Short Good Thing Quotes & Sayings

And your doubts can become a good quality if you school them. They must grow to be knowledgeable, they must learn to be critical. As soon as they begin to spoil something for you ask them why a thing is ugly, demand hard evidence, test them, and you will perhaps find them at a loss and short of an answer, or perhaps mutinous. But do not give in, request arguments, and act with this kind of attentiveness and consistency every single time, and the day will come when instead of being demolishers they will be among your best workers--perhaps the canniest of all those at work on the building of your life. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Established religion is like established anything else. It's easy. It offers answers you can get prepackaged and predigested, right off the shelf, and the same for everybody. No thinking required, much less hard thinking. Like a board game
you follow the rules, you go to heaven. That's why established religion gets the assholes. They aren't "good" Christians. I rather doubt they ever gave up a thing they valued for any reason or anybody. People like that aren't good anything. What they believe, they believe because it's appropriate; it's what everybody believes because it's the right thing to do
in short, it's easy. Our way isn't easy. We get assholes too, but they usually give up and get out, or get it knocked out of them. — Mercedes Lackey

Let every dawn of the morning be to you as the beginning of life. And let every setting of the sun be to you as its close. Then let everyone of these short lives leave its sure record of some kindly thing done for others; some good strength of knowledge gained for yourself. — John Ruskin

I guess it's a good thing. I'm too big and clumsy to take much ease in one of those little gilt chairs, and I'm kind of short on fancy talk, too. But I'd like to go look — Walter R. Brooks

Value investing doesn't always work. The market doesn't always agree with you. Over time, value is roughly the way the market prices stocks, but over the short term, which sometimes can be as long as two or three years, there are periods when it doesn't work. And that is a very good thing. The fact that our value approach doesn't work over periods of time is precisely the reason why it continues to work over the long term. — Joel Greenblatt

Researchers discovered that people who have just consumed caffeinated drinks were more likely to be swayed by arguments about various controversial topics.55 In short, good evidence that there really is no such thing as a free lunch or an innocent cup of coffee. — Richard Wiseman

Do you know that i paid two dollars for [Doxocology] thirty-three years ago? Everything was wrong with him, hoofs like flapjacks, a hock so thick and short and straight there seems no joint at all. he's hammerheaded and swaybacked. He has a pinched chest and a big behind. He has an iron mouth and he still fights the upper. with a saddle he feels as thought you were riding a sled over a gravel pit. He can't trot and he stumbles over his feet when he walks. I have never in thirty-three years fond one good thing about him. He even has an ugly disposition. He is selfish and quarrelsome and mean and disobedient. to this day I don't dare walk behind him because he will surely take a kick at me. when I feed him mush he tries to bite my hand. And I love him. — John Steinbeck

Darn! what a beautiful night!
Heading towards Pandara Road-Gulati Restaurant, with open windows of my baby sedan and this broad chest guy with big brown eyes.
He hums the oldies well and his Issey Miyake is making me lose the grip over my senses.
One more thing is distracting me, he ain't wearing anything inside but a transparent white, V necked, cotton short Kurta.
I can see the hair winking out and his collar bones!!
Not only men get excited by transparent dresses but women as well.
His broad shoulders and chest is my weakness and he knows it.
This man is not doing good to me!
It's a crime to seduce in this way, when you are not touched, when you are distracted by the aroma of his skin, when you know, he is well aware of the intentions..
when you can't do anything except getting seduced by the corner stretching smile of a man with animal instinct..
I certainly am missing myself to be tied up to the bedpost,choked and groaning his name! — Himmilicious

The one enemy in the world that America has is England. But then, England is the great land of Christian civilization, and it may not be a thing to be much wondered at that our Americans whom we send to represent us in London become in a short time somewhat civilized, and learn to love those who hate them, bless those that curse them, and do good to those that persecute and calumniate them. — Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

Ludwig Feuerbach says a wonderful thing about baptism. I have it marked. He says, 'Water is the purest, clearest of liquids; in virtue of this, its natural character, it is the image of the spotless nature of the Divine Spirit. In short, water has a significance in itself, as water; it is on account of its natural quality that it is consecrated and selected as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit. So far there lies at the foundation of Baptism a beautiful, profound natural significance.' Feuerbach is a famous atheist, but he is about as good on the joyful aspects of religion as anybody, and he loves the world. — Marilynne Robinson

