Less Than Sign Quotes & Sayings

The third person. There was no sign of this happiness on the outside, she knew. She was bored by this happiness that seemed out of place, impatient to get rid of it. The feeling was less pleasurable than she had imagined it might have been, less well-defined, and when she felt along its strings she found it was not easily traced or attached to the objects she thought it might have been attached to. Perhaps it was not attached to anything at all. — Joanna Walsh

On land off an ice covered sea the traveler can, for example, detect the presence of open water, simply because it reflects less light than land or ice. The open sea's telltale sign is thus a darkness on the underside of the clouds. — Harold Gatty

The sign over supermarket express checkout lanes, TEN ITEMS OR LESS, is a grammatical error, they say, and as a result of their carping whole-food and other upscale supermarkets have replaced the signs with TEN ITEMS OR FEWER. The director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance has apologized for his organization's popular T-shirt that reads ONE LESS CAR, conceding that it should read ONE FEWER CAR. By this logic, liquor stores should refuse to sell beer to customers who are fewer than twenty-one years old, law-abiding motorists should drive at fewer than seventy miles an hour, and the poverty line should be defined by those who make fewer than eleven thousand five hundred dollars a year. And once you master this distinction, well, that's one fewer thing for you to worry about.45 — Steven Pinker

She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year. Her own birthday, and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought, one afternoon, that there was another date, of greater importance than all those; that of her own death; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? — Thomas Hardy

Would the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God have sent his only-begotten son to save those beetles and their household mites, Jared?" "No." "But the god of this place has as great a care for them as for any other creature in the world. This is why I knew you could benefit from seeing those beetles yesterday. Those beetles are a manifestation of the gods' unending abundance and a sign to be read by those who have eyes to read. I wanted you to see how the gods lavish care without stint on every thing: no less upon a beetle whose supreme achievement is burying a mouse than upon the brain of Einstein, no less upon a mite whose favorite dish is a fly's egg than upon the eye of Michelangelo. — Daniel Quinn

At the beginning of all love there is a private treaty each of the lovers make with himself or herself, an agreement to set aside what is wrong with the other for the sake of what is right. Love is spring after winter. It comes to heal life's wounds, inflicted by the unloving cold. When that warmth is born in the heart the imperfections of the beloved are as nothing, less than nothing, and the secret treaty with oneself is easy to sign. The voice of doubt is stilled. Later, when love fades, the secret treaty looks like folly, but if so, it's a necessary folly, born of lovers' belief in beauty, which is to say, in the possibility of the impossible thing, true love. — Salman Rushdie

The most evident distinguishing sign is man's organization of his life according primarily to mythic, and only secondarily economic, aims and laws. Food and drink, reproduction and nest-building, it is true, play formidable roles in the lives no less of men than of chimpanzees. But what of the economics of the Pyramids, the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, Hindus starving to death with edible cattle strolling all around them, or the history of Israel, from the time of Saul to right now? — Joseph Campbell

The fancy things I like are sheets. Pots and pans. And the things I really like aren't fancy at all: old aprons and hankies. Butter wrappers from one pound blocks. Peony bushes, hardback books of poetry. And I like things less than that; the sticky remains at the bottom of the apple crisp dish. The way cats sometimes run sideways. The presence of a rainbow in a puddle of oil. Mayonaise jars. Pussy willows. Wash on a line. The tick-tock of clocks, the blue of the neon sign at the local movie house. The fact that there is a local movie house. — Elizabeth Berg

It is more important to find out the truth about oneself than to find out the truth about heaven and hell, or about many other things which are of less importance and are apart from oneself. However, every man's pursuit is according to his state of evolution, and so each soul is in pursuit of something - but he does not know where it leads him. The first sign of realization of truth is tolerance towards others. There are the words of Christ, "In the house of my Father are many mansions", and those of the Prophet, "Each soul has its own religion." This means that according to his evolution so man knows the truth and the more a man knows, the more he finds there is to learn. — Inayat Khan

So you are tired of your life, young man! All the more reason have you to live. Anyone can die. A murderer has moral force enough to jeer at his hangman. It is very easy to draw the last breath. It can be accomplished successfully by a child or a warrior. One pang of far less anguish than the toothache, and all is over. There is nothing heroic about it, I assure you! It is as common as going to bed; it is almost prosy. Life is heroism, if you like; but death is a mere cessation of business. And to make a rapid and rude exit off the stage before the prompter gives the sign is always, to say the least of it, ungraceful. Act the part out, no matter how bad the play. What say you? — Marie Corelli

