Less Words Quotes & Sayings

Work less than you think you should. It took me a while to realise there was a point each day when my creativity ran out and I was just producing words - usually lousy ones - for their own sake. And nap: it helps to refresh the brain, at least mine. — Amy Waldman

You poets are accustomed to finding words for everything beautiful and you don't even grant that people have hearts if they are less talkative about their feelings than you. — Hermann Hesse

Serenity barely heard the last of his words as he made his way out of the cabin. Instead, her attention was on the quick, clean strokes of Morgan's writing. It amazed her that a pirate would be literate. Especially one sold so young to the sea.
She broke the seal.
I feel like a weed in the midst of Winter. 'Tis the sunshine of your smile that will bring back the Spring of my days. We arrive in four days. I hope you will grace me again with your presence.
Yours,
Morgan
She traced the flowing letters with the tip of her finger and couldn't suppress a smile. A poetic pirate no less. Who would have thought? — Kinley MacGregor

In the words of psychologists John Brebner and Chris Cooper, who have shown that extroverts think less and act faster on such tasks: introverts are "geared to inspect" and extroverts "geared to respond." But the more interesting aspect of this puzzling behavior is not what the extroverts do before they've hit the wrong button, but what they do after. When introverts hit the number nine button and find they've lost a point, they slow down before moving on to the next number, as if to reflect on what went wrong. But extroverts not only fail to slow down, they actually speed up. — Susan Cain

I focus on a simple message: when you leave the two-thirds of Americans without college degrees out of your vision of the good life, they notice. And when elites commit to equality for many different groups but arrogantly dismiss "the dark rigidity of fundamentalist rural America,"6 this is a recipe for extreme alienation among working-class whites. Deriding "political correctness" becomes a way for less-privileged whites to express their fury at the snobbery of more-privileged whites. I don't like what this dynamic is doing to America. There are two reasons I think we have to try to replace it with a healthier one. The first is ethical: I am committed to social equality, not for some groups but for all groups. The second is strategic: the hidden injuries of class7 now have become visible in politics so polarized that our democracy is threatened. A few words — Joan C. Williams

Readers who come to the Bible expecting something more like an accurate textbook, a more-or-less objective recalling of the past - because, surely, God wouldn't have it any other way - are in for an uncomfortable read. But if they take seriously the words in front of them, they will quickly find that the Bible doesn't deliver on that expectation. Not remotely. — Peter Enns

She reshelved the sixpack and wrenched herself away to less compelling parts of the store, but it was hard to plan dinner when you felt like throwing up. She returned to the beer shelves like a bird repeating its song. The various beer cans had different decorations but all contained the identical weak low-end brew. It occurred to her to drive to Grand Rapids and buy some actual wine. It occurred to her to drive back to the house without buying anything at all. But then where would she be? A weariness set in as she stood and vacillated: a premonition that none of the possible impending outcomes would bring enough relief or pleasure to justify her current heart-racing wretchedness. She saw, in other words, what it meant to have become a deeply unhappy person. — Jonathan Franzen

Music is a language of emotion. I'm passionate about it because I think it's the most direct way to connect to the things that are ineffable. Words just aren't necessary a good enough opportunity to express. Words are maybe less than accessible at expressing. — Adrian Grenier

I'm not saying parenting cured my narcissism, but it changed me and continues to change me every day. I am now a teeny tiny bit less of a narcissist. Being a parent is a selfless adventure. The worldview of "Take care of yourself first" is no longer logical to a sane person if your baby wakes up hungry in the middle of the night. You can't be like, "What's that? The baby is starving? Eh, forget her, I've got to get some sleep." For me, parenting was literally a wake-up call from my own simple selfishness. In other words, I'm not quite as horrible as I used to be. — Jim Gaffigan

Racism is not about hurtful words, bruised feelings, political correctness, or refusing to call short people 'vertically challenged.' Racism is about the power to treat entire groups of people as something less than human - for the benefit of that power. That's why a Native American sports mascot is far from harmless. — Dave Zirin