I like Toronto a lot, it's a good city. The only thing that really annoys me about Toronto is that you're turning Maple Leaf Gardens into a grocery store, which is absolutely nothing short of disgusting. — Rick Wakeman

Jail time is still too cruel," Von Edeco shook his head. "You don't want to be depriving children of their parents, people from their families, even if it's just for a short period. I think flogging is the best method. It's immediately painful, which is a good deterrent. People don't like to get flogged." "No they don't," Geiseric agreed. "But," Von Edeco shrugged, "it's not that big of a deal in the end. It doesn't affect you in any long-term way. It doesn't leave scars. It doesn't injure them. It doesn't deprive them of any time with their loved ones, which is the worst thing you can do to a person." Geiseric looked off with piqued brow. "Flogging, huh? — Rick Friar

Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common every-day beauty. — John Muir

We're shaking up a format, which I think is always a good thing. The thing about [2011 Oscar hosts] James [Franco] and Anne [Hathaway] is, they've both hosted Saturday Night Live, and they both did a good job at it. So they are accustomed to working with short rehearsal time, and live, lots of pressure, rewrites, things like that. They can make quick changes, which is very advantageous, and they're skilled comedians. — Bruce Vilanch

My mother smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. Before she smoked her first cigarette, she was free to choose whether or not she would smoke. After awhile, her freedom reverted to Satan - so it would seem. The choice was no longer hers - so it would seem. Her mind and body were attacked with nicotine cravings that got so bad she would sometimes sacavage through garbage cans for butts when she'd run short on full cigarettes.
I watched, baffled at how something so small and so disgusting to me could have such power over my mother. That's the thing about addiction - it binds us one choice at a time. That's also the good news about addition - you can unravel the hold it has on you - one choice at a time. — Toni Sorenson

Still, to me, the bottom line wasn't about the Dark Book at all. It was about uncovering the details of my sister's secret life. I didn't want the creepy thing. I just wanted to know who or what had killed Alina, and I wanted him or it dead. Then I wanted to go home to my pleasantly provincial po-dunk little town in steamy southern Georgia and forget about everything that had happened to me while I was in Dublin. The Fae didn't visit Ashford? Good. I'd marry a local boy with a jacked-up Chevy pickup truck, Toby Keith singing "Who's Your Daddy?" on the radio, and eight proud generations of honest, hardworking Ashford ancestors decorating his family tree. Short of essential shopping trips to Atlanta, I'd never leave home again. But — Karen Marie Moning

Knowing you don't have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out - more like, they figure themselves out - and everything gets real clear. Your first kiss isn't as important as your last. The math test really didn't matter. The pie really did. The stuff you're good at and the stuff you're bad at are just different parts of the same thing. Same goes for the people you love and the people you don't - and the people who love you and the people who don't. The only thing that mattered was that you cared about a few people. Life is really, really short. — Kami Garcia

I think the hedge-fund industry has taken a reputational turn for the worse, this dog-eat-dog stuff. I'm not just talking about Herbalife or J. C. Penney, but in other situations where the media really focuses on who's long and who's short. I don't think it's a good thing for the industry. — Bill Ackman

Lula's borderline too much of a good thing in lots of ways. It isn't exactly that Lula is fat; it's more that she's too short for her weight and her clothes are too small for the volume of flesh she carries. — Janet Evanovich

The parishioners looked dazed, but happy. The only thing good Catholics love more than God is a short service. Keep your organ music, your choir, keep your incense and processionals. Give us a priest with one eye on the Bible and the other on the clock, and we'll pack the place like it's a turkey raffle the week before Thanksgiving. — Dennis Lehane

Correct me if I'm wrong," he said, "but I was under the impression that you weren't looking for anything more than a short-term arrangement either, Miss Free Spirit."
She flushed. "I wasn't the one who ran for the door that night. I was doing just fine with the summer-fling thing."
"I did not run for the door. I left in a hurry, but I did not run."
"Details."
"Important details. And I'd like to remind you that I showed at your gallery the next morning," he said. "It's not like I didn't call. And how the hell do you think I felt when you told me that the sex had been therapeutic? You made it sound like a good massage or a tonic, damn it."
She bit her lip. "Well, it was in a way."
"Great. Well, do me a favor. The next time you want physical therapy, call a masseuse or a chiropractor. Or buy a vibrator. — Jayne Ann Krentz

