Overwhelming Day Quotes & Sayings

The prospect of one day being hauled out of the canal by yet another old enemy was hard for France to swallow, even more so when British and French defence specialists discussed their exit strategy in case of an overwhelming Soviet attack, and the Brits proposed a massive evacuation via Dunkirk. — Stephen Clarke

College was a bubble that kept the rest of the world at bay. There was an abundance of free time, friends who lived either with you or right next door, and an overwhelming sense of optimism about the future, even if you had no idea as to the specifics of what that might mean. In college, everyone accepted the fact that their lives would turn out exactly as planned, buoying them from one good memory to the next in a cascade of carefree three-day weekends. — Nicholas Sparks

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day. — Abraham Lincoln

They whirled around in the light dance of a duchess entering a ball - majestic yet understated - a spiraling splash of purity of color that took shape under nature's watch. A newly-sculpted garden burst forth, glistening in an afternoon sun. It welcomed the dusty pink rose, who stood beside its fellows, basked themselves in their own serenity of white, triumphant red, or cheery yellow. It swayed in the breath of a wind, caressing each and becoming more. It was a mixture of quiet and thunderous, light and dark, shyness and boldness. It was a mixture of the quiet strength and overwhelming courage that the human soul might wish to one day possess. — Gina Marinello-Sweeney

Demonstrations must be dignified and nonviolent, as the overwhelming protests in Ferguson and Staten Island have been. Do not confuse anarchists who don't want the system to work and thugs who want to exploit a situation with the majority who from day one have operated with impeccable nonviolence and clear goals. — Al Sharpton

What does it mean to not be hidden from the eyes of God even in the womb? What does it say about God that He "beheld [David's] unformed substance"? Alone in the field, far removed in both space and time from the overwhelming voices we contend with every day, David came to a remarkable revelation: He was loved simply because he existed. — Jonathan Martin

The Luddites ... asserted the precedence of community needs over technological innovation and monetary profit; ... The victory of industrialism over Luddism was overwhelming and unconditional; it was undoubtedly the most complete, significant, and lasting victory of modern times. ... To this day, if you say you would be willing to forbid, restrict, or reduce the use of technological devices in order to protect the community -- or to protect the good health of nature on which the community depends -- you will be calle4d a Luddite, and it will not be a compliment. ... Technological determinism has triumphed. — Wendell Berry

If I did not believe, if I did not make what is called an act of faith (and each act of faith increases our faith, and our capacity for faith), if I did not have faith that the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering in the world, so that those who are suffering on both sides of this ghastly struggle somehow mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe these things, the problem of evil would indeed be overwhelming. — Dorothy Day

I can't change it. It's part of who I was. Past tense. All I know is that I want you, all the fucking time, every day, endlessly. I don't know how to deal with that. I don't know how to make sense of it without overwhelming you, and I don't want to tell you anything that's going to jeopardize it. — Helena Hunting

Once, in a three-day taping that included several sadists, the material was so overwhelming that both the film crew and I got sick - I with a sinus infection, and the entire film crew with a flu so severe they had to delay their departure from the motel. Our immune systems had weakened, I believe, from the beating out souls had taken. — Anna C. Salter

I'm very lucky that I have people styling my hair and teaching me how to work with it, but it wasn't always like that. Growing up, I had extremely wavy and thick hair and that can be very overwhelming - you end up with the same ponytail every day. — Crystal Renn

But the paradox of their success is that most modern readers are unaware of the overwhelming obstacles both women had to overcome. Without knowing the history of the era, the difficulties Wollstonecraft and Shelley faced are largely invisible, their bravery incomprehensible. Both women were what Wollstonecraft termed "outlaws." Not only did they write world-changing books, they broke from the strictures that governed women's conduct, not once but time and again, profoundly challenging the moral code of the day. Their refusal to bow down, to subside and surrender, to be quiet and subservient, to apologize and hide, makes their lives as memorable as the words they left behind. They asserted their right to determine their own destinies, starting a revolution that has yet to end. — Charlotte Gordon

The first light of day today revealed what we had feared. The devastation is greater than our worst fears. It's just totally overwhelming. — Kathleen Blanco

When auditioning, I try to imagine that I'm the only person that they [directors] are seeing that day because it can be overwhelming, in the same sense that it could be overwhelming if you try to fulfil everyone's expectations rather than the people closest to you in the creative process, be it your director, or fellow actors and the writers. So, that's kind of it - I try to trick myself into believing that no one has ever gone there before. — Benedict Cumberbatch