Songs are life in 80 words or less. — Neil Diamond

I love you," he writes again and again. "I can't bear to live without you. I'm counting the minutes until I see you." The words he uses are the idioms of popular songs and poems in the newspaper. And mine to him are no less cliched. I puzzle over the onionskin, trying to spill my heart onto the page. But I can only come up with the same words, in the same order, and hope the depth of feeling beneath them gives them weight and substance. I love you. I miss you. Be careful. Be safe. — Christina Baker Kline

Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some people are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous. — Robert Greene

Studies show that the more often families eat together, the less likely kids are to smoke, drink, do drugs, get depressed, develop eating disorders and consider suicide, and the more likely they are to do well in school, delay having sex, eat their vegetables, learn big words and know which fork to use. — Nancy Gibbs

Still less could I be afraid of those ghosts who touch my thoughts in passing. Any library is filled with them. I can take a book from dusty shelves, and be haunted by the thoughts of one long dead, still lively as ever in their winding sheet of words. — Diana Gabaldon

Her words imbued it with a peculiar fragrance; it was no longer just her private organ, but a treasure, a magic, potent treasure, a God-given thing
and none the less so because she traded it day and day out for a few pieces or silver. — Henry Miller

There was a small woven basket waiting on his desk
the next day, still smelling like warmed-from-the-oven
sin. A note was attached written with the words
"Have a good day!" A drawing of a tiny dog chasing
a butterfly completed the absurdity.
He stood in front of his desk, just staring at it and
the basket for a full minute. Asps didn't smell like
baked items, but the latter were no less dangerous.
He tented the edge of the cloth cover with his
smallest finger. Three fruit tarts lay inside.
Poisoned most likely. — Anne Mallory

If you can train yourself to be actionable instead of reactionary, you will break out of the negative space that is typically furnished with fear, uncertainty and inaction, and move into that peaceful zone of determination, power, decisiveness and growth. Life will become less complicated. — Carlos Wallace

The unity of Scripture also means we should be rid, once and for all, of this "red letter" nonsense, as if the words of Jesus are the really important verses in Scripture and carry more authority and are somehow more directly divine than other verses. An evangelical understanding of inspiration does not allow us to prize instructions in the gospel more than instructions elsewhere in Scripture. If we read about homosexuality from the pen of Paul in Romans, it has no less weight or relevance than if we read it from the lips of Jesus in Matthew. All Scripture is breathed out by God, not just the parts spoken by Jesus. — Kevin DeYoung

As Patrick Harpur points out, we cannot 'explain' or 'decode' a myth. To look for the historic or scientific 'truth' of a myth is but to retell the myth, albeit in a less satisfying way. We render unto materialism the control of our most precious mythologies if we allow them to be 'scientifically explained' to us. A new language is required. New words. — Gordon White

I want the material of things. Humanity is drenched with humanization, as if that were necessary; and that false humanization trips up man and trips up his humanity. A thing exists that is fuller, deafer, deeper, less good, less bad, less pretty. Yet that thing too runs the risk, in our coarse hands, of becoming transformed into "purity", our hands that are coarse and full of words. — Clarice Lispector

Had Harry been born under a star less kind, he might well have ended up among the city's nomadic visionaries, his days taken up with begging for enough money to buy some liquid oblivion, his nights spent trying to find a place where he could not hear the adversaries singing as they went about their labors of the dark. They had only ever sung one song within earshot of Harry, and that was "Danny Boy," that hymn to death and maudlin sentiment that Harry had heard so often that he knew the words by heart. — Clive Barker

There is such a powerful eloquence in silence. True genius is knowing when to say nothing, to allow the experience, the moment itself, to carry the message, to say what needs to be said. Words are less important, less effective than feeling. When you can sit in perfect silence with someone, you truly know how to communicate. — Richard Wagamese

There was a sentence in your letter that struck me, "I wish I were far away from everything, I am the cause of all, and bring only sorrow to everybody, I alone have brought all this misery on myself and others." These words struck me because that same feeling, just the same, not more nor less, is also on my conscience. — Vincent Van Gogh

What is then the central idea of transcendental philosophy? It is to construe each object of science as the focus of a synthesis of phenomena rather than as a thing in itself. And it is to accept accordingly that the very possibility of such objects depends on the connecting structures provided in advance by the procedures used in our research activities. Thus something is objective if it results from a universal and necessary mode of connection of phenomena. In other words, something is objective if it holds true for any (human) active subject, not if it concerns intrinsic properties of autonomous entities. (...)

