Fulcrum Quotes & Sayings

It was easy enough to write a sentence, but if you were going to create a work of art, the way Melville had, each sentence needed to fit perfectly with the one that preceded it, and the unwritten one that would follow. And each of these sentences needed to square with the ones on either side, so that three became five and five became seven, seven became nine, and whichever sentence he was writing became the slender fulcrum on which the the whole precarious edifice depended. That sentence could contain anything, anything, and so it promised the kind of absolute freedom that, to Affenlight's mind, belonged to the artist and the artist alone. — Chad Harbach

In any of these evolutions, India will be a fulcrum of twenty-first-century order: an indispensable element, based on its geography, resources, and tradition of sophisticated leadership, in the strategic and ideological evolution of the regions and the concepts of order at whose intersection it stands. — Henry Kissinger

Every man makes many mistakes during his lifetime, but there's always one, a single decision, a sin of omission or commission, which towers above all others. An error, a diamond sparkling in the debris, that one can point at and know for eternity to be the fulcrum about which the remainder of one's life turned before spinning off to destruction. — Simon D. Reagan

But when the seesaw of good fortune sinks downward for one person, it is very often on its way up for someone else. This little-known law of physics is called the Fulcrum of Fortune, and although most people prefer to think of fortune as a wheel that spins, the fulcrum (that is, seesaw) is a more accurate depiction for most of us, since the worse our own luck becomes, the more likely we are to notice the good fortune of those around us and brood about the injustice of it all. — Maryrose Wood

Long before being artists, we are artisans; and all fabrication, however rudimentary, lives on likeness and repetition, like the natural geometry which serves as its fulcrum. Fabrication works on models which it sets out to reproduce; and even when it invents, it proceeds, or imagines itself to proceed, by a new arrangement of elements already known. Its principle is that "we must have like to produce like." In short, the strict application of the principle of finality, like that of the principle of mechanical causality, leads to the conclusion that "all is given." Both principles say the same thing in their respective languages, because they respond to the same need. — Henri Bergson

Outside, she thought that there ought to be a word for it: the air temperature that was perfectly neither hot nor cold. One degree lower, and she might have felt a faint misgiving about not having brought a jacket. One degree higher, and a skim of sweat might have glistened at her hairline. But at this precise degree, she required neither wrap nor breeze. Were there a word for such a temperature, there would have to be a corollary for the particular ecstasy of greeting it - the heedlessness, the needlessness, the suspended lack of urgency, as if time could stop, or should. Usually temperature was a battle; only at this exact fulcrum was it an active delight. — Lionel Shriver

To move the earth like Archimedes, one needs not a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it. There is an easier way: Give a genius a beautiful remote house in a green valley where he can think calmly, and he shall move the earth with ideas! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Accepting responsibility is the fulcrum point for succeeding at anything. — Jeffrey Gitomer

Murphy caught that arm and continued the motion, using her own body as a fulcrum in a classic hip throw - except that Binder was facing in the opposite direction than usual for that technique.
You could hear his arm come out of its socket fifty feet away.
And then he hit the gravel face-first.
Binder got extra points for brains in my book, after that: he lay still and didn't put up a struggle as Murphy dragged his wrists behind his back and cuffed him.
I traded a glance with Mouse and said, wisely, 'Hard-core. — Jim Butcher

... the cylinder itself has only just begun its revolutions ... as it gathers speed the objects grouped around its fulcrum assume, collectively ... no ... as it gathers speed the whole intricate system of cords, weights, metal spikes and rods, brass plates engraved with labyrinthine patterns, bricks, scraps of fabric, paper, canvas, unmarked sheets ... the entire elaborate network of components begins to shudder into wild spasmodic motion, rattling almost farcically within the framework of the machine. — Martin Vaughn-James

