Lessen Quotes & Sayings

The majority of us lead quiet, unheralded lives as we pass through this world. There will most likely be no ticker-tape parades for us, no monuments created in our honor. But that does not lessen our possible impact, for there are scores of people waiting for someone just like us to come along; people who will appreciate our compassion, our unique talents. Someone who will live a happier life merely because we took the time to share what we had to give. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have a potential to turn a life around. It's overwhelming to consider the continuous opportunities there are to make our love felt. — Leo Buscaglia

Will the social networking phenomenon lessen? I don't think so. — Marissa Mayer

A careless word may kindle strife,
A cruel word may wreck a life;
A timely word may lessen stress,
A loving word may heal and bless. — Anonymous

I heard once that real love doesn't ask what is in it for me; it just gives unconditionally. It just tries to take the weight out of somebody else's pack, lessen his load, and if it gets reciprocated, that's great, but that isn't what you did it for. — Donald Miller

The way to lessen the grip of the Tea Party on the electoral process would be to do what a handful have done and have a primary where all voters, members of every party, can vote, and the top two vote-getters then enter a runoff. — Chuck Schumer

If a power station were to be built down the road, I'd prefer a nuclear plant over an oil burner, and definitely over a coal burner. We simply have to lessen our consumption of fossil fuels. — James Lovelock

You realise that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you, he said. — John Green

You'll go about your day, and you will miss him at first, but over time it will ease. It will lessen. — Jenny Han

For if you lessen your anger at the structures of power, you lower your love for the victims of power. — William Sloane Coffin

For the first time, she recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her early teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded. — Kate Chopin

Any task in life is easier if we approach it with the one at a time attitude ... To cite a whimsical saying; 'If you chase two rabbits, both of them will escape.' No one is adequate to do everything all at once. We have to select what is important, what is possible, and begin where we are, with what we have. And if we beginand if we keep going the weight, the worry, the doubt, the depression will begin to lift ... We can't do everything always, but we can do something now, and doing something will help to lift the weight and lessen the worry, 'The beginning,' said Plato, 'is the most important part. — Richard L. Evans

As the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. — Benjamin Franklin

I believe that where the love of God is perfected and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to, a tenderness toward all creatures will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the Great Creator intends for them under our government. — John Woolman

As it ferments, kraut whispers alchemical secrets. In two days, it will smell as agreeable as an old pillow still warm from night's use. In five days it will smell like a horse run to foam. The odor will then lessen as the vegetable begins its tart transformation. It will be good to eat in two weeks, but at five weeks it will reach the zenith of its power, its taste a violin bow drawn across the tongue. After six weeks it will err slowly toward slime. Like hams and men, it gets better with age only to a point. — Eli Brown

Asking isn't what I had in mind," Sicarius said.
"Yes, I can see that." Amaranthe planted a hand on his chest, fingers splayed. "Why don't you give Yara and me a few minutes alone to discuss this? I'll brief you on whatever we decide to do before we do it. And you can loiter nearby in case anything goes wrong."
His face didn't soften exactly - and he gave that hand a long look before meeting Amaranthe's eyes - but the hostility he'd been oozing did seem to lessen. "Assassins don't loiter," he said.
The comment startled Evrial, and she wondered if she'd heard it correctly. The man hadn't uttered much that could be classified as humor, not with her around anyway. Maybe he was simply feeling indignant.But Amaranthe smiled. "What do you call it?"
"Standing. Purposefully. — Lindsay Buroker

If you can lessen the chance of a bad injury by being strong, you have to do it. — Joel Parkinson

My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war-and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair. — Thomas Jefferson

Endurance-Suppression of the pain. The pain is severe at threshold. After the threshold, capacity is built to sustain the pain. The pain is lessen when the strength of might is achieved. Mankind can endure all things. — Lailah Gifty Akita

All these years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But what I've discovered since is that lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it. — Anne Lamott

And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.
Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: 'nine the next, and so on.'
What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.
That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked: 'because they lessen from day to day. — Lewis Carroll