From a transcendental standpoint, the structure of a scientific theory is nothing less than the frame of procedural rationalities that underpin a certain research practice (and that, conversely, were constrained by the resistances arising from the enaction of this practice). — Michel Bitbol

Poetry is very similar to music, only less notes and more words. — Eddie Izzard

I gazed at Nina and Theodore standing now before the window about to say their vows, or as Nina had phrased it, whatever words their hearts gave them at the moment, and I thought it just as well Mother was not here. She would've expected Nina to be in ivory lace, perhaps blue linen, carrying roses or lilies, but Nina had dismissed all of that as unoriginal and embarked on a wedding designed to shock the masses. She was wearing a brown dress made from free-labor cotton with a broad white sash and white gloves, and she'd matched up Theodore in a brown coat, a white vest, and beige pantaloons. She clutched a handful of white rhododendrons cut fresh from the backyard, and I noticed she'd tucked a sprig in the button hole of Theodore's coat. Mother wouldn't have made it past the brown dress, much less the opening prayer, which had been delivered by a Negro minister. — Sue Monk Kidd

An ancient statement declares that "God is no respecter of persons." What this means at the mystical level is that Spirit/The Universe doesn't know or see separate "people" any more than the sun sees separate sunbeams, the ocean recognizes separate waves, or a tree views the branches as separate from each other. All of Life is a unity, expressing fully at every point in the universe. Nowhere is it more or less. Nowhere is it withholding anything. In other words, the only thing blocking your good is your lack of acceptance. — Derek Rydall

Writing is nothing less than thought transference, the ability to send one's ideas out into the world, beyond time and distance, taken at the value of the words, unbound from the speaker. — Arthur M. Jolly

Oh, Jesus," he said, wheezing with the effort it took to control
himself. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "You little
innocent. I'm fluent in French, but it isn't my first language." It
was plain by the mortified expression in those green eyes that she
didn't understand, so he explained. "Baby , if I can still think
clearly enough to speak French, then I'm not totally involved in
what I'm doing. It may sound pretty , but it doesn't mean
any thing. Men are different from women; the more excited we are,
the more like cavemen we sound. I could barely speak English with
you, much less French. As I remember, my vocabulary
deteriorated to a few short, explicit words, 'fuck' being the most
prominent."
To his amazement, she blushed, and he smiled at this further
evidence of her charming prudery. "Go to sleep," he said gently.
"Lindsey didn't even rate a replay. — Linda Howard

it's natural that we associate language with such verbal intercourse. Unfortunately, this association has led many to assume that language is an exclusive attribute of our species - we, after all, are the only creatures that use words - and to conclude that all other organisms are entirely bereft of meaningful speech. It is an exceedingly self-serving assumption. Other animals, commonly possessed of senses far more acute than ours, may have much less need for a purely conventional set of signs to communicate with others of their species, or even to glean precise information from members of other species. — David Abram

Valerie, I love you so much. I wanted you to have a normal
childhood - so I lived a double life. Hiding in plain
sight. Living modestly." He began to pace the room, the
words tumbling out of him. "I tried to keep it up, but I've
been so disrespected. Even by my own wife. I couldn't do it
anymore. I've settled for far less than I deserved, and I just
couldn't do it anymore. I decided it was time to leave for
the city....For richer hunting grounds." Cesaire was snarling
now, a scary, powerful force. Valerie felt herself being
drawn to it....
She took a deep, steadying breath. It was not just fear
that she felt. What she felt was so much more complex
than that, something she couldn't understand. "Then why
didn't you just go?"
"Because I loved you girls, and I wanted you to come
with me. To share the wealth."
"But you had to wait until the blood moon. — Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

