Laurence Quotes & Sayings

There are two sorts of losers - the good loser, and the one who can't act. — Laurence J. Peter

Harriet, to hide her excitement, had turned to the bookshelves in the corner between the windows and the fireplace. The books, untidily arranged, some standing, some piled on their sides, with newspapers and magazines wedged among them, confused her. There were no sets and a great many were paper-backed. She saw friends - Mr. Dickens was present - and nodding acquaintances - Laurence Sterne, for instance, and Theodore Dreiser - but they were among strangers: Henry Miller, Norman Douglas, Saki, Ronald Firbank, strangers all. — Jack Iams

My problem is I say what I'm thinking before I think what I'm saying. — Laurence J. Peter

Expert: a man who makes three correct guesses consecutively. — Laurence J. Peter

Sheldon Adelson, for example, gave more than $53 million to Super PACs, but all eight of the candidates he supported lost.59 Karl Rove, a strategic mastermind who won fame advising George W. Bush, oversaw groups that spent $175 million and still lost twenty-one out of thirty elections. — Laurence H. Tribe

I'm a very good packer, but I probably take too much in the way of toiletries. You only really need a toothbrush, as most places you go to have a bar of soap and some shampoo. — Laurence Fox

What were his views in this, and in every other action of his life, - or rather what were the opinions which floated in the brains of other people concerning it, was a thought which too much floated in his own, and too often broke in upon his rest, when he should have been sound asleep. — Laurence Sterne

Literature is a source of pleasure, he said, it is one of the rare inexhaustible joys in life, but it's not only that. It must not be disassociated from reality. Everything is there. That is why I never use the word fiction. Every subtlety in life is material for a book. He insisted on the fact. Have you noticed, he'd say, that I'm talking about novels? Novels don't contain only exceptional situations, life or death choices, or major ordeals; there are also everyday difficulties, temptations, ordinary disappointments; and, in response, every human attitude, every type of behavior, from the finest to the most wretched. There are books where, as you read, you wonder: What would I have done? It's a question you have to ask yourself. Listen carefully: it is a way to learn to live. There are grown-ups who would say no, that literature is not life, that novels teach you nothing. They are wrong. Literature performs, instructs, it prepares you for life. — Laurence Cosse

Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I. — Jerry Lewis

Love is the great truth we all know in our hearts and must eventually recognize. — Laurence Overmire

People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy. — Laurence Sterne

We know that passion, prejudice, party, and even good-will, tempt many who preserve a fair character with the world to deviate from truth in the laxity of conversation. — Laurence Fishburne

I wish my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; — Laurence Sterne

When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment. — Jane Smiley

Your love for what you do and willingness to push yourself where others aren't prepared to go is what will make you great. — Laurence Shahlaei

When in doubt or danger, run in circles, scream and shout. — Laurence J. Peter

Like many musicians, I can hear the weight in the sound. Sound is matter. We speak of the colour of an instrument, of transparency ... We can demand more sombre or lighter colours, deeper playing and singing, heavier or lighter sound. And manipulating those means is like creating a painting. — Laurence Equilbey

While the feds ... leave Social Security off their books, the government's obligation to make benefit payments to current and near-term Social Security recipients is certainly no less real than its obligation to pay interest on its Treasury bonds. — Laurence Kotlikoff

So, is there a "new economy?" The answer is: It depends. It depends on how you define new economy, and it depends on where you live. — Laurence Meyer

Work at what you love the most, even if you're only a two. Trust that your love for what your are doing will see you through. That's not easy, but better to grow into what you love than to pretend you're satisfied with a developmental dead end. — Laurence Boldt

Nobody needs an Artist, but everyone needs ART. — Laurence Gartel

Scratch an actor and you'll find an actor. — Laurence Olivier

Why doesn't Prin go and get her own goddamn blistering bloody shitty jelly doughnuts? — Margaret Laurence

When they had dismounted, he indulged himself in a shudder of his whole body. "That is more than I undertake to do again!' --this to the admiral, in reproachful tones. "Those two monstrously large beasts! Going right up to them like that and dangling their captains in front of them just as if to say, look what I have got, ha ha! I am all astonishment they did not leap upon me at once. I hope they did not get a clear look at me. If they ever saw me again I am sure they would not let it pass."

"I beg you not to repine upon it," Laurence said. "Temeraire understands well that orders must be obeyed, and will not hold it against you; he knows it was not in your power to deliver us to him."