I just hope that one day, in one gloriously farcical moment I will be taken completely by surprise. I hope that I trip and fall. And when that day comes I hope that all of the doom and gloom that fill my black balloon will burst and ignite something so beautiful, so overwhelming that I find myself seeing beauty in the ugliest of places. — Kendal Rob

We were going to have an all-day drinking binge. Gonna ride our bikes, hang out ... do naughty things. But I started feeling this overwhelming guilt. — Jessica Simpson

Every single day, I get letters - very moving, overwhelming letters - testifying how much my books have meant to people in times of crisis in their lives, when they were very ill, say. If I ever doubted that writing could play an important part in people's lives, I don't doubt that now. — Alexander McCall Smith

Using overwhelming air power to utterly and completely destroy ISIS. To put things in perspective, in the first Persian Gulf War, we launched roughly 1,100 air attacks a day. We carpet bombed them for 36 days, saturation bombing, after which our troops went in and in a day and a half mopped up what was left of the Iraqi army. — Ted Cruz

Comic-Con is overwhelming when you have such a long day of press schedules. — Lyndsy Fonseca

I know now what was happening to me, what was overwhelming me, what was about to consume and almost destroy me. Didier had even given me a name for it - assassin grief, he'd once called it: the kind of grief that lies in wait and attacks you from ambush, with no warning and no mercy. I know now that assassin grief can hide for years and then strike suddenly on the happiest day, without discernible reason or exegesis. But on that day, ... almost a year after Khader's death, I couldn't understand the dark and trembling mood that was moving in me, swelling to the sorrow I'd too long denied. I couldn't understand it, so i tried to fight it as a man fights pain or despair. But you can't bite down on assassin grief and will it away. The enemy stalks you, step for step, and knows your every move before you make it. The enemy is your own grieving heart and, when it strikes, it can't miss. — Gregory David Roberts

For love is greater than any wind of words. And man, leaning at his window under the stars, is once again responsible for the bread of the day to come, for the slumber of the wife who lies by his side, all fragile and delicate and contingent. Love is not thinking, but being. As I sat facing Alias I longed for night, when my thoughts would be of civilization, of the destiny of man, of the savor of friendship in my native land. For night, so that I might yearn to serve some overwhelming purpose which at this moment I cannot define. For night, so that I might perhaps advance a step towards fixing my unmanageable language. I longed for the night as the poet might do, the true poet who feels himself inhabited by a thing obscure but powerful, and who strives to erect images like ramparts round that thing in order to capture it. To capture it in a snare of images. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

I can't take this kind of suspense. Decide now." He untied the ropes around her wrists. "Walk out the door. In a year you'll be free of any entanglements with me. Or stay and be my wife. My real wife. Make your choice."
She looked down at the loosened ropes still wrapped around her, then up at him.
He wore an expression of fierce indifference, but she knew better. This proud man, this noble marquees, had made up his mind he wished to marry her without knowing who she was or what she'd done. She would guess the decision was his first impetuous gesture since the day his mother had disappeared.
Amy couldn't fool herself. For him to go so contrary to his own nature, he must feel an overwhelming emotion for her. — Christina Dodd

Because the truth was, there was a dark underbelly of terror to motherhood. You loved your children with such an overwhelming fierceness that you were absolutely vulnerable at every moment of every day: They could be taken from you. Somehow, you could lose them. You could stop at the corner to buy a newspaper when a drunk driver veered onto the sidewalk. You could feed your child an E. coli-tainted hamburger. You could turn your head for a second while one darted out into the street. The threats to your child were infinite. And the thing was, if any of your children's lives were ruined, even a little bit, yours wold be, too. — Katherine Center

Through the late afternoon and into the evening, there were more casualties those five hours at Franklin than in the nineteen hours of D-Day - and more than twice as many casualties as at Pearl Harbor. There were moments so bloody and overwhelming that even the enemy wept. When a fourteen-year-old Missouri drummer boy - a mascot of Cockrell's Brigade - charged up to a loaded and primed Ohio cannon and shoved a fence rail into its mouth, witnesses said the child turned into what was described as the "mist of a ripe tomato. — Robert Hicks