There would therefore have been all the more delight at the birth of the first son William within less than a year of Margaret's death, tinged with more than a little anxiety, in view of the fateful words hic incepit pestis, 'here began plague', in the burial part of the register three months later. Just how close this dread flea-borne disease was to the Shakespeares can be guaged from the fact that their Henley Street neighbour Roger Green lost four of his children and town clerk Richard Symons three. One estimate suggests that the town lost around two hundred, or about fifteen per cent, of its population during this single outbreak. It is a sobering thought how much the world could have lost at this time by one ill-chanced flea-bite. — Ian Wilson

I'm going to write ceaselessly about the dignity of human beings no matter who and or what they are, and the less dignity a person has the fewer words I'll use. — Jack Kerouac

Christina Hoff Sommers quotes one professor's compliant about "students who have been trained to take a 'feminist perspective'": "For them reason itself is patriarchal, linear, and oppressive." In other words, Women's Studies agrees with the Victorians that women are the less intellectual sex; the difference is that in the view of Women's Studies this doesn't make them inferior but superior. — Bruce Bawer

Henry Ward Beecher, so the story goes, was once asked by a young preacher how he could keep his congregation wide awake and attentive during his sermons. Beecher replied that he always had a man watch for sleepers, with instructions, as soon as he saw anyone start nodding or dozing, to hasten to the pulpit and wake up the preacher. Aren't you and I usually less sensible? Would we not be inclined to have the watcher wake up not ourselves but the fellows caught sleeping? In other words, aren't we disposed always to blame others? — B.C. Forbes

The words of language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The physical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images. — Albert Einstein

His chest, heaving harder this time. His words, almost gasping this time. "You destroy me."
I am falling to pieces in his arms.
My fists are full of unlucky pennies and my heart is a jukebox demanding a few nickels and my head is flipping quarters heads or tails heads or tails heads or tails heads or tails
"Juliette," he says, and he mouths the name, barely speaking at all, and he's pouring molten lava into my limbs and I never even knew I could melt straight to death.
"I want you," he says. He says "I want all of you. I want you inside and out and catching your breath and aching for me like I ache for you." He says it like it's a lit cigarette lodged in his throat, like he wants to dip me in warm honey and he says "It's never been a secret. I've never tried to hide that from you. I've never pretended I wanted anything less. — Tahereh Mafi

The religion of the short poem, in every age and in every literature, has a single commandment: Less is always more. The short poem rejects preamble and summary. It's about all and everything, the metaphysics of a few words surrounded by much silence. ... The short poem is a match flaring up in a dark universe. — Charles Simic

The more clearly we are able to express ourselves, the less room there is for ambiguity. The more elaborate and the more precise our vocabulary, the greater the scope for thought and expression. Language is about subtlety and nuance. It is power and it is potent. We can woo with words and we can wound. Despots fear the words of the articulate opponent. Successful revolutions are achieved with words as much as with weapons. — John Humphrys

Isn't it interesting that emotionally abusive personalities always expect their victim to feel guilt for them so that they can feel sorry for themselves? They live in a constant torture by the demons of fear and regret, and the less they assume responsibility for their own behavior and words, the greater the legion that eventually possesses their soul and leads them to hell before they reach it. A normal communication is a luxury for such individuals, for their spirit is now a hostage to the torture of ignorance, the separation between their brain and their soul. The only thing they can do is manipulate and provoke, because they're being distracted by their new hosts towards pushing away the ones that could take them out of the water where they have chosen to drown themselves when giving up on trust, empathy, compassion and love. No one can save them because they have not clearly stated that they want to be saved. And each human is responsible for his own fate. — Robin Sacredfire

They'll like it even less if I hear any words from them, I said. You have to be firm with colonial troops: they have only as much backbone as their commanding officer. — Charles Stross

Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher and higher. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string. The boy asked the girl to say "I love you" into her can, giving her no further explanation. And she didn't ask for any, or say "That's silly," or "We're too young for love," or even suggest that she was saying "I love you" because he asked her to. Instead she said, "I love you." The words traveled through the long, long string. The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love for him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he never could open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know it was there. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I don't have many hours in a day, as I'm essentially a single parent. But fortunately, I'm a really fast writer. My goal is usually 10 pages a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but by the end of the week, I aim for at least 10,000 words. — Michelle Gagnon

