time to time, fluttering you might say, like a butterfly, as if you were ephemeral. And if you are wrong, and you are wrong, I mean when you record circumstances better left unspoken, and leave unspoken others, rightly, if you like, but how shall I say, for no good reason, yes, rightly, but for no good reason, as for example that new moon, it is often in good faith, excellent faith. — Samuel Beckett

I'm going to fight for you. I'll bring down the Counts, and Chloe, and every Sector in the universe that gets in my way without think twice. I'm not interested in what the future has planned. I want to share everything with you, Skyla. I'm in love with you. — Addison Moore

I love everything about the holidays: the decorations, the parties, and spending time with friends and family. What I love most is that feeling of giving back. Every bit counts. — Brad Goreski

I did, of course, on both counts, and started going out with the boy I lost my virginity to - all of it. He lost his to me too, except that neither of us felt we had lost anything - just discovered the meaning of life and love and everything else unnecessary in between. — Elly Varrenti

It's story that counts. No use telling me this isn't
a story, or not the same story. I know you've fulfilled everything you promised, you love me, we sleep till noon and we spend the rest of the day eating, the food is superb, I don't deny that. But I worry about the future ... Don't evade, don't pretend you won't leave after all: you leave in the story and the story is ruthless. — Margaret Atwood

There's no denying that Christy Turlington looks good in everything, but it's especially great when she uses her supermodel looks and charitable spirit to support the organization she founded, Every Mother Counts. — Amanda Hearst

Even when everything seems rotten you can't trust that judgement,' Gloria had said. 'It's the sum of all your judgements that counts. — F Scott Fitzgerald

You know everything and you know nothing ...
And in that there's this: You will always learn something new. About him. About her. About yourself. And in learning the bad, the uncomfortable, the messy- it's what you take away that counts. What will you do with that knowledge? Will you leave? Pull tighter? Ignore it? Use it to fall in love even deeper? That's when you learn more about yourself. — Pamela Ribon