Pain avoidance is part of life. A campaign to minimize hunger and lessen pain drives us to develop systems that will provide us with nourishing food and protective shelter. Pain is a trickster. It can send us true or false signals that confine us to our beds or spur us to roam long and far. Pain has a lifesaving function. Pain can signal us to implement evasive action or attack our problems head-on. Pain has a putative role. Pain can torture us for engaging in careless deeds. Pain performs a restorative role. Pain can tell us when we must rest. Pain is tutor and a healer. Pain implores us to take heed of our physical and mental infirmities, urges us to call out for help, and compels us to adopt modified strategies. — Kilroy J. Oldster

We have discharged one generation of debtors after another, but we do not find that their numbers lessen. We find only that we forget, when times are good, that times were ever bad. — Jill Lepore

Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion's joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion — Henry B. Eyring

To be told that our child's behavior is "normal" offers little solace when our feelings are badly hurt, or when we worry that hisactions are harmful at the moment or may be injurious to his future. It does not help me as a parent nor lessen my worries when my child drives carelessly, even dangerously, if I am told that this is "normal" behavior for children of his age. I'd much prefer him to deviate from the norm and be a cautious driver! — Bruno Bettelheim

Let us set apart special seasons for extraordinary prayer. For if this fire should be smothered beneath the ashes of a worldly conformity, it will dim the fire on the family altar, and lessen our influence both in the Church and in the world. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I believe that is what happened during this time in my life. God had other things for me, and he knew me so much better than I knew myself, so he moved me along to a new place. It certainly didn't lessen the pain at the time, but if I've learned anything along the way, it's that sometimes the best lessons are the ones that hurt the most. — Melanie Shankle

Our course, then, is clear; if we desire to put an end to pauperism, or to lessen it, we should import everything we can use or sell, in order that we may employ our unemployed hands, in making the goods by which we pay for these imports. — Joseph Hume

This is for you, for your breath, whose absence would lessen a greater world. — Shaun Hick

It would not lessen the shock and concern, but it would be something concrete in addition to the apologies. — Celso Amorim

Many of the bravest never are known, and get no praise. [But]that does not lessen their beauty ... — Louisa May Alcott

My mother and father were married this way and are quite happy. I hope to find happiness, too. To find a woman that all of Illea can love, someone to be my companion and to help entertain the leaders of other nations. Someone who will befriend my friends and be my confidante. I'm ready to find my wife.
Something in his voice struck me. There wasn't a trace of sarcasm. This thing that seemed like little more than a game show to me was his only chance for happiness. He couldn't try with a second round of girls. Well, maybe he could, but how embarrassing. He was so desperate, so hopeful. I felt my distaste for him lessen. Marginally. — Kiera Cass

Motherhood is priced Of God, at price no man may dare To lessen or misunderstand. — Helen Hunt Jackson

The point of Jesus' existence wasn't to lessen or diminish our appreciation of each other, but to expand our appreciation of each other by reminding us what lies within all of us, because Jesus was an example of the pinnacle of human evolution. — Marianne Williamson

If you are suffering from your intemperance in eating or in drinking, we that are around you, or associated with you, are affected by your infirmities. We have to suffer on account of the course you pursue, which is wrong. If it has an influence to lessen your powers of mind or body, we are affected by it. — Ellen G. White

If the present generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the right of the succeeding generation to be free: wrongs cannot have a legal descent. — Thomas Paine

If you turn the heat down on the relationship, she will soften, the tension will lessen, and she will eventually inch closer to you. Don't go in for the hug until you achieve a handshake. — Amy Dickinson

I nudged my head into his shoulder. "Thanks for offering to come over."
"you realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you," he said.
"i guess?" i said.
"all efforts to save me from you will fail," he said. — John Green

Would it ever, ever leave? I had become used to the ache now; it was with me all the time, and never seemed to lessen. Time was no healer, I decided, but it was a great accommodator. — Eva Rice

Why would you do that?" I asked as he gasped. "Why would you hand me a lever to your pain?" I walked forward, bending the finger down, and he backed before me, into the crowd of his supporters, crying out, bowing low to lessen the sharp angle at which I held the digit. — Mark Lawrence

Jackaby hesitated, and when he spoke, his answer had a soft earnestness to it. "Hatun sees a different world than you or I, a far more frightening one, full of far more terrible dangers, and still she chooses to be the hero whom that world needs. She has saved this town and its people from countless monsters countless times. That the battles are usually in her head does not lessen the bravery of it. The hardest battles always are. — William Ritter