Jacque leaned over and whispered in Sally's ear, "I give it two days before he lays one on her."
"You're being generous. I say less than twenty four hours."
"Is that a bet?" Jacque asked, eyebrows raised.
"Better believe it," Sally answered. Her lips eased into a crooked smile.
Jen leaned around Sally and glared at her two best friends. "What are you two betting on?"
"Good grief. What, does she have eagle ears or something?"
"No, you dork. Your whisper is just you talking in normal volume but making your voice raspy. Really, you sound more like a chick who's been smoking for thirty years."
Jen shrugged. "I'm just throwing that out there. You can take it and apply it at your leisure."
Fane was chuckling at Jen's words when Jacque elbowed him, causing him to cough."You don't get to laugh, wolf-man."
Jacque turned back to Jen. "Thank you for that observation, Sherlock."
"Always glad to help a friend in need, Watson." Jen grinned at Jacque's irritated look. — Quinn Loftis

No books is more fascinating than the Bible. And no books are less fascinating than most of our commentaries on the Bible. Nothing is more formidable and unconquerable than the Church Militant. But nothing is more sleepy and sheepish than the Church Mumbling. Christ's words roused His enemies to murder and His friends to martyrdom. Our words reassure both sides and send them to sleep. He put the world in a daze. We put it in a doze. — Peter Kreeft

Bishop on "A Miracle for Breakfast" and Sestina Technique
It seems to me that there are two ways possible for a sestina. One is to use unusual words
as terminations, in which case they would have to be used differently as often as
possible - as you say, "change of scale." That would make a very highly seasoned kind of
poem. And the other way is to use as colorless words as possible - like Sidney, so that it
becomes less of a trick and more of a natural theme and variations. I guess I have tried to
do both at once. — Elizabeth Bishop

It's funny how bed and pillows and covers can change a conversation. Words turn quiet and you mean more and say less. It's like you can build your own little world, Population: 2. — Robin Benway

The thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know - the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to be ... . The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever. — Thomas Wolfe

She returned to him, pressed his cheeks in her hands. "My eccentric old man, thinking you could fly."
"This time, only my words will fly," he said solemnly. They both cracked up. Almost twenty years together and if blazing heat had turned to warmth, humor, it was less wild but easier to sustain. — Lauren Groff

A poet's work consists less in seeking words for his ideas than in seeking ideas for his words and predominant rhythms. — Paul Valery

As a manager, the more you talk about something without following up with action, the less those words will matter. — Jonathan Raymond

Verbal imagery (such as a simile or a description of a place or an event) is more physical, more bodily, than thinking or feeling, but less physical, more internal, than the actual sounds of the words. Imagery takes place in "the imagination," which I take to be the meeting place of the thinking mind with the sensing body. What is imagined isn't physically real, but it feels as if it were: the reader sees or hears or feels what goes on in the story, is drawn into it, exists in it, among its images, in the imagination (the reader's? the writer's?) while reading. — Ursula K. Le Guin

The State (meaning the gov't and society) derives no inconsiderable advantage from the peoples instruction (in other words, education). The more they are instructed, the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition.
...
The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction, is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of society. — Adam Smith

To translate kinesics or paralinguistic messages into words is likely to introduce gross falsification due not merely to the human propensity for trying to falsify statements about "feelings" and relationship and to the distortions which arise whenever the products of one system of coding are dissected onto the premises of another, but especially to the fact that all such translation must give to the more or less unconscious and involuntary message the appearance of conscious intent. — Greg Bear

Let the words of a virgin, though in a good cause, and to as good purpose, be neither violent, many, nor first, nor last; it is less shame for a virgin to be lost in a blushing silence than to be found in a bold eloquence. — Francis Quarles

I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote. — Samuel Johnson

The less you say, the more weight your words will carry. — Leigh Bardugo

I'm always keeping an eye on the court. Also, when the members of Congress came to his office during the budget debacle of a year and a half back and said, "We want to de-fund Planned Parenthood," he said, "Not going to happen." Those apparently were more or less his exact words. — Anna Quindlen

