Least Quotes & Sayings

I'm not sure the least educated members of the population are missing out on the advances in medical technology as much as they are adopting harmful behavioral habits that shorten their life. — S. Jay Olshansky

And I loved her so much I couldn't conceive of ever parting from her; true, we never talked about marriage, but at least was asbolutely serious about marrying her one day — Milan Kundera

The greatest strength any human being an have is to recognize his or her own weaknesses. When you identify your weaknesses, you can begin to remedy them - or at least figure out how to work around them. — Pat Summitt

Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it's the scenic route. — Steven Wright

The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later. — Aristotle.

I think it is a simple statement of principle that in a democracy you should make your MPs work harder for your vote and try and get at least majority support in their local area, and that in a nutshell is what AV does. — Nick Clegg

I have not been on any river that has more of a distinctive personality than does the Missouri River. It's a river that immediately presents to the traveler, 'I am a grandfather spirit. I have a source; I have a life.' — William Least Heat-Moon

We know that Elijah did return - at least twice - after Malachi's promise. At Christ's transfiguration, Elijah appeared on the mount to Peter, James, and John. At the Kirtland Temple, April 3, 1836, Elijah appeared to the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery and said, 'The keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands.' — Russell M. Nelson

I wanted to be in love like in the storybooks and songs and ballads. Love that hits you like a lightning bolt. And I'm sorry, because yeah, I get that you think I'm ridiculous. I get that you think I'm hilarious. I know, I get that you're mocking me. I get how stupid I am, but at least I know. — Holly Black

What she had liked better still was his drowsy demeanour and slow manner of speech; he
had seemed inoffensive, the kind of man who would go about his work without causing trouble, not the least desirable of qualities in a husband. — Amitav Ghosh

160 million-plus people call themselves Christians. They go to church once a month at least. That's a lot of people. — David A.R. White

The rumors were that at least one of the three largest commercial banks would go bankrupt, similar to LTCB (Long Term Capital Bank) a couple of years before, causing a market shock that would reverberate around the world. I — David Schneider

If we do not meet with agreeable things, we shall at least meet with something new. — Voltaire

One does not lash hat lies at a distance. The foibles that we ridicule must at least be a little bit our own. Only then will the work be a part of our own flesh. The garden must be weeded. — Paul Klee

Superficial knowledge leads to a bland, monotonous telling. With authorial knowledge we can prepare a feast of pleasures. Or at the very least, add humor. — Robert McKee

When we are able to stay present with the internal discomfort created by the idea that somebody else might be mad at us, we end up becoming a bodhisattva with tremendous integrity. We end up building confidence that we can say what we think and mean what we say, more and more often. This kind of integrity and dignity become contagious, and in the end, even if somebody doesn't agree with us, that person at least respects us for our dedication to living by our principles. — Ethan Nichtern

Yakov spent the whole day playing his fiddle; when it got completely dark, he took the notebook in which he recorded his losses daily, and out of boredom began adding up the yearly total. It came to over a thousand roubles. This astounded him so much that he flung the abacus to the floor and stamped his feet. Then he picked up the abacus, again clicked away for a long time, and sighed deeply and tensely. His face was purple and wet with sweat. He thought that if he could have put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, he would have earned at least forty roubles a year in interest. And therefore those forty roubles were a loss. In short, wherever you turned, there was nothing but losses everywhere.
- Rothchild's Fiddle — Anton Chekhov

Birth, copulation, and death. Fine. In truth, however, there were at least two other things in which Amanda strongly believed. Namely: magic and freedom. — Tom Robbins

You're late, asshole!" he said cheerfully. He tried to snatch the six-pack out of Cheyenne's hands but, being shorter by at least half a foot, ended up jumping in the air, his limbs flailing in an exaggerated manner. — Melissa Noel

Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it a disadvantage - is it not in some ways an advantage - that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me? — C.S. Lewis

As people get their opinions so largely from the newspapers they read, the corruption of the schools would not matter so much if the Press were free. But the Press is not free. As it costs at least a quarter of a million of money to establish a daily newspaper in London, the newspapers are owned by rich men. And they depend on the advertisements of other rich men. Editors and journalists who express opinions in print that are opposed to the interests of the rich are dismissed and replaced by subservient ones. — George Bernard Shaw