As the wild mood rose in him, the need for rest would lessen even more in the coming days. All he wanted was to get through the school day and find his way back to the night. — Ryan Blacketter

Virchow was the perfect role model for anyone who wanted to change the world, or at least lessen the inequality between the rich and poor. One of Farmer's favorite Virchow quotes was "The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them." Virchow viewed the world in a way that made sense to Farmer, his vision a comprehensive one that included pathology - the study of disease - with social medicine, politics, and anthropology. Farmer, — Tracy Kidder

How could a little nick control something I had no control over? It wasn't until he wiped it clean and applied a band-aid that the physical pain of the cut took hold, but I didn't even care. That was a minimal price to pay in order to lessen the internal pain. — S.M. Koz

The day has already begun to lessen. It has shrunk considerably, but yet will still allow a goodly space of time if one rises, so to speak, with the day itself. We are more industrious, and we are better men if we anticipate the day and welcome the dawn; — Seneca.

Why should I lessen your load while I suffer in silence? Why? If I forgive everybody, none of you would have anything else to worry about, no shame, no regrets, no nothing. What about me? I would still be suffering. So, hell to the no. I'm not giving anybody my forgiveness. If I'm suffering, you all have to suffer with me. — Hermione Daguin

In adversity be spirited and firm, and with equal prudence lessen your sail when filled with a too fortunate gale of prosperity. — Horace

Above everything else, beyond the long hardships, one out- come is the most invaluable. The sisterhoods. The lifelong friends and bonds that will never lessen. Years can go by, and I will pick up with each of those sisters as if a single day hasn't passed. Only we can truly understand one another; not even our husbands can fully grasp what we've been through with each other and how ironclad those bonds are. — Angela Ricketts

56. Manifest plainness and embrace the genuine; lessen self-interest and make few your desires. — Lao-Tzu

Human rights problems will always exist for years to come, but maybe they'll lessen somewhat. — Buzz Aldrin

Severin smiled and pulled Elle into a kiss, one that was saturated with all the love, laughter, and affection he was capable of giving. It melted Elle's bones and warmed her heart, making her lean into Severin. It was a perfect moment. Not even the knowledge that Bernadine was standing on the balcony outside, spying on the pair, could lessen it. Severin and Elle were in love. — K.M. Shea

Be careful. You're making hurting a habit. Spreading it around won't lessen your pain, you know. Just the opposite. — Louise Penny

Wearing a smile while claiming to not judge and condemn people as you equate their nature with no less than a carnal and immoral act rather than as understanding their orientation and identity as an intrinsic part of who they are doesn't lessen the harshness and cruelty of that rejection. — Christina Engela

During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety. — Thomas Jefferson

You'll just do what you did before he was your boyfriend," Alicia says. "You'll go about your day, and you will miss him at first, but over time it will ease. It will lessen." She reaches out, touches her papery hand to my cheek. A smile plays at her lips. "All you need is time, and you, little one, have all the time in the world. — Jenny Han

The preaching of the faith has lost nothing of its relevance in our times. The Church has a sacred duty to proclaim it without any whittling-down, just as Christ revealed it, and no consideration of time or circumstance can lessen the strictness of this obligation. — Pope Pius XII

Without repentance, there is no real progress or improvement in life. Pretending there is no sin does not lessen its burden and pain. Suffering for sin does not by itself change anything for the better. Only repentance leads to the sunlit uplands ofa better life. — D. Todd Christofferson

Spread compassion all around you. Look around you - people are so unhappy, don't add to their unhappiness. Your compassion will lessen their unhappiness; just one word of compassion will lessen their unhappiness. Don't add to their unhappiness. — Rajneesh

We may be doomed, but why not enjoy ourselves? It will lessen the victory of our adversaries. — Brandon Mull

A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working class, by showing that no mere political reform, but only a change in the material conditions of existence, in economic relations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production, an abolition that can be effected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government. — Karl Marx

People in the real world always say, when something terrible happens, that the sadness and loss and aching pain of the heart will "lessen as time passes," but it isn't true. Sorrow and loss are constant, but if we all had to go through our whole lives carrying them the whole time, we wouldn't be able to stand it. The sadness would paralyze us. So in the end we just pack it into bags and find somewhere to leave it. — Fredrik Backman

People may not realize the damage that they are doing by placing the blame on the victim ~ but that doesn't lessen the damage that they cause by doing it. — Darlene Ouimet