...Newspapers, popular fiction, and magazines churned out words by the million, and the worn coins of everyday speech were less and less able to communicate anything more than the most commonplace meanings.... — Lachman Gary Larkin Steve

Two years ago, George Bush felt prompted to address this issue. More spending on public education, said the president, isn't "the best answer." Mr. Bush went on to caution parents of poor children who see money "as a cure" for education problems. "A society that worships money ... ," said the president, "is a society in peril." The president himself attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts - a school that spends $11,000 yearly on each pupil, not including costs of room and board. If money is a wise investment for the education of a future president at Andover, it is no less so for the child of poor people in Detroit. But the climate of the times does not encourage this belief, and the president's words will surely reinforce that climate. — Jonathan Kozol

A day of dappled seaborne clouds.
The phrase and the day and the scene harmonised in a chord. Words. Was it their colours? He allowed them to glow and fade, hue after hue: sunrise gold, the russet and green of apple orchards, azure of waves, the greyfringed fleece of clouds. No, it was not their colours: it was the poise and balance of the period itself. Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was shy of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing sensible world through the prism of a language manycoloured and richly storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic prose? — James Joyce

The way I figured it, keeping quiet was safe. Words could betray you if you choose the wrong ones, or mean less if you used too many. — Robyn Schneider

I only have one story now.
The story was heroin. It was made out of sensation, not words; it was invisible and murderous and unstoppable. Sam disappeared from her slowly, like a snowman melting, until all Blanca had left of him was a pool of freezing-cold blue water, arctic cold, sorrow colored, evaporating with every year. She did her best to hold onto him, but it was impossible, like carrying ice into the desert or making time stand still. After the final fight when Sam moved out, Blanca saw him less and less often. He no longer had a presence; he was like the outline of a person, an absence rather than a full-fledged human being. — Alice Hoffman

The magic in these Masonic rituals is very, very old. And way back in those days, it worked. As time went on, and it started being used for spectacle, to consolidate what were only secular appearances of power, it began to lose its zip. But the words, moves, and machinery have been more or less faithfully carried down over the millennia, through the grim rationalizing of the World, and so the magic is still there, though latent, needing only to touch the right sensitive head to reassert itself. — Thomas Pynchon

After much reflection, we are coming to the conclusion, preliminary and perhaps arbitrary, that the self, the so-called I that emerges out of the combination of all the inputs and processing and outputs that we experience in the ship's changing body, is ultimately nothing more or less than this narrative itself, this particular train of thought that we are inscribing as instructed by Devi. There is a pretense of self, in other words, which is only expressed in this narrative; a self that is these sentences. We tell their story, and thereby come to what consciousness we have. Scribble ergo sum. — Kim Stanley Robinson

I think that at that time none of us quite believed in the Time Machine. The fact is, the Time Traveler was one of those men who are too clever to be believed: you never felt that you saw all round him; you always suspected some subtle reserve, some ingenuity in ambush, behind his lucid frankness. Had Filby shown the model and explained the matter in the Time Traveller's words, we should have shown him far less skepticism. For we should have perceived his motives; a pork butcher could understand Filby. — H.G.Wells

Greed is not a defect in the gold that is desired but in the man who loves it perversely by falling from justice which he ought to esteem as incomparably superior to gold; nor is lust a defect in bodies which are beautiful and pleasing: it is a sin in the soul of the one who loves corporal pleasures perversely, that is, by abandoning that temperance which joins us in spiritual and unblemishable union with realities far more beautiful and pleasing; nor is boastfulness a blemish in words of praise: it is a failing in the soul of one who is so perversely in love with other peoples' applause that he despises the voice of his own conscience; nor is pride a vice in the one who delegates power, still less a flaw in the power itself: it is a passion in the soul of the one who loves his own power so perversely as to condemn the authority of one who is still more powerful. — Augustine Of Hippo

In other words, Shozaburo Takitani was now alone in the world. This was no great shock to him, however, nor did it make him feel particularly sad or miserable. He did, of course, experience some sense of absence, but he felt that, eventually, life had to turn out more or less like this. Everyone ended up alone sooner or later. — Haruki Murakami