"Well, but it was," Souci said, not conciliated, and Granby said nothing reassuring at all. Iskierka allow of assurances of her behavior, good, evil, or otherwise. — Naomi Novik

Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat. — Laurence Sterne

An ideal movie would be, like - to get this to happen, I have to work so much harder - but imagine Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy ... Who else? Donald Faison. Directed by Steven Spielberg. That would be awesome. — Donald Faison

Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom. — Laurence Sterne

Who had thought she was having — Laurence Gonzales

Love me, honey, love me true?
Love me well ez I love you?
An' she answe'd, " 'Cose I do"
Jump back, honey, jump back. — Paul Laurence Dunbar

If I hadn't had my children, I wouldn't have written more and better, I would have written less and worse. — Margaret Laurence

Those who oppose equality, compassion and social justice have been on the wrong side of history time and time again. — Laurence Overmire

The man who is always waving the flag usually waives what it stands for. — Laurence J. Peter

We don't love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we have done them — Laurence Sterne

Is it not an amazing thing, that men shall attempt to investigate the mystery of the redemption, when, at the same time that it is propounded to us as an article of faith solely, we are told that "the very angels have desired to pry into it in vain"? — Laurence Sterne

But as I grew up as a child, falling in love with the theater and Shakespeare, my heroes were Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud. — Patrick Stewart

There is no such thing as an insignificant life, only the insignificance of mind that refuses to grasp the implications. — Laurence Overmire

When a marriage works, it is in no small part because a woman and a man have come to recognize in precise measure when enough has been said. — Laurence Shames

The way to peace, harmony and balance for the planet is through the loving kindness of each individual heart. — Laurence Overmire

I'm a secular priest ordained by training, experience, and, most important, the willingness to accept the mantle of command. That willingness encompasses the realization that failure is easy, and such failure could kill me or, worse, kill someone else. — Laurence Gonzales

The bookstore had no musty "old books" smell, and instead it had a nice oaky aroma, similar to the way Laurence imagined the whiskey casks would be before you put Scotch into them for aging. This was a place where you would age well. — Charlie Jane Anders

Middle age is when anything new in the way you feel is most likely a symptom. — Laurence J. Peter

As a devout Baptist, she believed it was a sin to pray for anything for yourself. You ought to pray only for strength to bear whatever the Lord saw fit to send you, she thought. I was never able to follow this advice, for although I would often feel a sense of uneasiness over the tone of my prayers, I was the kind of person who prayed frantically-Please, God, please, please, PLEASE let Ross MacVey like me better than Mavis. — Margaret Laurence

I could do Daniel Day-Lewis's job as well as him. — Laurence Fox

The loneliness is the mother of wisdom. — Laurence Sterne

Human nature is the same in all professions. — Laurence Sterne

Probably Providence has implanted peevishness and ill-temper in sick and old persons, in compassion to the friends or relations who are to survive; as it must naturally lessen the concern they might otherwise feel for their loss. — Laurence Sterne

Any government, whether it is a democracy, a dictatorship, a communistic or free enterprise bureaucracy, will fall when its hierarchy reaches an intolerable state of maturity. — Laurence J. Peter

Good intentions are not enough; commitment and sacrifice are necessary. — Laurence Boldt

He must examine his objectives and see that true progress is achieved through moving forward to a better way of life, rather than upward to total life incompetence. — Laurence J. Peter

He was a mean man, it's true, but he got ahead. A man gets on by working harder than the rest - that's what he used to say - and if he doesn't get anywhere, he hasn't a soul to blame but himself. — Margaret Laurence

One's true work is never merely 'my work,' but humanity's work. It's not really self-expression, unless by 'self' we mean it with a capital S, and that Self is the Self within all mankind. — Laurence G. Boldt

A lawyer is a man who helps you get what is coming to him. — Laurence J. Peter

Heat is in proportion to the want of true knowledge. — Laurence Sterne

The surest sign that you haven't any sense is to argue with one who hasn't. — Laurence J. Peter

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. — Laurence Binyon

Time wastes too fast : every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen ; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more -- every thing presses on -- whilst thou are twisting that lock, -- see! it grows grey ; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make! — Laurence Sterne

Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me. — Laurence Sterne

So much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy, and to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil. — Laurence Sterne

A society that has no respect, no regard for its bards, its historians, its storytellers, is a society in steep decline, a society that has lost its very soul and may never find its way. — Laurence Overmire

I had never thought of myself as a dramatist, and, for really good technical results, the thought came too late: a man of letters has become too wordy to write economically for the stage. — Laurence Housman

Surely, 'tis one step towards acting well, to think worthily of our nature; and as in common life, the way to make a man honest, is, to suppose him soso here, to set some value upon ourselves, enables us to support the characterof generosity and virtue. — Laurence Sterne

Suffice it to say, every actor works differently. Laurence Olivier would put on his costume and when the wardrobe was right, he was in character. That sounds superficial, but it's true, and look at the results. — Michael Mann

Mine were informal mentors. They were all in my working life. — Laurence Fishburne

Washington is the city where the big men of little towns come to be disillusioned — Paul Laurence Dunbar

If there be one man, more than another, who deserves to succeed in flying through the air, that man is Mr. Laurence Hargrave, of Sydney, New South Wales. — Octave Chanute

The firing of nerves in the amygdala, thereby dampening fear. Laughter, then, can help to temper negative emotions. And while all this might seem of purely academic interest, it could prove helpful when your partner breaks his leg at 19,000 feet in a blizzard on a Peruvian mountain. It is not a lack of fear that separates elite performers from the rest of us. They're afraid, too, but they're not overwhelmed by it. They manage fear. They use it to focus on taking correct action. Mike Tyson's trainer, Cus D'Amato, said, Fear is like fire. It can cook for you. It can heat your — Laurence Gonzales