Little sleep, no investment portfolio, no family around, no hot water. On an evening a few days after arriving in Cange, I wondered aloud what compensation he got for these various hardships. He told me, "If you're making sacrifices, unless you're automatically following some rule, it stands to reason that you're trying to lessen some psychic discomfort. So, for example, if I took steps to be a doctor for those who don't have medical care, it could be regarded as a sacrifice, but it could also be regarded as a way to deal with ambivalence." He went on, and his voice changed a little. He didn't bristle, but his tone had an edge: "I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can't buy them. You can feel ambivalent about that, because you should feel ambivalent. Comma." This was for me one of the first of many encounters with Farmer's — Tracy Kidder

Great, they give blind kids guns," I said, trying to lessen his horror. "I don't even let Iggy have a gun. Usually. — James Patterson

I don't know much about climate change. But I'm pretty sure we better figure out what to do to lessen its impact - at least its health impact - and that's not going to happen unless you have a lot of young talent interested in these topics. — Paul Farmer

There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften.
[Lat., Nullus dolor est quem non longinquitas temporis minuat ac molliat.] — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Plague on it! what madness this is, to punish one's self because one is unfortunate, and not to lessen, but to increase one's ills! — Seneca.

You know, sometimes just giving yourself permission to feel any emotion without judgment or censorship can lessen the intensity of those negative emotions. — Augusten Burroughs

Men do oppress women. People are hurt by rigid sexist role patterns. These two realities coexist. Male oppression of women cannot be excused by the recognition that there are ways men are hurt by rigid sexist roles. Feminist activists should acknowledge that hurt, and work to change it - it exists. It does not erase or lessen male responsibility for supporting and perpetuating their power under patriarchy to exploit and oppress women in a manner far more grievous than the serious psychological stress and emotional pain caused by male conformity to rigid sexist role patterns. — Bell Hooks

Grief is characterized much more by waves of feeling that lessen and reoccur, it's less like stages and more like different states of feeling. — Meghan O'Rourke

No man can delegate, ... any right of arbitrary dominion over a 3rd person; for that would imply a right in the 1st person, not only to make the 3rd person his slave, but also a right to dispose of him as a slave to still other persons. Any contract to do this is necessarily a criminal one ... To call such a contract a "constitution" does not at all lessen its criminality, or add to its validity. — Lysander Spooner

What he has done for women is final: he gave to their service the best powers of his mind and the best years of his life. His death consecrates the gift: it can never lessen its value. — Millicent Fawcett

And for that rush of fury? Time. Time passing with no one trying to hurt you or kill you will lessen that reaction. — Robin Hobb

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals. — Benjamin Franklin

We must work harder to lessen inequalities. Only by doing so can we speak with credibility and moral authority to other countries and the People's Republic of China. — Sherrod Brown

We are not encouraged, on a daily basis, to pay careful attention to the animals we eat. On the contrary, the meat, dairy, and egg industries all actively encourage us to give thought to our own immediate interest (taste, for example, or cheap food) but not to the real suffering involved. They do so by deliberately withholding information and by cynically presenting us with idealized images of happy animals in beautiful landscapes, scenes of bucolic happiness that do not correspond to anything in the real world. The animals involved suffer agony because of our ignorance. The least we owe them is to lessen that ignorance. — Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson

There is a fallacy that the powerful emotion of youth mellows with time. Not true. One learns to control and suppress it. But it doesn't lessen. It simply hides and concentrates itself in more discreet places. When one accidentally stumbles into one of these abysses, the pain is spectacular. — Nicole Krauss

I felt a confusion unspeakable at again seeing him, from the recollection of the ridotto adventure: nor did my situation lessen it; for I was seated between Madame Duval and Sir Clement, who seemed as little as myself to desire Lord Orville's presence. Indeed, — Fanny Burney

And I thought my loss my loss was not, certainly, the end of the world, but to lessen the enthusiasm of those young people who were signed up, I thought that was tragic. — Birch Bayh

Against classical philosophy: thinking about eternity or the immensity of the universe does not lessen my unhappiness. — Mason Cooley

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

I believe that I must do everything I can do to lessen misery. That's all I can do, and that is something enormous. It is a great power. — Anne Rice