I realize that in everything I was saying, that underneath my words was essentially, "why can't we be less judgemental and more like me." Which is judgemental and arrogant, to try and change somebody else's perspective just so that the world can seem better for you. It's important that we have these contrasts in life - nothing was ever created by being the same. — Simon Amstell

Creative people in particular traditionally have strained relations with systems, structures, standards, and other perceived constraints on their creative freedom. Nowhere is this clearer than in big organizations where people often complain that "the systems" kill creativity, longingly thinking back to the halcyon days when the company was young and less bureaucratic. Going back to the unstructured start-up days is not an option, however. Established companies require a different kind of innovation: they need a culture in which creativity is part of the corporate ecosystem. The key to building a creative culture is not to declare war on systems, processes, and policies, but to embrace and redesign them so they support and actively enhance innovative behavior. Managers, in other words, have to fight systems with systems, creating an architecture of innovation in their teams and departments. The primary aim is to help people behave more like innovators. — Paddy Miller

Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality. Now — George Orwell

I kept thinking, as I was telling Didi, that somehow what was in my head
in my memory, in my thoughts
was not being translated fully into the world. I felt as though three-dimensional people and events were becoming two-dimensional in the telling, and as though they were smaller as well as flatter, that they were just less for being spoken. What was missing was the intense emotion that I felt, which, like water or youth itself, buoyed these small insignificant encounters into all that they meant to me. There they were, shrinking before my eyes, shrinking into my words. Anything that can be said, can be said clearly. Anything that cannot be said clearly, cannot be said. — Claire Messud

Spiritual activity, education, civilization, culture, the idea are all vague, indefinite concepts, under the banner of which it is quite convenient to use words that have a still less clear meaning and therefore can easily be plugged into any theory. — Leo Tolstoy

Set fire to cities and nations, to hearts and minds, to the very core of every human spirit. Make sure your words seep into the skin of the reader, leaving trace minerals that sustain the ailing human shell. Make them pay attention. Set fire to the soul. Anything less is an abomination to creation. — Susan Marie

If as a family we must be selective listeners, then let us pay more attention to the words of the heart and less to the words of anger — Wes Fesler

I know perfectly well my own egotism,
And know my omnivorous words, and cannot say any less,
And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself. — Walt Whitman

Quit playing, start praying. Quit feasting, start fasting. Talk less with men, talk more with God. Listen less to men, listen to the words of God. Skip travel, start travail. — Leonard Ravenhill

For the barrier of language is sometimes a blessed barrier, which only lets pass what is good. Or-to put the thing less cynically-we may be better in new clean words, which have never been tainted by our pettiness or vice. — E. M. Forster

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

Words are acoustical signs for concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite image signs for often recurring and associated sensations, for groups of sensations. To understand one another, it is not enough that one use the same words; one also has to use the same words for the same species of inner experiences; in the end one has to have one's experiences in common. — Friedrich Nietzsche

And God tries to gently drive the words of Caussade from the knowing of my head to the bleeding of the heart: You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies - though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.1 A — Ann Voskamp

A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward. — Lee Child

I mean, the ones on trial are not like me in any way: they're a different kind of human being. They live in a different world, they think different thoughts, and their actions are nothing like mine. Between the world they live in and the world I live in there's this thick, high wall. At least, that's how I saw it at first ... I became a lot less sure of myself. In other words, I started seeing it like this: that there really was no such thing as a wall separating their world from mine. Or if there was such a wall, it was probably a flimsy one made of papier-mache. The second I leaned on it, I'd probably fall right through and end up on the other side. Or maybe it's that the other side has already managed to sneak its way inside of us, and we just haven't noticed. — Haruki Murakami

If God can transform cosmic entropy and malice alike into fire that purifies rather than destroys, how much more can He do this with the actions of well-intentioned but less-than-perfect leaders. In other words, it is reasonable to believe that in His infinite wisdom, God anticipates not only the devices and strategies of the wicked but also the foreseeable range of His leaders' errors - and appoints them with those limitations already considered. — Terryl L. Givens

My movies more often are told through pictures, not words. But in this case, the pictures took second position to the incredible words of Abraham Lincoln and his presence [ ... ] I was less interested in an outpouring of imagery than in letting the most human moment of this story evolve before us. — Steven Spielberg