Mick required far less hand-holding than Michael. Signing the Stones, though, had required a full frontal assault worthy of General Patton, one of my heroes. The final battle exploded at the Ritz Hotel in Paris back in '83. After months of relentless pursuit, I had them. All they had to do was sign when suddenly at 3 A.M. Mick goes mental and calls me a "stupid motherfuckin' record executive." I lose it. I reach for his throat. I have a vision of punching out all ninety-eight pounds of him. I stop myself, envisioning tomorrow's headline - "Yetnikoff Kills Jagger." Jagger relents, signs and from then on it's wine and roses. It was Mick - wily and witty Mick - who later that year plotted with my girlfriend, the one called Boom Boom, to throw me a surprise fiftieth birthday bash where Henny Youngman emceed and Jon Peters, Barbra — Walter Yetnikoff

But we have not used our waters well. Our major rivers are defiled by noxious debris. Pollutants from cities and industries kill the fish in our streams. Many waterways are covered with oil slicks and contain growths of algae that destroy productive life and make the water unfit for recreation. "Polluted Water-No Swimming" has become a familiar sign on too many beaches and rivers. A lake that has served many generations of men now can be destroyed by man in less than one generation. — Lyndon B. Johnson

A sign is always less than the thing it points to, and a symbol is always more than we can understand at first sight. Therefore we stop at the sign but go on to the goal it indicates; but we remain with the symbol because it promises more than it reveals. — Carl Jung

Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial you have to use not a shadow but a sign, not the limitation but the image. The image is a new and different reality, and of course it does not convey an impression of some object, but the mind of the subject; and that is something else again. — Thomas Merton

Of the little less than a million eligibles roaming around, 5 percent don't know their sign and don't even care. Another 5 percent are tied to their mothers by a food fixation. That leaves only 20 percent who are searching for a girl who will pick up their clothes, run their baths, burn her fingers shelling their three-minute eggs, run their errands, bear them a child every year, look like a fashion model, tend their needs when they are sick, and hold down a full-time job outside the home to make payments on their boat. — Erma Bombeck

there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would had disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there — Thomas Hardy

Unlike other features on OkCupid, there is no visual component to match percentage. The number between two people only reflects what you might call their inner selves - everything about what they believe, need, and want, even what they think is funny, but nothing about what they look like. Judging by just this compatibility measure, the four largest racial groups on OkCupid - Asian, black, Latino, and white - all get along about the same.1 In fact, race has less effect on match percentage than religion, politics, or education. Among the details that users believe are important, the closest comparison to race is Zodiac sign, which has no effect at all. To a computer not acculturated to the categories, "Asian" and "black" and "white" could just as easily be "Aries" and "Virgo" and "Capricorn." But this racial neutrality is only in theory; things change once the users' own opinions, and not just the color-blind workings of an algorithm, come into play. — Christian Rudder

the perfect preparation for active Zionism. Von Weisl's early journalism is full of prescient observations of the Middle East power struggle. His article called "Islam's Iconoclasts at Mekka's Gates," published in the fall of 1924, warned of the growing power of the Wahhabis in Arabia, and stated that "Hussein will have reason to regret that he refused to sign the Anglo-Hejaz Treaty, and to recognize the Jewish rights in Palestine. For Jews in Erez Israel - Israel - are far less dangerous enemies for him than are Wahhabis at the gates of Mekka. — Tom Reiss

You grew up, became a man, had to adjust to taking less than you hoped for; you discovered the dream-machine had a big OUT OF ORDER sign on it. — Stephen King

A man may take his own life for many reasons, and it is impossible to make a general statement; but whenever suicide is a gesture - done, that is, to impress or influence or embarrass others - it is always, so it seems to me, a sign of immaturity and muddled thinking. However much we may admire the fortitude of this Vietnamese monk, the wisdom of his action remains very much in doubt. I do not know the details of the provocation offered by the Catholic Head of State, but the monk appears to have killed himself 'fighting for the cause of Buddhism'. Certainly this action is infinitely more honourable than the setting fire to churches and the crowning of statues that seem to be the favoured methods of giving battle in this country; but it does not follow that it is any the less misguided. — Nanavira Thera