He's going to kill me," Peppone murmured, his jaw drooping, "or at least send out the order to have someone take care of me. Well," with a sigh, "might as well get rid of this body before the others wake up." He canted his head and mused to himself. "Maybe I should carve it up first."
"At long last," Bartleby cried, raising his eyes and wringing his hands, "somebody who has no regard for collective conscience and general morality. Oh, happy, happy morning!"
"Take care, Peppone," Danaco laughed, "if you have so little regard for life and the creatural condition, Bartleby will attach himself to you and never leave you for a moment. — Michelle Franklin

I get offered a World War II movie at least once a week just because I speak German and was born there. I have always stayed away from it because I didn't want to be put into that box. — Diane Kruger

Zen taught me how to pay attention, how to delve, how to question and enter, how to stay with
or at least want to try to stay with
whatever is going on. — Jane Hirshfield

The Queen is dead and gone. Well, at least she's gone ... for now. Long live Alice! Long live Wonderland. — Cheshire Cat

Trust in someone means that we no longer have to protect ourselves. We believe we will not be hurt or harmed by the other, at least not deliberately. We trust his or her good intentions, though we know we might be hurt by the way circumstances play out between us. We might say that hurt happens; it's a given of life. Harm is inflicted; it's a choice some people make. — David Richo

I thought it might be a good move to get into a beauty contest so I tried for Miss Pennsylvania and won. I think that helped me get noticed, at least by the people of Pennsylvania. — Sharon Stone

Because there wasn't anything else to do, he settled at the kitchen table
with a bottle of mead and nearly emptied it. The anesthetic effect he hoped for hadn't happened, though. At least not yet. — Ann Gimpel

Whenever I'm thinkin' my life is miserable, I remember him, and tell myself, 'Well, Wayne. At least you ain't a broke, dickless feller what can't even pick his own nose properly.' And I feels better. — Brandon Sanderson

Tavish could tell he was being sized up. And by the narrowing of Joseph's eyes, he recognized Tavish's intent as well. They stood, eyeing one another for several long and silent moments. Tavish had not intended to pursue Katie in the least. Now, it seemed, he had a rival. Joseph Archer was infuriatingly difficult to read. Was it confidence that kept him so at ease? Joseph did have the advantage. Katie lived in his house. He could see her, talk to her every day. Joseph was wealthy, with the air of class and money about him. Tavish had none of those things. And though Katie had warmed to him a bit, he didn't yet feel she'd entirely shed her wariness of him. — Sarah M. Eden

The Bible is still the only dirty book I've ever read, at least in its current incarnation as a weapon of the homophobes. Bible scholarship keeps trying to catch up, proving that all the hatred of gay is just stupid translation, though the snake-oil preachers don't want to hear it. — Paul Monette

The truth is when I went to graduate school I would've said I was among the least talented of the students, I was certainly the least smart, or less educated. But I worked very hard. — Mary Karr

I have discovered, passionate grief does not link us with the dead but cuts us off from them. This becomes clearer and clearer. It is just at those moments when I feel least sorrow - getting into my morning bath is usually one of them - that H. rushes upon my mind in her full reality, her otherness. Not, as in my worst moments, all foreshortened and patheticized and solemnized by my miseries, but as she is in her own right. This is good and tonic. — C.S. Lewis

Recent estimates suggest there are at least two million tropical insect species and perhaps as many as seven million. — Elizabeth Kolbert

Ski racing is probably the least guaranteed sport out there. It's really rare when the favorites win. — Ted Ligety

I just think that I screwed up what could have turned into a more significant relationship, or at least a lasting friendship. — Emily Giffin

I am aware that many regard me as an anti-sports character person, but the truth is that the country's economy by then was in bad shape. Tanzania being among the highly indebted countries, I had to give sports the least prominence during my first term, while setting priorities in revitalising our economy. — Benjamin Mkapa

Productivity, put simply, is the name we give our attempts to figure out the best uses of our energy, intellect, and time as we try to seize the most meaningful rewards with the least wasted effort. It's a process of learning how to succeed with less stress and struggle. It — Charles Duhigg

I sank into the chair and checked to see if the charge nurse could see me - not if I didn't lean out too far. The night was looking up! Two patients who ought to sleep all night long, and an Internet connection. How lucky was I? Pretty damn lucky, at least until someone needed a diaper change. — Cassie Alexander

Avoid failing, not only against purity, but even against the least rules of an exact modesty. — Paul Of The Cross

