Most Appealing Quotes & Sayings

To show man the best that is in him; not the most appealing or the most amusing or even the most realistic - but the best, which is rare and common and understood by all of us in all our different ways ... to include all the others - the meanest, the cheapest, the most cowardly - as a background and a foreground for something better ... to dig in the old scum that covers us all and find something that might be a tool for a man who would use it to fashion his self-respect in a world where all those tools are buried or broken or illegal ... and finally to tell it as it is, trying to see it all and especially the best, for to miss that part is to shovel shit on men who were born in quicksand and find no novelty in the heave and smell of doom. — Hunter S. Thompson

The most appealing companies became those in a state of pure possibility. — Michael Lewis

I mentioned early in this book the kind of rereading distinctive of a fan
the Tolkien addict, say, or the devotee of Jane Austen or Trollope or the Harry Potter books. The return to such books is often motivated by a desire to dwell for a time in a self-contained fictional universe, with its own boundaries and its own rules. (It is a moot question whether Austen and Trollope's first readers were drawn to their novels for these reasons, but their readers today often are.) Such rereading is not purely a matter of escapism, even though that is one reason for its attraction: we should note that it's not what readers are escaping from but that they are escaping into that counts most. Most of us do not find fictional worlds appealing because we find our own lives despicable, though censorious people often make that assumption. Auden once wrote that "there must always be ... escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep." The sleeper does not disdain consciousness. — Alan Jacobs

The most appealing thing to me about food is combining and layering flavors, tastes, and textures. So the perfect sandwich has to be toasted. It has to have Emmenthal Swiss cheese and a combination of sweet and savory - some cranberry or fig thing happening - with different kinds of meats like Black Forest ham and roast beef. — Kyle MacLachlan

Writing from the perspective of women survivors of violence, Moore is at his most appealing; though his writing about sex and brutality can verge on the exploitative, he sometimes reveals an unexpected sympathy with dominated women. — Zoe Brigley

It is past eight. The hills before me are bathed in a gentle light that falls like sleep on weary eyes. Everything is soft and undefined. This is the hour Kham is most appealing to my sentimental self. There is no aggression in the air, just a drowsy stillness. This is the time of the day when people are immersed in the mundane actions of preparing for the night: gathering the yaks, feeding the dogs, rounding their cattle so the goats and the dris face each other and are in the right position to be milked in the morning. A time when the decisions made are whether people should take their clothes off or lie in them. A time when night is already evident in the way people light candles. — Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Sunny was a treat to read. It is most appealing as the story is very well done and the artwork is beautiful. I applaud the author for writing a book to meet the needs of very young children as well as children of elementary school age. I experienced many different feelings as I read the book and I know otehrs will experience the same thing. The guide to further discussion at the end of teh book will be most helpful as foster parents read this story to the children in their care. — Theresa MacInnis Schimmel

Source reduction is, on the face it, perhaps the most appealing of all the possible approaches to solid-waste management. — William Rathje

I do love the road, because for me, the road is very comfortable, and it's very much what I've always wanted to do. It's one of the most appealing things about comedy for me, so I do really have an affection for it. — Margaret Cho

The really destructive feature of their relationship is its inherent quality of boredom. It is quite natural for Peter often to feel bored with Otto - they have scarecely a single interest in common - but Peter, for sentimental reasons, will never admit that this is so. When Otto, who has no such motives for pretending, says, "It's so dull here!" I invariably see Peter wince and looked pained. Yet Otto is actually far less often bored than Peter himself; he finds Peter's company genuinely amusing, and is quite glad to be with him most of the day. Often, when Otto has been chattering rubbish for an hour without stopping, I can see that Peter really longs for him to be quiet and go away. But to admit this would be, in Peter's eyes, a total defeat, so he only laughs and rubs his hands, tacitly appealing to me to support him in his pretense of finding Otto inexhaustibly delightful and funny. — Christopher Isherwood

Viruses like symmetrical shapes because symmetry provides a very simple means for them to multiply, and that is what makes viral diseases so infectious - in fact, that's what 'virulent' means. Traditionally, symmetry has been something people have found aesthetically appealing, whether it is seen in a diamond, a flower or the face of a supermodel. But symmetry isn't always so desirable. Some of the most deadly viruses on the biological books, from influenza to herpes, from polio to the AIDS virus, are constructed using the shape of an icosahedron. Is — Marcus Du Sautoy