I have waited for this day, and grief faded with time.
Or did it? Perhaps grief never leaves us but is merely drowned out by a flood of life overwhelming it. Perhaps the wound that bled once is bleeding still, and I did not notice it until now. — Claire North

You are worthy! Let those words sink deep into your heart. You are worthy. Life can get overwhelming for us, as our busy schedules keep us on our toes. Sometimes we forget that we need to intentionally slow down, take a deep breath, and remind ourselves of our purpose, the very foundation of why we do what we do. When we neglect to quiet our souls and rest in God's amazing grace, we miss out on the intimate opportunities where God assures us of our worthiness, clarifies our purpose, and strengthens us to endure each day. — Jennifer Smith

The last time she had felt an overwhelming sense of doom, she had learned her parents had died in a car accident earlier on a day just like this one, her last year at high school. She shuddered, despite telling herself the disquieting feeling didn't mean anything. — Terry Spear

Soul-to-soul contact sweeps through, like a tsunami, leaving in its wake just this: unconditional surrender and overwhelming gentleness. — Laurie Nadel

Say anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death - this infantile fixation of mine - was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry - with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, 'Here is a painting; take it, please. — Ingmar Bergman

There is an overwhelming amount of information available to us all on the web each day, not to mention what is shared with us by our family, friends, fans, and followers. This necessitates the need to filter through all that information and to decide for ourselves where to put our attention. — Simon Mainwaring

The Bodleian above anything else made Oxford what it was ... There was something incommunicably grand about it, something difficult to understand unless you had spent your evenings there or walked past it on the way to celebrate the boat race, a magic that came from ignoring it a thousand times a day and then noticing its overwhelming beauty when you came out of a tiny alley and it caught you unexpectedly. A library
it didn't sound like much, but it was what made Oxford itself. The greatest library in the world. — Charles Finch

When you see someone dying in front of you from a direct and simple cause, it's easier to deal with [that] than famine or drought or a more indirect cause. It's overwhelming and frightening and kind of distant, but we do see it every day with plants and animals and species dying. — John H Richardson

When you're in the throes of this romantic love, it's overwhelming - you're out of control, you're irrational, you're going to the gym at 6 A.M. every day - Why? Because she's there. — Helen Fisher

Darkness has conquered the day; the arms of the night slapped the living daylight off the day.Gripping. Killing. Totally overwhelming. The taste of darkness bitters my mouth
as I struggled against unnumbered foes. — Chika Onyenezi

We live in a world of illusions. We think we're aware of everything going on around us. We look out and see an uninterrupted, complete picture of the visual world, composed of thousands of little detailed images. We may know that each of us has a blind spot, but we go on day to day blissfully unaware of where it actually is because our occipital cortex does such a good job of filling in the missing information and hence hiding it from us. Laboratory demonstrations of inattentional blindness (like the gorilla video of the last chapter) underscore how little of the world we actually perceive, in spite of the overwhelming feeling that we're getting it all. — Daniel J. Levitin

Over the years I have written many a letter for the wedding of one of the brothers and preached many a wedding sermon. The chief characteristic of such occasions essentially rested in the fact that, in the face of the "last" times (I do not mean this to sound quite so apocalyptic), someone dares to take a step of such affirmation of the earth and its future. It was then always very clear to me that a person could take this step as a Christian truly only from within a very strong faith and on the basis of grace. For here in the midst of the final destruction of all things, one desires to build; in the midst of a life lived from hour to hour and from day to day, one desires a future; in the midst of being driven out from the earth, one desires a bit of space; in the midst of the widespread misery, one desires some happiness. And the overwhelming thing is that God says yes to this strange longing, that here God consents to our will, whereas it usually meant to be just the opposite. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The next time you feel yourself giving in to the sometimes overwhelming urge to panic about the fate of literature in the digital age, follow this simple remedy: remember that you dream. For that is ironclad proof ... that literature - that narrative art in whatever form - will never die. Humans, strange creatures that we are, make sense of our lives by telling stories. In the space between each day and the next, we refresh our minds by concocting the most fantastic and elaborate fictions. We spend roughly a third of our lives thus, re-arranging our scattered experiences into stories. That we do it at all is bizarre and inexplicable. But as long as we do it, we will crave stories - human stories, stories that speak to us - in our waking life. The Internet, powerful as it is, cannot change that. — Adam Hammond