Those who never have time do least — Georg C. Lichtenberg

January is my favorite month, when the light is plainest, least colored. And I like the feeling of beginnings. — Anne Truitt

Love hits you when you least expect it, grabs you, sucks you in whole, and twists you around until you could hardly breathe. Love hurts like a sucker punch, that's both glorious and beautiful. Falling for Summer was like that for me, every time. — Kailin Gow

To step inside a sealed, twelve-by-twelve-foot space with a wild animal that is many times your size is extremely hazardous to say the least. Yet sending these frightened animals out into the real world without giving them tools to safely deal with a new environment...could be disastrous. It would not be unlike sending a soldier on a mission without any training. Clearly, it was not a scenario lending itself toward safety or success for either horse or new owner. — Kim Meeder

I don't think you can work on feelings in politics, apart from anything else, political change can come very unexpectedly, sometimes overnight when you least expect it. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Like my peers, I believed that the Bible was God's Word written down for me, answering all my questions about who God is and what God wants for my life, from the mundane to the ultimate. Or at least I knew that was what I needed to believe. But that was not what I found when I actually opened the Bible up and looked around inside. — Timothy Beal

Every country-or at least every country that is fit for habitation-has its own rivers; and every river has its own quality; and it is the part of wisdom to know and love as many as you can, seeing each in the fairest possible light, and receiving from each the best that it has to give. — Henry Van Dyke

This leads to the idea of a race between education and technology: if the supply of skills does not increase at the same pace as the needs of technology, then groups whose training is not sufficiently advanced will earn less and be relegated to devalued lines of work, and inequality with respect to labor will increase. In order to avoid this, the educational system must increase its supply of new types of training and its output of new skills at a sufficiently rapid pace. If equality is to decrease, moreover, the supply of new skills must increase even more rapidly, especially for the least well educated. — Thomas Piketty

In the whole course of our work at the theatre we have been, I may say, drenched with advice by friendly people who for years gave us the reasons why we did not succeed ... All their advice, or at least some of it, might have been good if we had wanted to make money, to make a common place of amusement. — Lady Gregory

I write narrative nonfiction, creating lively scenes through action and the use of quotes from firsthand accounts, all based on rigorous research. If I say a character leaned against a fence on a windy day, than I have at least two sources to back up these details. — Jim Murphy

Here above the farms and ranches of the Great Plains aviation lives up to the promise that inspired dreamers through the ages. Here you are truly separate from the earth, at least for a little while, removed from the cares and concerns that occupy you on the ground. This separation from the earth is more than symbolic, more than a physical removal-it has an emotional dimension as tangible as the wood, fabric, and steel that has transported you aloft. — Stephen Coonts

Instapaper is much bigger today than I could have predicted in 2008, and it has simply grown far beyond what one person can do. To really shine, it needs a full-time staff of at least a few people. — Marco Arment

The least touchable object in the world is the eye. — Rudolf Arnheim

Possible Ending #16 (Life Imitates Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates): I'd seen this movie. Obvious ending: outright betrayal, lesson learned, life is heartbreak, people who mean well still fuck you over, everyone's sad, greedy, looking out for number one, no consideration for the fragile fat boy whose displayed cynicism only masks a deeper hope that everyone's okay, will ultimately end up all right, that love exists, that happiness may not be stable but at least comes in bursts, that everything worthwhile wasn't just a self-created illusion. — Adam Wilson

Oh, my little sister. What have you done?" "What?" I asked innocently. "It seems that something of great value to the Scholar has disappeared. At exactly the same time you did. He and the Chancellor have turned the citadelle upside down looking for it. All surreptitiously of course, because whatever was taken apparently isn't a catalogued piece of the royal collection. At least that's the rumor among the servants." I pressed my hands together and grinned. I couldn't hide my glee. Oh, how I wish I had seen the Scholar's face when he opened what he thought was his secret drawer and found it empty. Almost empty, that is. I'd left a little something for him. — Mary E. Pearson

Camus-boy, you're always going to be the same you, just older. It's not like there's a moment when you wake up and go, Shit, I'm grown-up, I don't feel like myself anymore.'
I don't tell him, but this is the scariest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Being grown-up should feel like a big transition. It can't be something that, despite my best efforts, I've been drifting closer and closer to every summer. It needs to be a shock. I need to know at what point to stop holding on. And that moment will suck, and probably every moment after that will suck, but at least I'll know that everything that came before really was valid. I really was young and innocent. I wasn't fooling myself. — Hannah Moskowitz