Art is a little bit larger than life - it's an exhalation of life and I think you probably need a little touch of madness. — Laurence Olivier

Was all uniformity; - he was systematical, and, like all systematic reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to support his hypothesis. — Laurence Sterne

There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse. — Laurence Sterne

NOT THEY WHO SOAR Not they who soar, but they who plod Their rugged way, unhelped, to God Are heroes; they who higher fare, And, flying, fan the upper air, Miss all the toil that hugs the sod. 'Tis they whose backs have felt the rod, Whose feet have pressed the path unshod, May smile upon defeated care, Not they who soar. High up there are no thorns to prod, Nor boulders lurking 'neath the clod To turn the keenness of the share, For flight is ever free and rare; But heroes they the soil who 've trod, Not they who soar! — Paul Laurence Dunbar

Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of 'em - and trust me, when I get amongst 'em - you gentry with great beards - look as grave as you will - I'll make merry work with my button-holes - I shall have 'em all to myself - 'tis a maiden subject - I shall run foul of no man's wisdom or fine sayings in it. — Laurence Sterne

I shall not die young, for I am already near seventy: I may die old. — Laurence Housman

Becoming a parent gives you access to a whole world of feeling. It gives you a much stronger sense of life and death: becoming a father made me realise my own mortality. — Laurence Fox

Noblest of all dogs is the hot-dog; it feeds the hand that bites it. — Laurence J. Peter

Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all on. — Laurence Sterne

Life is not a matter of choices! Life is handed to you, a couple of cards that have cycled through the grimy hands of hundreds of players before you. There are no aces hidden up your sleeve. There is no shortcut to success and happiness. Sleight of hand will only earn you a bloody nose and a thrashing in the alley outback. So instead, you play the few good cards you have and do what you can with the bad, and you play fair. There is no choice. — Kelseyleigh Reber

...human behavior is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave, it's just that for many people the situation is the key determinate in that choice. — Laurence Rees

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other. — Laurence J. Peter

War, hatred, and violence all spring from one infernal idea: that one person, race, creed, or culture is better than another. — Laurence Overmire

The federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification. — Laurence Tribe

A coward never forgives. — Laurence Sterne

I came up around people who took acting seriously, who cared about acting, cared about the theater and, in the '70s, made movies that said something that mattered. I came up with those people, and I was a kid. Their ethos and credo became mine. — Laurence Fishburne

When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains. — Laurence Sterne

Live with an open mind and an open heart. Always choose love over fear and kindness over cruelty. — Laurence Overmire

So that the life of a writer, whatever he might fancy to the contrary, was not so much a state of composition, as a state of warfare; and his probation in it, precisely that of any other man militant upon earth,
both depending alike, not half so much upon the degrees of his WIT
as his RESISTANCE. — Laurence Sterne

The struggle is not lost. I believe we have to live, as long as we live, in the expectation and hope of changing the world for the better. That may sound naive. It may even sound sentimental. Never mind: I believe it. What are we to live for, except life itself? And, with all our doubts, with all our flaws, with all our problems, I believe that we will carry on, with God's help. — Margaret Laurence

Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest. — Laurence Sterne

I am of the opinion", Tharkay said, "that you ought not assign to free will something more likely the consequence of a sharp blow to the skull. — Naomi Novik

Keyholes are the occasions of more sin and wickedness, than all other holes in this world put together. — Laurence Sterne

To saya man is fallen in love,or that he is deeply in love,or up to the ears in love,and sometimes even over head and ears in it,carries an idiomatical kind of implication, that love is a thing below a man:this is recurring again to Plato's opinion, which, with all his divinityship,I hold to be damnable and heretical:and so much for that. Let love therefore be what it will,my uncleToby fell into it. — Laurence Sterne

Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world. — Margaret Laurence

Don't worry about middle age: you'll outgrow it. — Laurence J. Peter

Personal loss is the greatest motivator to a call for action! — Laurence Stuart

The people who change the world never lose hope no matter how bleak the outcome might appear to be. — Laurence Overmire

A censor is an expert in cutting remarks. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to. — Laurence J. Peter

Only mediocrities rise to the top in a system that won't tolerate wave making. — Laurence J. Peter

There are some who dream their lives away, but end up doing nothing, and others who do their lives away, and end up never dreaming. — Laurence Overmire

I begin with writing the first
sentence - and trusting to Almighty
God for the second. — Laurence Sterne

I can't change what's happened to me in my life, or make what's not occurred take place. But I can't say I like it, or accept it, or believe it's for the best. I don't and never shall, not even if I'm damned for it. — Margaret Laurence

The maddening thing for someone with a Western scientific turn of mind is that it's not what's in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It's not even what's in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it's what's in your heart. — Laurence Gonzales