What do most people mean when they say that? So young. Something innocent, something appealing, something helpless. But youth is not that! Youth is crude, youth is strong, youth is powerful - yes, and cruel! And one thing more - youth is vulnerable. — Anonymous

the whole process and state of alienation could be short-circuited by appealing to empathy, shared knowledge, and most people's desire to talk about themselves. — Peter Hunt Welch

As the captain, I was going to be having the dominant role in most of the episodes, and that was appealing. I wasn't interested in coming to Hollywood to sit around. — Patrick Stewart

Its subtlest, most appealing accomplishment may be in how other characters respond to Gregorius' precipitous swerve onto the spiritual path. ( ... ) That said, Night Train to Lisbon is a very long, ambitious book that's feverishly overwritten. ( ... ) Think of W.G. Sebald recast for the mass market: stripped of nuance, cooked at high temperature and pounded home, clause after clause. Some of the clumsiness derives from Barbara Harshav's inelegant translation
we're often aware of her struggle
but she can't be blamed for the pervasive bloat. — Michelle Huneven

In my experience, one of the very nice things about Catholic Churches is how diverse, ordinary, and natural they are and feel. So many evangelical churches, by contrast, seem to me to be very earnest in trying so hard to be and do something or other - to be sincere or happy or vibrant or dynamic or appealing or whatever. By contrast, in my experience, most Catholic parishes are simply unperturbed in doing the regular business of being Church. They've been doing it for 2,000 years and will keep doing it till Christ returns. — Christian Smith

What is noble, lyrical, tender in the upper level shown is also with the servants, scoundrels, and scamps, as in a distorting mirror. This contrast seems to me a most appealing musical theme
to show love in its noble and crude forms, romanticism and crass realism mixed as in everyday life. — Stefan Zweig

Will share a secret: this is how talents are bestowed. Before newborns open their eyes, we circle them, appearing as brilliant colors, and when they clench their tiny hands for the first time, they are actually grabbing the colors they find most appealing. Those talents are with them for life. The lucky ones (well, in my opinion, the lucky ones) choose me. Music. — Mitch Albom

The Art of Self, I've learned, is indispensable to material success but corrosive to the human spirit. What's more, much of the misery in the world, I've decided, is caused by people who take themselves too seriously. Certainly, most of the unhappiness I've brought on myself has come from trying to impress others.

The people I find most appealing nowadays are those so secure in who they are, so lacking in ego, pretense, and guile, that they can allow others simply to be themselves. It is, I think, the rarest of privileges, the freedom to be completely oneself in the company of others. — Lionel Fisher

Like all tales, it takes on the attributes that make it most appealing to those who tell it. — George R R Martin

Introversion- along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness- is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living in the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform. — Susan Cain

Christine O'Donnell: I think especially in such an unstable economic environment, what people criticized him for in 2008 his consistency , the fact that he was so strong , and I think people will find that appealing going into the 2012. Carol Costello: Well, some people say Mitt Romney isn't the most consistent candidate, because he's changed his minds about big, important issues over the years. Christine O'Donnell: You know, that's one of the things that I like about him because he's been consistent since he changed his mind. — Christine O'Donnell

There is something particularly appealing about teaching a subject that seems to deal with the lowest kind of relationships-accidents, ambulance chasing-because you can show students that these raise the most fundamental questions about the structure of society. — Guido Calabresi

She exhaled curtly. 'I'm a serryn. That's all you see. I'm just something to be tortured, slain or sold off as a commodity. That's hardly the most appealing of traits.'
'Tell your eyes that. Because you really shouldn't look at me the way you do. No serryn has looked at me like that. — Lindsay J. Pryor

The most appealing part is the feeling of learning something true - the pleasure of a truth. For me, that's mostly found in philosophical literature at the moment. — Eyvind Kang

Most public persons do not market themselves as cheating lowlives - certainly not politicians (okay, maybe a few rock stars.) But most people try to present a somewhat appealing persona, which is why sex is still a hot topic. — Roxanne Roberts

One can indeed try to obtain a particular result either by the use of violence or by speech aimed at securing the adherence of minds. It is in terms of this alternative that the opposition between spiritual freedom and constraint is most clearly seen. The use of argumentation implies that one has renounced resorting to force alone, that value is attached to gaining the adherence of one's interlocutor by means of reasoned persuasion, and that one is not regarding him as an object, but appealing to his free judgment. Recourse to argumentation assumes the establishment of a community of minds, which, while it lasts, excludes the use of violence. — Chaim Perelman