I set my glass down and met his eyes, feeling an overwhelming surge of affection for this man. "That ... makes sense," I said, searching for the right words. "I don't think I appreciated what it meant to see you ever day, either. Even if I did want to poison you on no less than twenty-seven separate occasions."
"Ditto," he replied with a smirk. "And sometimes I feel guilty for how many times I threw you out the window in my fantasies. But I most certainly plan on making it up to you. — Christina Lauren

It doesn't take much to get me in a sweat over someone -- a wink of vulnerability, a twitch, anything, from a choice of cufflinks to how they hold their knife and fork, almost always one wee thing about them that you'll find utterly overwhelming, and suddenly your day dreams are crowded with these folk who, on first look, seem completely unremarkable, or shitty, or savage but who're in fact full of light. What I understand now, lying here dying, is that that nonjudgmental quality I have is maybe the greatest gift of all. — Luke Sutherland

Anyway, in the interim since I turned writer - a good thirty years - I have hobnobbed with all varieties of man, from the highest to the lowest. I have know intimately saints and seers as well as those whom we disdainfully refer to as "the dregs of humanity." I don't know to which group I am more indebted. But I do know this - if we were suddenly faced with an overwhelming calamity, if I had to choose just one man with whom I would share the rest of my life in the midst of chaos and destruction, I would pick that unknown Mexican peon whom my friend Doner brought one day to clear the weeds in our garden. I no longer remember his name, for he was truly without name. — Henry Miller

I lay sweating, shaking, doing my best to quell the overwhelming need
to extinguish the dark flame inside me.
A flame that burns brighter, hotter, stronger each day.
A fire so insatiable it'll consume everything in its path. — Alyson Noel

I've been moving a little to the music while I worked ... and then I realize I am actually dancing. It feels wonderful, though I can feel how stiff my muscles are, how rigidly I've been holding myself ... Mostly I've been moving cautiously, numbly, steeled because I know, at any moment, I may be ambushed by overwhelming grief. You never know when it's coming, the word or gesture or bit of memory that dissolved you entirely ... It happens every day at first, then not for a day or two, then there's a week when grief washes in every morning, every afternoon. — Mark Doty

The old world order changed when this war-storm broke. The old international order passed away as suddenly, as unexpectedly, and as completely as if it had been wiped out by a gigantic flood, by a great tempest, or by a volcanic eruption. The old world order died with the setting of that day's sun and a new world order is being born while I speak, with birth-pangs so terrible that it seems almost incredible that life could come out of such fearful suffering and such overwhelming sorrow. — Nicholas Murray Butler

At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child's success is the positive involvement of parents. — Jane D. Hull

This is a proud day and an important step forward in the fight for equality in Britain. The overwhelming majority of Labour MPs supported this change to make sure marriage reflects the value we place on long-term, loving relationships whoever you love. — Ed Miliband

You don't expect to get the letter saying, Her Majesty would like to appoint you Knight Commander of the British Empire! It was just a completely overwhelming and exciting day. — Antony Sher

The whales always fell silent when the throbbing hum of humanity grew overwhelming. Whenever a ship of any size came near, I had to take off the headset to protect my ears. I wondered if a species that had taken millennia to evolve such a delicate and sophisticated sense of hearing could adapt to humanity's sonic onslaught. My notes from the time bear witness to the effect on my own primitive ears: "I have been listening to boats all day; my head is throbbing; the silence of my canvas tent feels good tonight - poor whales." That — Alexandra Morton

When this job feels overwhelming, remind yourself that one day you will die! — Jane Morris

Every minute of every day, a child under 15 is infected with HIV - the overwhelming majority of children under 15 who are HIV-positive get infected through their mothers at birth. Without treatment, half of these children die before they reach their second birthday. — Gabriel Byrne

remember the moment when my overwhelming unease yielded, when that seemingly impassable sea of uncertainty parted. I woke up in pain, facing another day - no project beyond breakfast seemed tenable. I can't go on, I thought, and immediately, its antiphon responded, completing Samuel Beckett's seven words, words I had learned long ago as an undergraduate: I'll go on. I got out of bed and took a step forward, repeating the phrase over and over: "I can't go on. I'll go on." That — Paul Kalanithi

When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad-gita and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day. — Mahatma Gandhi