He saw that Jesper was staring at his hands. "What were you expecting?" Kaz growled.
"Claws, at least,"Jesper said, shifting his gaze to his own bony feet. "Possibly a spiny thumb. — Leigh Bardugo

Accomplished a bit more for Bush than for Gore only because there were more question marks for Bush. I think he established that he possesses at least the minimum qualifications for being president. — Stuart Rothenberg

He liked to think of himself as fighting trim. At this point though, he was more like pacifist fat. Or at least he felt that way, stuffed to the gills. — Marie Ferrarella

The least I can do is show Medgar I still care. And Martin. — Charles Evers

I wouldn't say that I'm actually trying to cause chills in the audience, but certainly my goal is to, at the very least, effect a physiological response - at the most, to effect some sort of state change, ideally, in the audience. — Eric Whitacre

But sometimes the very things you fall in love with people for, become the things you like least about them, in the end. — Katharine Brush

I said he had called them because it was from his mind that we drew them, seeking those who hated him, or at least had reason to. The giant you saw might have mastered the Commonwealth, had Severian not defeated him. The blond woman could not forgive him for bringing her back from death. — Gene Wolfe

Ecologist Paul Ehrlich stressed that people who hold opposing opinions need to engage in open discussion with well-reasoned dissent. Positions should be questioned and criticized, not the people who hold them. Personal attacks preclude open discussion because, once someone is put on the defensive, fruitful exchanges are impossible, at least for the moment. — Marc Bekoff

No writer besides Shakespeare has created more memorable characters attached to vices and virtues. In even their least sympathetic characters, one senses a kind of helplessness to passion quivering between the poles of good and evil. — Roger Rosenblatt

If you don't know how to meditate at least try to spend some time every day just sitting. — Billy Connolly

I challenge anybody to say that I wouldn't know how to approach foreign policy because, unlike some of the other people, I at least have a foreign policy philosophy, which is an extension of the Reagan philosophy. Peace through strength, and my philosophy is peace through strength and clarity. — Herman Cain

I try to stay in decent shape always. I pride myself on staying at least a month away from really good shape. — Jim Carrey

If you've never been to Atlanta, then let me save you a bit of grief. If someone tells you something's on "Peachtree," you must demand that they get more specific. There are probably a dozen incarnations of Peachtree, going in at least that many directions through every part of town. — Cherie Priest

At least you can say you were in on the last days of Morocco," he told her. "How's your tea? Finished? I think we ought to be going. — Paul Bowles

If you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives. — Lemony Snicket

Have you ever noticed that salvation, much like your car keys, is usually found where and when you least expect it? (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It's strange how things happen, Mauricio Silva, known as the Eye, always tried to escape from violence even at the risk of being considered a coward, but the violence, the real violence, can't be escaped, at least not by us, born in Latin America in the 1950s, those of us who were around twenty years old when Salvador Allende died. — Roberto Bolano

Those Saints, which God loves best, The Devil tempts not least. — Robert Herrick

Most of us carry at least one device, all the time, every day. In fact many of us would feel naked without our smartphone. It's hardly surprising mobile search queries - and mobile commerce - are growing dramatically across the world. — Larry Page

A schizophrenic is a person who already has a natural tendency to absent himself from this world, until some factor, sometimes serious, sometimes superficial, depending on the individual circumstances, forces him to create his own reality. It can develop into a state of complete alienation, what we call catatonia, but people do occasionally recover, at least enough to allow the patient to work and lead a near-normal life. It all depends on one thing: environment. — Paulo Coelho

Such disappointments, betrayals and reconciliations were the stuff of married life, but she and Jack had gone through them before the wedding. Now, at least, she felt confident that she knew him. Nothing was likely to surprise her. It was a funny way to do things, but it might be better than making your vows first and getting to know your spouse afterward. — Ken Follett

When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily either their victim or their disciple; when we associate, on the contrary, with virtuous men, we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or, at least, lose every day something of our faults. — Charles Caleb Colton

What scares me least? The Afterlife. Really. Who cares? I'm going to be a good person no matter what is supposed to happen after I die. — Sherman Alexie