The purest, most beautiful and appealing experiences of life: romance, love, marriage, and parenthood. — Boyd K. Packer

That can happen when people die, the argument with them drops away and people so flawed while they were drawing breath that at times they were all but unbearable now assert themselves in the most appealing way, and what was least to your liking the day before yesterday becomes in the limousine behind the hearse a cause not only for sympathetic amusement but for admiration — Philip Roth

And she had the most appealing of feminine virtues, especially in a queen. She's easily led. — Megan Whalen Turner

There is no parent more vulnerable to the excesses of overparenting than an unhappy parent. One of the most important things we do for our children is to present them with a version of adult life that is appealing and worth striving for. — Madeline Levine

I've walked past so many pennies in my life, never bothering to pick them up because none of them were ever appealing to me. Then one day, I literally crashed into the most gorgeous penny I'd ever seen, so I picked her up off the ground, wiped away her tears, and became mesmerized by her every movement. Stupidly, I let that penny get away from me, and I've regretted it ever since. You were my lucky penny, Audrey, and I've been dreaming about you for years. — Kimberly Lauren

They are man's,' said the spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit if for your factious purpose, and make it worse! And bide the end. — Charles Dickens

What is most appealing about young folks, after all, is the changes, not the still photograph of finished character but the movie, the soul in flux. — Thomas Pynchon

Ronald Reagan's legacy is deeply misunderstood because there are political actors in America who, for several reasons, have privately held agendas that they want to sell to the American public in the most appealing way possible. They often find the best way to do that is to package their product with the Reagan brand. — Eugene Jarecki

The ways of the world exalt themselves against God. They sometimes look rational and appealing to the most ernest disciple but Christ says to us then what He said to His disciples long ago, when many of them had given u pin disgust, "Do you also want to leave me?" If we answer as PEter did, "Lord to whom else shall we go? Your words are words of eternal life," our rebel thoughts are captured once more. The way of holiness is again visible. — Elisabeth Elliot

Despite their differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens. Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions at triggering activity in these regions - except in the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and shame win out. This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame on ourselves - they're activating the brain's reward center. — David D. Burns

I'm not emaciated; I'm wiry. Most women find lean men appealing. — Zedd

The idea of Christian perfection, which began in the ancient monasteries and spread to the world as an ideal, is one of the most appealing, demanding and ultimately hopeless notions of the spiritual life. By definition, only God is perfect - that is, complete and independent unto [God's] self. Humans, on the other hand, are radically imperfect, and that, paradoxically, is welcome news, for the recognition of our incompleteness throws us on the mercy of God and enables us, as Saint Paul stressed, to put up with one another's faults. — Donald Spoto

The most abundant hue in nature, the human eye sees more green than any other color in the spectrumas it has throughout history, multifaceted emerald continues to sparkle and fascinate. Symbolically, emerald brings a sense of clarity, renewal and rejuvenation, which is so important in today's complex world. This powerful and universally-appealing tone translates easily to both fashion and home interiors. — Leatrice Eiseman

But platitudes are most appealing when they're least appropriate. — Phil Klay

'm starting to get a swimming physique, which I'm very pleased about, because for me that's the most appealing male physique. It's not show-y off-y Mr Muscle, "Look how much I can bench." It's just a real lean, athletic figure and it doesn't look like you try too hard. When you see people who have huge biceps, it looks like they're in the gym all day. But I think there's a difference between looking muscly and being fit. — Greg James

He found he was popular, known for a loose style and an appealing willingness to digress. "We spend most of our time talking about Twin Peaks and The Simpsons so they think I am an okay caballero," he told Markson. — D.T. Max

The most appealing side-effect of Sri Lankan cricket from where I stand, shuffling words, has been linguistic. — Romesh Gunesekera

For all the tantalizing and provocative character of the Viking results, I know a hundred places on Mars which are far more interesting than our landing sites. The ideal tool is a roving vehicle carrying on advanced experiments, particularly in imaging, chemistry and biology. Prototypes of such rovers are under development by NASA. They know on their own how to go over rocks, how not to fall down ravines, how to get out of tight spots. It is within our capability to land a rover on Mars that could scan its surroundings, see the most interesting place in its field of view and, by the same time tomorrow, be there. Every day a new place, a complex, winding traverse over the varied topography of this appealing planet. — Carl Sagan

They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. — Charles Dickens

I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting - its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. — William Tecumseh Sherman

Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality. But today, in the world's most powerful democracy, the politicians and the propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost exclusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors. — Aldous Huxley