The children of the Fulcrum are all different: different ages, different colors, different shapes. Some speak Sanze-mat with different accents, having originated from different parts of the world. One girl has sharp teeth because it is her race's custom to file them; another boy has no penis, though he stuffs a sock into his underwear after every shower; another girl has rarely had regular meals and wolfs down every one like she's still starving. (The instructors keep finding food hidden in and around her bed. They make her eat it, all of it, in front of them, even if it makes her sick.) One cannot reasonably expect sameness out of so much difference, and it makes no sense for Damaya to be judged by the behavior of children who share nothing save the curse of orogeny with her. — N.K. Jemisin

To ensure that our views are credible, our brain accepts what our eye sees. To ensure that our views are positive, our eye looks for what our brain wants. The conspiracy between these two servants allows us to live at the fulcrum of stark reality and comforting illusion. — Daniel Gilbert

Civil disobedience is a lever which can move the world by using peace as a fulcrum. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be. You are too young to know this. You are still becoming. Not being. — John Fowles

The fulcrum of resistance is in your mind where you pit yourself against the weight of the external. — Bryant McGill

The secret is to create the condition for change, a process that sometimes takes decades, and then use certain men as pivot points, a fulcrum to move history. — Robert Ferrigno

Their lovemaking was different from any Ryan had known, rich with desire for a perfect union, yet without lust, giving without taking, receiving without wanting. Tender, selfless, almost innocent, this was a sweet commemoration of all they had been to each other to this point in time, to this fulcrum of their lives, and it was a solemnization of a commitment to be two in one henceforth, to be as one, always one, one forever. — Dean Koontz

The obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the opportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself fatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light, of liberty and the spirit. For it represents resistance
that is to say, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and its triumph. — Henri Frederic Amiel

Better to work for one's self alone. The public is so stupid. Who reads? And what do they read?
And what do they admire? Ah, blessed peaceful times of the past, blessed eras of powdered wigs! You lived with complete assurance, poised on your high heels, twirling your silver-headed canes! Beneath us the earth is trembling. Where can we place our fulcrum, even admitting that we possess the lever? The thing we all lack is not style, nor that dexterity of finger and bow known as talent. We have a large orchestra, a rich palette, a variety of resources. We know many more tricks and dodges, probably, than were ever known before. No; what we lack is the intrinsic principle, the soul of the thing, the very idea of the subject.We take notes, we make journeys: emptiness! Emptiness! We become scholars, archaeologists, historians, doctors, cobblers, connoisseurs. What good is all that? Where is the heart, the verve, the sap? Where to start out from? Where to go to? — Gustave Flaubert

For Nautzera there was no present, only the clamour of a harrowing past and the threat of a corresponding future. For Nautzera, the present had receded to a point, had become the precarious fulcrum whereby history leveraged destiny. A mere formality. — R. Scott Bakker

The year swung past the fulcrum of another equinox. — Anthony Doerr

You're a lever and a fulcrum, you two, looking for a city to turn upside down. — Scott Lynch

Everyone has their fulcrum, Chiku. You can bend anyone to any cause with the right timing. — Alastair Reynolds

The Word of God is the fulcrum upon which the lever of prayer is placed, and by which things are mightily moved. — E. M. Bounds

My 50th birthday approaching felt like a big milestone to me. I've lived half a century. If I write about food and use my life as a fulcrum to move the story along, maybe I've lived long enough to fashion a narrative that has a happy ending. — Kate Christensen

Give me a place to stand, a lever long enough and a fulcrum. and I can move the Earth — Archimedes

In any arrangement that hinges upon the fulcrum of trust there exists the leverage potential for crime. — Sean Terrence Best

Anyway ... she's asleep, turned away from me on her side. The usual stratagems and repositionings have failed to induce narcosis in me, so I decide to settle myself against the soft zigzag of her body. As I move and start to nestle my shin against a calf whose muscles are loosened by sleep, she sense what I'm doing, and without waking reaches up with her left hand and pulls the hair off her shoulders on the top of her head, leaving me her bare nape to nestle in. Each time she does this I feel a shudder of love at the exactness of this sleeping courtesy. My eyes prickle with tears, and I have to stop myself from waking her up to remind her of my love. At that moment, unconsciously, she's touched some secret fulcrum of my feelings for her. — Julian Barnes