Question: how can one manage not to lose time? Answer: experience it at its full length. Means: spend days in the dentist's waiting room on an uncomfortable chair; live on one's balcony on a Sunday afternoon; listen to lectures in a language that one does not understand, choose the most roundabout and least convenient routes on the railway (and, naturally, travel standing up); queue at the box-office for theatres and so on and not take one's seat; etc. — Albert Camus

No one's fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we're not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan and Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No poison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape-recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape-recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us,
within us and against us, against us and within us. — Adrienne Rich

The pants come down. Most look shamefaced, but tha Arthur McBride is not the least bit shy about showing off his equipment, oh no, he isn't. He grins in my direction. 'Not all that impressive, boyo — L.A. Meyer

I made lists of lists of lists, then started all over again. And if I did something that wasn't on a list, I would promptly write it on one and cross it out, with the feeling of having at least accomplished something. — Robyn Davidson

Men can have a huge turnover of sponsorship and still survive a lot better than the women. But the women's ratings are better, at least at home in the United States than in the men's tennis. — Billie Jean King

He wonders if it's some sort of twisted joke the adults are having, shoving hormonal teens into tight quarters but making it impossible to do anything but breathe.
"I wouldn't mind suffocating if it was with you," the girl says, which is flattering, but makes him even less interested in her.
"There'll be a better time," he tells her, knowing that such a time will never come - at least not for her - but hope is a powerful motivator.
Eventually they settle into a sort of symbiotic breathing rhythm. He breathes in when she breathes out, so their chests don't fight for space.
After a while, there's a jarring motion. With his arm now around the girl, he holds her a little more tightly, knowing that easing her fear somehow eases his own. — Neal Shusterman

The emphasis and the reason for a pure humility is to result in love for others; not always necessarily the belittlement of self. When there is pride and self-righteousness and being pretentiously too far above, generally, one has a difficult time reaching the compassionate side of love for others, the side that understands (or at least attempts to understand): 'I am aware that I am not so far from falling in the same way.' Humility seeks to understand, and sometimes even relate; and in result, the love lovingly, properly, effectively wills the removal of the destructive sins of another as from oneself. — Criss Jami

I think musically, there's always the stuff you're into that you've always been into but every once in a while there's a new band that kind of stokes you out a little, at least for me. — Dusty Redmon

I believe that if you can discover something of the truth of a person, then you will start to understand, and to understand is to move towards, if not like, then at least an empathy of some kind. — Rupert Friend

Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least. — B.F. Skinner

A thousand candles can be lit from one candle, however the life of the original candle is not shortened in the least. — Dalai Lama

When you've been poor all your life, you never really think it could be any other way. And sometimes you're even happy, because at least you've got your family and your health and your arms and legs and a roof over your head. — Marie Lu

Oh for Christ sake What's the name of this soap opera, The Bored and The Addlebrained? At least half you Snow Girls have a serious boyfriend. — Lee DeBourg

The history of American democracy, to say the least, has been checkered. Our nation was founded at a time when people of African descent were held in bondage. After slavery was abolished, they were forced to endure legal discrimination for another 100 years. — Bernie Sanders

Nothing can tell us so much about the general lawlessness of humanity as a perfect acquaintance with our own immoderate behavior. If we would think over our own impulses, we would recognize in our own souls the guiding principle of all vices which we reproach in other people; and if it is not in our very actions, it will be present at least in our impulses. There is no malice that self-love will not offer to our spirits so that we may exploit any occasion, and there are few people virtuous enough not to be tempted. — Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

A rich man is not one who has the most, but one who needs the least. — Unknown

Education fails in so far as it does not stir in students a sharp awareness of their obligations to society and furnish at least a few guideposts pointing toward the implementation of these obligations. — Mary Barnett Gilson

Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the West. — Salman Rushdie

Why are my least favorite people always the most durable? — Rebecca

Religious liberty in a nation is as real as the liberty of its least popular religious minority. Look not to the size of cathedrals or even to the words on the statute books for proof of the reality of religious freedom. Ask what is the fate of the Protestant in Spain, the Jew in Saudi Arabia, the Arab in Israel, the Catholic in Poland or the atheist in the United States. — Paul Blanshard

A wrong is just a wrong no matter who's doin' it or who it's done to. You know someone's doin' wrong and even if it has not one thing to do with you, you do what you can to right that wrong. You don't, you're no kind of person or, at least, no kind I'd wanna know. — Kristen Ashley