It was easy to find things she would like. Our taste was the same, it had been from the first. It would be impossible to live with someone otherwise. I've always thought it was the most important single thing, though people may not realize it. Perhaps it's transmitted to them in the way someone dresses or, for that matter, undresses, but taste is a thing no one is born with, it's learned, and at a certain point it can't be altered. We sometimes talked about that, what could and couldn't be altered. People were always saying something had completely changed them, some experience or book or man, but if you knew how they had been before, nothing much really had changed. When you found someone who was tremendously appealing but not quite perfect, you might believe you could change them after marriage, not everything, just a few things, but in truth the most you could expect was to change perhaps one thing and even that would eventually go back to what it had been. — James Salter

Most of us would simply prefer things to remain the same
the "Status que" looks more appealing, especially when we think that somehow we are benefiting. accordingly, incumbency with all its faults is generally more assuring than a future that risks being in doubt, risks placing us in some positions we are unsure of. (p. xii, emphasis in general. — Hamidreza Bagheri

And it was there that I saw the most appealing creature in the whole shop. He had a slight chink out of one foot and his 'topknot' was missing (a 'topknot' is on the top of a dragon's head and looks a bit like a shark's fin) but I bought him in an instant. — Chris D'Lacey

To the average mathematician who merely wants to know his work is securely based, the most appealing choice is to avoid difficulties by means of Hilbert's program. Here one regards mathematics as a formal game and one is only concerned with the question of consistency ... The Realist position is probably the one which most mathematicians would prefer to take. It is not until he becomes aware of some of the difficulties in set theory that he would even begin to question it. If these difficulties particularly upset him, he will rush to the shelter of Formalism, while his normal position will be somewhere between the two, trying to enjoy the best of two worlds. — Paul Cohen

In truth, philosophy is the mode of thought shaped by the most radical form of prejudice: the passion of being-in-the-world. With the sole exception of specialists in the field, virtually everyone senses that anything which offers less than this passion play remains philosophically trivial. Cultural anthropologists suggest the appealing term 'deep play' for the comprehensively absorbing preoccupations of human beings. From the perspective of a theory of the practising life we would add: the deep plays are those which are moved by the heights. — Peter Sloterdijk

Why do we love to grind our axes so much? How does schlepping that heavy load of medieval weaponry around affect those we encounter in our daily routines? What if it makes us more likely to provoke others?

What is so appealing about grinding our axes anyway? Why is it so difficult to stop? How would we interact with people differently if we didn't do it?

What other tools might we cultivate if most of us were willing to lay down our axes, even just for a little while? How much more energy might we have if we weren't so encumbered?

What would you do with that energy? — David Beem

I think confidence is the most appealing quality in any human being or any artist; that's what really attracts us to people. — Marilyn Manson

Perhaps the most powerful and appealing aspect of another's words, however, is simply their convenience. Whether distilled in the briefest apophthegm, or spread out across some voluminous tome, the thought is ready-made, the heavy lifting done. It's there to be used like a weapon or tool, and as time wanders on, seemingly leaving us fewer and fewer new things to say, it becomes ever more useful. As technology moves forward, as well, it also becomes much easier. Indeed, in this "information age" where so much is available to so many so quickly that enlightenment nearly verges on light pollution, it can sometimes appear that expression has been reduced to nothing more than a mad race to unearth and claim references. As such, the citation is also there to be donned, like some article of fashion from which we may reap the praise of discriminating taste without ever exerting ourself in the actual toil of manufacture. — Jasper Siegel Seneschal

It seems to me that most characters, in anything, are flawed in some way, just like most people. You look for the good in the flawed people and vice versa, and then try and make them appealing in some way. — Aidan Gillen

The way in which a faith community shapes language about God implicity represents what it takes to be the highest good, the profoundest truth, the most appealing beauty ... While officially it is rightly and consistently said that God is spirit and so beyond identification with either male or female sex, yet the daily language of preaching, worship, catechesis, and instruction conveys a different message: God is male, or at least more like a man than a woman, or at least more fittingly addressed as male than as female. — Elizabeth A. Johnson

Poltergeists, for the most part, seemed to be pretty unhappy spirits with a vendetta against humanity and an eye for trickery. I knew that if I died I'd definitely come back as one. It actually was quite appealing, throwing shit around and scaring hapless people out of their homes, just to be an ass. I started looking forward to "meeting" these asshole ghosts. — Karina Halle