Reason may be the lever, but sentiment gives you the fulcrum and the place to stand on if you want to move the world. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Proclamation, the preaching of the Gospel, should be central to Christian worship. The sermon is the central dynamic in the worship experience. It is the fulcrum upon which the entire service of worship hinges. Everything that comes before it should point to it, and everything that comes after it should issue out of it. Because of this, the pastor is the worship leader of the church. In too many places and in too many circumstances, worship is only identified with something we do before the sermon. That is, we think the worship leader is one who leads choruses or spiritual songs. The dynamic of the worship experience is a complete package, and it is the sermon, the preaching of the Gospel, that must be central to it. It is the poastor himself who sets the tone for worship. — O. S. Hawkins

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND Lewis Carroll THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0 CHAPTER I Down the Rabbit-Hole Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?' So — Lewis Carroll

The year of my birth, 1940, was the fulcrum of America in the twentieth century, when the nation was balanced precariously between the darkness of the Great Depression on one side and the storms of war in Europe and the Pacific on the other. — Tom Brokaw

Persuasion isn't about the people you disagree with. It's about the fulcrum; the persuadable audience. — Jay Heinrichs

YOUTH, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer. — Ambrose Bierce

Who was it that said he needed a fulcrum? Give me an unobstructed right-of-way and I'll show them how to move the earth! — Ayn Rand

There exists for each of us a geographical fulcrum, a place so saturated with memory that within its precinct the past is always present. — Justin Cronin

Taking pains, working hard, not flaunting his or her chops so much as relying on them, the pop artisan teeters on a fine fulcrum between the stern, sell-the-product morality of the workhorse and the artist's urge to discover a pattern in, or derive a meaning from, the random facts of the world. — Michael Chabon

In The Woman Reader Kate Flint argues that "the study of reading...involves examining a fulcrum: the meeting-place of discourses of subjectivity and socialization." Reading has traditionally been "a prime tool in socialization" and is "centrally bound in with questions of authority". — Ann Romines

Everyone - pantheist, atheist, skeptic, polytheist - has to answer these questions: 'Where did I come from? What is life's meaning? How do I define right from wrong and what happens to me when I die?' Those are the fulcrum points of our existence. — Ravi Zacharias

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world. — Thomas Jefferson

It's so reasonable that you don't know why you didn't even consider it. Well, you know why. Ykka might be an orogene like you, but you spent too many years being thwarted and betrayed by other orogenes at the Fulcrum; you know better than to trust her just because she's Your People. You should give her a chance because she's Your People, though. "Fine, — N.K. Jemisin

The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews, the bearer of Israel's destiny, the fulfillment of God's promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns. Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter. — N. T. Wright

Since I've been hired to contribute to the storyline of 'Doom 4' I can say what was always true anyway. I'm working. You see, for a writer, lots of stuff that doesn't look like working is actually working. Looking out of the window, for example. Balancing a pencil on the edge of the desk in order to find its exact fulcrum. Playing 'Doom.' — Graham Joyce

THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0 — Lewis Carroll

I'm not cool and collected, and I'm not always doing things at my own pace. It's just a question of balance. I'm just good at habitually shifting the weight I carry around from one side of the fulcrum to the other, distributing it. Maybe this strikes others as cool. But it isn't an easy operation. It takes more time than it seems. And even if I do find the right balance, that doesn't lessen the total weight one bit. — Haruki Murakami

Lady Aquitaine sighed. Then it all hinges on Scipio. He has a rather irritating talent for impersonating a fulcrum. — Jim Butcher

Singularity theory is something that I do believe will come to pass, sooner or later, although whether or not in our lifetime I don't know, and I'm not sitting around waiting for my father to be resurrected. Readers probably have the impression from the book that I'm a lot more a of a techno kook than I actually am. It became a convenient fulcrum in the story, sort of a kaleidoscope through which to address religious and spiritual questions. — Ron Currie Jr.

On a fulcrum in my chest, grief and relief are balanced in equal measure. — Nayomi Munaweera

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. — Archimedes