The doors to the world have been flung wide open, and the view that's available is staggering. Through technology and innovation, opportunities abound and possibilities seem endless. As inspiring as this can be, it can be equally overwhelming. The unintended consequence of abundance is that we are bombarded with more information and choices in a day than our ancestors received in a lifetime. Harried and hurried, a nagging sense that we attempt too much and accomplish too little haunts our days. — Gary Keller

Let today be the day you control your emotions. Don't let them get the best of you. Whatever you are feeling right now should not be overwhelming. Don't allow others to dampen your spirit. You are entitled to enjoy peace. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Every day I have spent in Uganda has been beautifully overwhelming; everywhere I have looked, raw, filthy, human need and brokenness have been on display, begging for someone to meet them, fix them. And even though I realize I cannot always mend or meet, I can enter in. I can enter into someone's pain and sit with them and know. This is Jesus. Not that He apologizes for the hard and the hurt, but that he enters in, He comes with us to the hard places. And so I continue to enter. — Katie Davis

In all human cultures, the social world has two clear dimensions: a horizontal dimension of closeness or liking, and a vertical one of hierarchy or status ... Now imagine yourself happily moving around your two-dimensional social world, a flat land where the X axis is closeness and the Y axis is hierarchy. Then one day, you see a person do something extraordinary, or you have an overwhelming experience of natural beauty , and you feel lifted "up." But it is not the "up" of hierarchy, it's some other kind of elevation. This chapter is about that vertical movement. My claim is that the human mind perceives a third dimension, a specifically moral dimension that I will call "divinity. — Jonathan Haidt

And I never ask what I'm doing the next day. I don't want to know what I'm doing tomorrow. It's much too overwhelming. So I just go day by day, without knowing. — Jennifer Lopez

I can honestly say I could go two or three days without wondering what Savannah was doing or even thinking about her. Did this make my love less real? I asked myself that question dozens of times during that trip, but I always decided it didn't, for the simple reason that her image would ambush me when I least expected it, overwhelming me with the same ache I had the day I'd left. Anything might set it off: a friend talking about his wife, the sight of a couple holding hands, or even the way some of the villagers would smile as we passed. — Nicholas Sparks

He spins around. Before I can say anything else, he steps forward and takes my face in his hands. Then he's kissing me one last time, overwhelming me with his warmth, breathing life and love and aching sorrow into me. I throw my arms around his neck as he wraps his around my waist. My lips part for him and his mouth moves desperately against mine, devouring me, taking every breath that I have. Don't go, I plead wordlessly. But I can taste the good-bye on his lips, and now I can no longer hold back my tears. He's trembling. His face is wet. I hang on to him like he'll disappear if I let go, like I'll be left alone in this dark room, standing in the empty air. Day, the boy from the streets with nothing except the clothes on his back and the earnestness in his eyes, owns my heart. — Marie Lu

I suspect almost every day that I'm living for nothing, I get depressed and I feel self-destructive and a lot of the time I don't like myself. What's more, the proximity of other humans often fills me with overwhelming anxiety, but I also feel that this precarious sentience is all we've got and, simplistic as it may seem, it's a person's duty to the potentials of his own soul to make the best of it. We're all stuck on this often miserable earth where life is essentially tragic, but there are glints of beauty and bedrock joy that come shining through from time to precious time to remind anybody who cares to see that there is something higher and larger than ourselves. And I am not talking about your putrefying gods, I am talking about a sense of wonder about life itself and the feeling that there is some redemptive factor you must at least search for until you drop dead of natural causes. — Lester Bangs

Education is a choice. We don't become educated by watching television, and we don't learn a whole lot having similar conversations with the same, safe people day after day. Our education comes from pushing up against boundaries, from taking risks that may seem at first to be overwhelming, and by persevering past the first disappointments or shortfalls until we reach a point at which actual learning takes place. Determination and perseverance are absolutely vital to developing a true education
rarely, if ever, do we learn the most valuable lessons in the first few steps of the journey. — Tom Walsh

I feel an overwhelming rush of sadness ... I'm just struck with a sense of time passing so quickly, rushing forward. One day I'll wake up and my whole life will be behind me, and it will seem to have gone as quickly as a dream. — Lauren Oliver

It is very difficult to be under the microscope every moment of every day. Everything that leaves your mouth becomes this sensationalized news story, no matter what your intentions were when you first said it, so it becomes overwhelming. — Megan Fox

The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS - or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day. — Joycelyn Elders