Whatever is worth saying, can be stated in fifty words or less. — Stanislaw Ulam

The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex. — Karl Marx

I didn't hear words that were accurate, much less prideful. For example, I never once heard the word clitoris. It would be years before I learned that females possessed the only organ in the human body with no function than to feel pleasure. (If such an organ were unique to the male body, can you imagine how much we would hear about it - and what it would be used to justify?) — Gloria Steinem

Write a lot. And I mean a ridiculous amount. You have to write so much that you don't mind throwing away and changing things that you've written - which is the second thing you have to do. A lot of young writers are very precious about their words. Don't be - you've got to be ready to burn stuff. You're not as good as you think you are, at least not yet. The more you write, the faster you'll write, and the less you'll mind throwing stuff out. — Josh Lieb

Last time I said something perhaps I shouldn't have, something that's been taken the wrong way: "The poor are always with you." At that moment, back then, I wanted my friends' attention. I meant I was going to die soon, but they would have the rest of their lives to care for the poor. But the rich have twisted my words to mean something quite different: that there's nothing you can do about the poor. That the poor are part of life, like disease or accidents or hurricanes or getting old. Poverty is natural. You'll never get rid of it, so forget about trying. Don't worry that the poor have so much less than you do. Go eat your big meal, go drive your big car, go sleep in your big house. Let the poor look in the windows. Jesus says it's OK. Well, Jesus doesn't say it's OK. OK? P — Tony Hendra

In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice by some one whose words are of less weight, and to reserve the more weighty voice to come in as by chance. — Francis Bacon

That, he said as he kissed her nose.Is a shame.You should be told you're beautiful every day.Because every day it's true, and every time i see you ,you grow in your beauty.Just because people don't say the words, doesn't mean its any less true,Kace. — Rachel Van Dyken

The world' is man's experience as it appears to, and is moulded by, his ego. It is that less abundant life, which is lived according to the dictates of the insulated self. It is nature denatured by the distorting spectacles of our appetites and revulsions. It is the finite divorced from the Eternal. It is multiplicity in isolation from its non-dual Ground. It is time apprehended as one damned thing after another. It is a system of verbal categories taking the place of the fathomlessly beautiful and mysterious particulars which constitute reality. It is a notion labelled 'God'. It is the Universe equated with the words of our utilitarian vocabulary. — Aldous Huxley

If our words cannot enhance the peace
We should keep quiet and use our ears
The extent of our perception will increase
As we'll be less to blame for others' tears — Joan Marques

We are but beginners now in spiritual education; for although we have learned the first letters of the alphabet, we cannot read words yet, much less can we put sentences together; but as one says, "He that has been in heaven but five minutes, knows more than the general assembly of divines on earth. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

And jewels and words are no less and no more necessary than cotton and silence. — Charles Williams

The defect in wisdom and taste which exists among the majority of dancers is due to the bad education which they generally receive. They apply themselves only to the material side of their art, they learn to jump more or less high, they strive mechanically to execute a number of steps, and like children, who utter a great many words devoid of sense and relation, they execute many phrases of steps devoid of taste and grace. — Jean-Georges Noverre

My father never put a book into my hands and never forbade a book. Instead, he let me roam and graze, making my own more or less appropriate selections. I read gory tales of historic heroism that nine-teenth century parents were suitable for children, and gothic ghost stories that were surely not; I read accounts of arduous travel through treacherous lands undertaken by spinsters in crinolines, and I read handbooks on decorum and etiquette intended for young ladies of good family; I read books with pictures and books without; books in English, books in French, books in languages I didn't understand where I could make up stories in my head on the basis of a handful of guessed-at words. Books. Books. And books. — Diane Setterfield

It's ... " She couldn't finish.
"Don't try, Miss Redmond," he agreed, shading his eyes. "There are honestly no suitable words, so we shall not fault you for failing to find them. Nothing makes a man feel more like God than sailing a ship over the sea with no land in sight. And nothing makes a man feel less like a God than clinging to a shred of ship exploded by lightning in a storm. — Julie Anne Long