Foot Race Quotes & Sayings

It's a bad job," he said, when I had done; "but the sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the common lot. If we failed to hold our own, because that equal foot at all men's doors was heard knocking somewhere, every object in this world would slip from us. No! Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race! — Charles Dickens

When the race is ended, and the play is either won or lost, and ye are in the utmost circle and border of time, and shall put your foot within the march of eternity, all the good things of your short nightdream shall seem to you like ashes of a blaze of thorns or straw. — Samuel Rutherford

My unworldliness, even at 21, was abnormal. Not only had I never smoked tobacco nor touched alcohol of any description, but I had never yet set foot inside a theatre, or gone to a race course I had never seen, nor held a billiard cue, nor touched a card. — Algernon Blackwood

Kindness is the visible expression of a feeling and merciful heart; it is the going forth of a tender and susceptible mind; it claims kindred with the human race; it is all ear to listen-all heart to feel-all eye to examine and to weep-all hand and foot to relieve; it invites the sufferer with kind words, and sends him not empty away. — John Angell James

Philip knew by now that whenever anyone was angry with him his first thought was to say something about his club-foot. His estimate of the human race was determined by the fact that scarcely anyone failed to resist the temptation. — W. Somerset Maugham

Running a race assigns a point to a sport that often feels very pointless. It's an exuberant payoff to months of tedium. It's a way of crafting an end boss for a particularly cumbersome video game. It's a fun, monstrous reason to keep putting one foot in front of the other. So, do yourself a favor: go build a monster. — Matthew Inman

I swallowed, feeling my pulse race, and gave silent thanks that there were no eyewitnesses to my blushing, which could have set a cigar alight even a foot away. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The curse of every ancient civilization was that its men in the end became unable to fight. Materialism, luxury, safety, even sometimes an almost modern sentimentality, weakened the fibre of each civilized race in turn; each became in the end a nation of pacifists, and then each was trodden under foot by some ruder people that had kept that virile fighting power the lack of which makes all other virtues useless and sometimes even harmful. — Theodore Roosevelt

I have destroyed almost the whole race of frogs, which does not happen in that savage Batrachomyomachia of Homerr. For in the anatomy of frogs, which, by favour of my very excellent colleague D. Carolo Fracassato, I had set on foot in order to become more certain about the membranous substance of the lungs, it happened to me to see such things that not undeservedly I can better make use of that [saying] of Homer for the present matter
'I see with my eyes a work trusty and great.'
For in this (frog anatomy) owing to the simplicity of the structure, and the almost complete transparency of the vessels which admits the eye into the interior, things are more clearly shown so that they will bring the light to other more obscure matters. — Marcello Malpighi

There are always more questions. Science as a process is never complete. It is not a foot race, with a finish line ... People will always be waiting at a particular finish line: journalists with their cameras, impatient crowds eager to call the race, astounded to see the scientists approach, pass the mark, and keep running. It's a common misunderstanding, he said. They conclude there was no race. As long as we won't commit to knowing everything, the presumption is we know nothing. — Barbara Kingsolver

What happened yesterday was obviously a mistake, and it will never be spoken of again. Goodbye forever. — Faith Erin Hicks

There's a foot race between gas bills and paychecks. — Jerry A. Webman

So bring me this man, trembling and shivering from head to foot; let me fall into his arms or down at his knees; he will weep and we shall weep, he will be eloquent and I shall be comforted, and my heart shall melt into his, he will take my soul, and I his God.
But what is this kindly old gentleman to me? And what am I to him? Just one more member of the race of unfortunates, one more shade to go with the many he has seen, one more figure to add to his total of executions. — Victor Hugo

Whose boys are those with the holes in their pants?"
I cringed. How would my grandpa answer such an embarrassing question?
"Those are my daughter's children, my grandchildren," Grandpa spoke as if he'd just been asked who had won first place in a foot race or just been baptized into the church.
"Those pants are very well ironed," the stranger said. — Elizabeth Byler Younts

Race me back. Beat me there, and I'll tell you." I blinked. "What kind of kindergarten crap is that?" His grey eyes flashed with anger. "You want to know what it's like? Beat me down the beach." "Of all the ridiculous, immature nonsense," I said. Then I hooked a foot behind Thomas's calf, shoved him down to the sand, and took off down the beach at a dead sprint. — Jim Butcher