Honestly, Evie," I huffed, flopping back to the centre of my bed and glaring at the ceiling. "Why don't you whine some more instead of actually doing anything?"
"Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness," Arianna volunteered, leaning on the frame of my open door.
"Yeah, so's seeing things no one else can, but people seem to like that about me."
"Good point. Odds are, you've been crazy for years now. I'm probably nothing more than a figment of your imagination."
"If that were true, I'd imagine you as less of a slob."
She sighed. "Isn't it sad that you hate yourself so much you can't even dream up a pleasant roommate?"
"Not as sad as the fact that you admit how bad you suck as one."
Flashing a wicked grin, she narrowed her eyes. " I'd use the term 'suck' sparingly around me. Don't want to go planting ideas in my pretty, dead head."
I threw a pillow at her. — Kiersten White

Humility is the safeguard of chastity. In the matter of purity, there is no greater danger than not fearing the danger. For my part, when I find a man secure of himself and without fear, I give him up for lost. I am less alarmed for one who is tempted and who resists by avoiding the occasions, than for one who is not tempted and is not careful to avoid occasions. When a person puts himself in an occasion, saying, I shall not fall, it is an almost infallible sign that he will fall, and with great injury to his soul. — Philip Neri

Saturday, July 2, 2016
1:51 PM
One ancient retired Air Force nurse does nothing but scream 'Help!' for hours at a time from a second-story window. Since the Ennet House residents are drilled in a Boston-AA recovery program that places great emphasis on 'Asking For Help,' the retired shrieking Air Force nurse is the object of a certain grim amusement, sometimes. Not six weeks ago, a huge stolen HELP WANTED sign was found attached to #4's siding right below the retired shrieking nurse's window, and #4's director was less than amused, ... — David Foster Wallace

In our contemporary social and intellectual plight, it is nothing less than shocking to discover that those persons who claim to have discovered an absolute are usually the same people who also pretend to be superior to the rest. To find people in our day attempting to pass off to the world and recommending to others some nostrum of the absolute which they claim to have discovered is merely a sign of the loss of and the need for intellectual and moral certainty, felt by broad sections of the population who are unable to look life in the face. — Karl Mannheim

Modernity has only lasted less than a dozen generations, while orthodox Christianity has already flourished for more than four hundred generations and shows no sign of fatigue. Yet orthodoxy seems like a newcomer in the university and to the cultural elites, since that is where it has been most forgotten. — Thomas C. Oden

Lucien: And Flowers
but only Anya can call me that.
William: Fine. I'll call you Roses.
Lucien: You won't.
William: I will. Zodiac sign, Roses?
Lucien: First, how does my woman stand you? Second, I don't think I have a sign. I was created rather than born, and I am unsure of the day, much less the month.
William: I'll just mark your sign as "Roses". Choice of weapon, Roses?
Lucien: You are a bastard. But I like knives. I like to get up close and personal with my kills. Care for a demonstration?
William: Later. What are you looking for in a woman, Roses?
Lucien: Why don't I just call you Moron? Anya does ... — Gena Showalter

On two chairs beneath the bole of the tree and canopied by a living bough there sat, side by side, Celeborn and Galadriel. Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory. — J.R.R. Tolkien

It was the kind of upheaval, smack in the middle of adulthood, which was messy enough to make me consider, back then, the wisdom of early marriage. When we're young, after all, our lives are so much more pliant, can be joined without too much fuss. When we grow on our own, we take on responsibility, report to bosses, become bosses; we get our own bank accounts, acquire our own debts, sign our own leases. The infrastructure of our adulthood takes shape, connects to other lives; it firms up and gets less bendable. The prospect of breaking it all apart and rebuilding it elsewhere becomes a far more daunting project than it might have been had we just married someone at twenty-two, and done all that construction together. The — Rebecca Traister

working more than 40 hours a week was stupid, wasteful, dangerous, and expensive - and the most telling sign of dangerously incompetent management to boot," Robinson writes. Further, more than a hundred years of research shows that "every hour you work over 40 hours a week is making you less effective and productive over both the short and the long haul." Really! Even though most people think this makes intuitive sense, they are still surprised to hear that it is actually true. This common sense is so widely ignored that overwork - and the problems with health, happiness, and productivity that it brings - is epidemic. — Christine Carter

She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen and among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation? — Thomas Hardy