Avoiding fear and pain can cause them to grow stronger. The trick with fear is to go with it, to let it do it's work. Once fear has put us in touch with our inner issue it can diminish. In fact, simply acknowledging fear seems to lessen it. — John Earle

An unshared life is not living. He who shares does not lessen, but greatens, his life. — Stephen Samuel Wise

Life is a balance. We tend to forget that as we go blithely from day to day. We eat and drink and sleep and assume that we will always rise up the next day, that meals and rest will always replenish us. Injuries we expect to heal, and pain to lessen as times goes by. Even when we are faced with wounds that heal more slowly, with pain that lessens by day only to return in full force at nightfall, even when sleep does not leave us rested, we still expect that somehow tomorrow all will come back into balance and that we will go on. At some point, the exquisite balance has tipped, and despite all our flailing efforts, we begin the slow fall from the body that maintains itself to the body that struggles, nails clawing, to cling to what it used to be. — Robin Hobb

These women who move through this landscape, holding themselves safe amid the terrible and sudden dangers, holding their limbs close to their bodies to lessen their profile, to lessen the places life can catch at them, and still maintaining movement, and still attending to men even when they elect to live a life apart from them, we can rely, he thinks, on having these women among us, rely on their courage to keep us brave. — Claire Robertson

The best antidote to worry is action. If there is an action that will lessen the likelihood of a dreaded outcome occurring, and if that action doesn't cost too much in terms of effort or freedom, then take it. The worry about whether we remembered to close the baby gate at the top of the stairs can be stopped in an instant by checking. Then it isn't a worry anymore; it's just a brief impulse. Almost all of the worry parents feel about keeping their children safe evolves from the conflict between intuition and inaction.
Your choices when worrying are clear: take action, have faith, pray, seek comfort, or keep worrying. — Gavin De Becker

I wonder," said Miss Oliver, "if humanity will be any happier because of aeroplanes. It seems to me that the sum of human happiness remains much the same from age to age, no matter how it may vary in distribution, and that all the 'many inventions' neither lessen nor increase it." "After — L.M. Montgomery

What can we not endure,
When pains are lessen'd by the hope of cure? — Magdalen Nabb

In Scandanavia, 'Iverson finds that the whole spectrum of pollen deposits is altered when (in early Neolithic times) ... the first farmers appear. Cereal pollens increase. Plants of oak woodland lessen and disappear; birch pollen increases rapidly
it is one of the trees which can come in after an extensive burn. For the pollen record, the effect of early agriculture is as severe as a shift in climate. — Russell Lord

Self belief is directly proportional to confidence i.e more the self belief more is the confidence and less of it will lessen the confidence. Success gets attracted to persons with high self belief. — Sandeep Kakkar

The suspense: the fearful, acute suspense: of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, is trembling in the balance; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to be doing something to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections of endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, allay them! — Charles Dickens

Our entire team is focused on managing this company for value - fixing or eliminating those operations that lessen value and expanding or adding those that enhance value. — Phil Condit

From the social cognitive perspective, it is mainly perceived inefficacy to cope with potentially aversive events that makes them fearsome. To the extent that people believe they can prevent, terminate, or lessen the severity of aversive events, they have little reason to be perturbed by them. But if they believe they are unable to manage threats safely, they have much cause for apprehension — Albert Bandura

That the battles are usually in her head does not lessen the bravery of it. The hardest ones always are. — William Ritter

Overcompensating or being too eager to please will lessen a man's
respect; it will give the kiss of death to his attraction, — Sherry Argov

It is a wife's duty and pleasure to lessen her husband's burdens." "Says who, lizardman?" "Prophet Lashraq, as written in Sheul's true Word." "You mean a man wrote it." "But — R. Lee Smith

The job of a president is to identify - distinguish between the two, make sure that people know that we view it as a threat, that we're - because people are scared and they're legitimately so - take action accordingly, and then you're going to lessen peoples' fears on their day to day activities. We can't be paralyzed in place and that's where we are today. — Jeb Bush

Honestly, I'd love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I'm doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I'm doing. — Eminem

Pain will never lessen without forgiveness, it will only manifest as anger and harden into resentment or bitterness. — Tiffany L. Jackson

Nothing on earth is so well-suited to make the sad merry, the merry sad, to give courage to the despairing, to make the proud humble, to lessen envy and hate, as music. — Martin Luther