Life is like a foot race, Marcus: There will always be people who are faster than you, and there will always be those who are slower than you. What matters, in the end, is how you ran your race. — Joel Dicker

Because in all of the whole human race
Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two
There's the one staying put in his proper place
And the one with his foot in the other one's face
Look at me, Mrs Lovett, look at you.
No, we all deserve to die
Even you, Mrs Lovett, even I!
Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief
For the rest of us death will be a relief — Stephen Sondheim

Before long, billions of people around the world were working and playing in the OASIS every day. Some of them met, fell in love, and got married without ever setting foot on the same continent. The lines of distinction between a person's real identity and that of their avatar began to blur. It was the dawn of new era, one where most of the human race now spent all of their free time inside a videogame. — Ernest Cline

Ty and I are extremely competitive. We don't go soft on each other. We push each other, which ultimately helps us both. We race against each other in everything we do, whether it's a foot race to the car when we go out to a restaurant at night or on the racetrack. It's in the back of my mind that he's on the track with me, but we're both competitive and want to win. — Austin Dillon

Fertile plains, every foot of them tilled, are of the first necessity; but great natural playgrounds of mountain, forest, cliff-walled lake, and brawling brook are also necessary to the full and many-sided development of a fine race. — Theodore Roosevelt

Out of the debris of a statue thoroughly shattered a new art work is born: a naked foot unforgettably resting on a stone; a candid hand; a bent knee which contains all the speed of the foot race; a torso which has no face to prevent us from loving it. — Stephanie Crayencour

I said that when I looked at photographs of the firefighters who went into the Twin Towers, their faces looked to me like Irish faces. I hadn't yet learnt how careful outsiders have to be when talking about race in America, and I'd put my foot in it. Someone stood up and said aggressively, 'What do you mean by Irish faces?' — Colm Toibin

Everything that can weaken us as a race we have had for the last thousand years. It seems as if during that period the national life had this one end in view, viz how to make us weaker and weaker, till we have become real earthworms, crawling at the feet of every one who dares to put his foot on us. Therefore my friends, as one of your blood, as one that lives and dies with you, let me tell you that we want strength, strength, and every time strength. — Swami Vivekananda

They all deserve to die.
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because in all of the whole human race
Mrs Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two
There's the one they put in his proper place
And the one with his foot in the other one's face
Look at me, Mrs Lovett, look at you.
Now we all deserve to die
Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.
Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief
For the rest of us death will be a relief
We all deserve to die. — Stephen Sondheim

Little boys are still playing the game [baseball], more little girls are playing, and it is still the world's most interesting game, a duel, a chess match, a foot race, a gymnastics exhibition, that rare opportunity for individuals to be recognized within a group effort. — Robert Lipsyte

The elders say- difficult to prove- that winged creatures also dream. The birds are lovers of heights, always searching out landing spots, never constant here at the foot of the human race. 'It's that they discovered a magical advantage ... ' they say, 'the sound of silence.'
At the foot of the clouds the raindrops come earlier, it's true, and the silence of the sky is something unattainable for those who don't fly- we have never experimented. The dream of the birds was that man of them headed for a land where they experienced a similar magic to that lived by them.
In the final analysis, music is the only human sound similar to that of silence. — Ondjaki

Running, close companion to death, summons us to the most vivid acts of life. Our ancestors (we have forgotten) ran for food and for love, love and lust. For us, a prime symbol of sexuality is the automobile. For the ancients it was the chase, the foot race. Satyr and nymph, maiden and god, hot pursuit. The mythic hunters, Diana and Atalanta, available only to the males, men or gods, who could outrun them; death to all others. — George Leonard

These will suffice; who knows but we may be on a slope which leads down to
aboriginal savagery. But of this 1 am sure: if we are to escape, we must not yield a foot upon demanding a fair field and an honest race to all ideas. — Nelson Algren

By the time she a year old Mae Mobley following me around everwhere I go ... .Miss Leefolt, she'd narrow up her eyes at me like I done something wrong, unhitch that crying baby off my foot. I reckon that's the risk you run, letting somebody else raise you chilluns — Kathryn Stockett