It was a bitch living with your old English teacher, especially when your old English teacher wasn't old at all, and he had exactly the kind of body that most appealed to her, tall and lean, broad in the shoulder, narrow at the hip. Then there was his brain. It had taken her a lot of years to find that particular part of a man appealing, but she'd finally gotten in the habit, and she couldn't seem to give it up. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

He prefers men - it must be true. Wasn't that the way of it, the most appealing being out of reach? — Moriah Densley

When we think about a child, which things attracts more towards them. what is the most appealing things about children. Is their physical beauty, their openess and loving nature, their innate humour ? according to me its their innocence which we all lost.
This is the quality which attract most to love kids, their innocence. Innocence is like free from the hurdles of this world,do whatever you want to do, not giving attention on what people will think, enjoy life and etc. children are so innocent that they don't care about the world. — Joann Kinlaw

Jesus transcends the Law, but in the Law's own sense and direction. He does this by appealing to the most humane aspect of the legal prescription, the aspect most foreign to the contagion of violence, which is the obligation of the two accusers to throw the first two stones. The Law deprives the accusers of a mimetic model. Once — Rene Girard

Last night was Super Tuesday - a 10-state GOP Primary orgy. A big, sweaty pile of lever-yankin Republican voters. And like most orgies, it involves a bunch of middle aged guys who are not appealing to women. — Stephen Colbert

According to a Public Policy Polling survey, most Americans find lice and colonoscopies more appealing than Capitol Hill. — Ron Fournier

I didn't know it yet, but he would become one of our high school's super-athletes. There were hints of athletic (and, presumably, sexual) prowess there. For one, boys as ridiculously Abercrombie- esque good-looking as he was are always sports stars throughout high school. It is a rule, a self- fulfilling prophecy. It seems as if, sometime during elementary school, coaches make note of the little boys with the most classic bone structure and the best height projections and kidnap them, training them under cover of night. Not all of them will make it in college ball (that's what people call it, right?) because by the time they're all seniors, many of them will have been riding more on the sportsman-like nature of their faces than their actual abilities. But until that day, coaches will keep putting them on the field in the most prominent and visually appealing positions because they just kind of look like that's where they should be. At least I'm pretty sure that is what's going on. — Katie Heaney

Because the utopian's worldview was framed around moving toward this perfected future, it helped stimulate the private exertions that add up to social progress. Progress is work. People need to build things and sacrifice and have a harder life for things to get better. On its own, I don't think even the most brilliant critique stimulates that kind of effort as well as an appealing vision of the future. — Christine Jennings

Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform. The — Susan Cain

I think I am the most impressed with writing styles that defy category, like Kharms or Selby, Breton or Jarry, where you become as interested in the writer as much as the writing itself. It's all these things that make reading so appealing to me. — Henry Rollins

The Devil ... is much better served by exploiting our virtues than by appealing to our lower passions; consequently, it is when the Devil looks most noble and reasonable that he is most dangerous. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Her freckles were delectable. Most fellows didn't care for freckles as a rule, thinking they were tough-looking. But Betty's were appealing. Like cake batter you could wipe off with your thumb, buttery and sweet. — Katherine Howe

All over the world major museums have bowed to the influence of Disney and become theme parks in their own right. The past, whether Renaissance Italy or Ancient Egypt, is re-assimilated and homogenized into its most digestible form. Desperate for the new, but disappointed with anything but the familiar, we recolonize past and future. The same trend can be seen in personal relationships, in the way people are expected to package themselves, their emotions and sexuality, in attractive and instantly appealing forms. — J.G. Ballard

I shall have one, too," he told her. "So that you don't feel alone."
She tried not to smile. "That is most generous of you."
"I am quite certain it is my gentlemanly duty."
"To eat cake?"
"It is one of the more appealing of my gentlemanly duties," he allowed. — Julia Quinn

At most schools, if you switch majors, you basically start over. That means more semesters ... and more money. The former might be appealing, but the latter is a major problem for a demographic already saddled with student debt. — Brian Shactman

Before newborns open their eyes, we circle them, appearing as brilliant colors, and when they clench their tiny hands for the first time, they are actually grabbing the colors they find most appealing. — Mitch Albom

At its most basic, the allure of fundamentalism, whether religious or ideological, liberal or conservative, is that it provides an appealing order to things that are actually disorderly. — Peter Mountford

Mr. Merrill was most appealing because he reassured us that doubt was the essence of faith, and not faith's opposite. — John Irving