But aren't all great quests folly? El Dorado and the Fountain of Youth and the search for intelligent life in the cosmos
we know what's out there. It's what isn't that truly compels us. Technology may have shrunk the epic journey to a couple of short car rides and regional jet lags
four states and twelve hundred miles traversed in an afternoon
but true quests aren't measured in time or distance anyway, so much as in hope. There are only two good outcomes for a quest like this, the hope of the serendipitous savant
sail for Asia and stumble on America
and the hope of scarecrows and tin men: that you find out you had the thing you sought all along. — Jess Walter

I read daily, not so much for the benefit of my writing, but because I am addicted to it. There is nothing in the world for me that compares to being lost in a really good novel. That said, reading is an absolute must if you want to write. It is a trite enough thing to say, but very true nonetheless. I cannot understand aspiring writers who email me for advice and freely admit that they read very little. I have learned something from every writer I have ever read. Sometimes I have done so consciously, picking up something about how to frame a scene, or seeing a new possibility with regards to structure, or interesting ways to write dialogue. Other times, I think, my collective reading experience affects my sensibilities and informs me in ways that I am not quite aware of, but in real ways that impact how I approach writing. The short of it is, as an aspiring writer, there is nothing as damaging to your credibility as saying that you don't like to read — Khaled Hosseini

I don't write poetry or short stories. I don't like to write articles usually. I tend to really only want to be focused on writing novels. It's one of the real advantages I've had over the years. I've only been good at one thing. It helps to be limited. — Markus Zusak

Well, I think the best thing we can do for the short term is move good energy legislation through to the Congress; I'm encouraged that there's some prospect for that now. — John W. Snow

If a young person is surviving by trading sex for the thing they need, what useful purpose is served by criminalizing that activity? Doesn't everybody have the right to try and survive? it might cost more to create shelters or group homes, drug treatment programs, schools for emancipated minors, counseling services, medical care and job training. But such programs can salvage human lives that are otherwise going to be cut short or wasted.
If we can afford massive kiddy porn stings, why can't we afford to do this? Is it because, as a society,we obtain more pleasure out of trying to control young people, and punishing the minors who escape our control, than we would out of taking good care of kids who are in trouble? — Patrick Califia-Rice

Not a good idea," Lucas said. "I agree, but that's what she's going to do. This Pole guy told her that he holds you responsible for the shooting of his agent." "Right." "Wanna know what she said?" Henderson asked. "Sure." "She said, and I quote, 'You'd probably be better off holding the sniper responsible, don't you think? I certainly would.'" "Good for her," Lucas said. "But this short-walk thing . . . I dunno." "Better than a long one," Lucas said. — John Sandford

Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as in love and in faith; but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in way but as it ought. — John Ruskin

You want a piece of advice?" said Ripred.
"Don't bother. I know what you'll say. The whole thing's stupid," said Gregor.
"Quite the contrary. I was going to say that life is short. There are only a few good things in it, really. Don't pretend that one isn't happening." said Ripred. — Suzanne Collins

The only way out was to go back the next year and buy his sheep and pay over the odds to make up for it, so he did. Neither of these men cared remotely about "maximizing profit" in the short-term in the way a modern business person in a city would; they both valued their good names and their reputations for integrity far more highly than making a quick buck. If you said you would do a thing, you'd better do it. — James Rebanks

Fireworks made of glass. An explosion of dew. Crescendo. Diminuendo. Silence.
There are drugs that work the same, and while I am not suggesting that our founder purchased the glassworks to get more drops, it is clear that she had the seed planted, not once, but twice, and knew already the lovely contradictory nature of glass and she did not have to be told, on the day she saw the works at Darling Harbour, that glass is a thing in disguise, an actor, is not solid at all, but a liquid, that an old sheet of glass will not only take on a royal and purplish tinge but will reveal its true liquid nature by having grown fatter at the bottom and thinner at the top, and that even while it is as frail as the ice on a Parramatta puddle, it is stronger under compression than Sydney sandstone, that it is invisible, solid, in short, a joyous and paradoxical thing, as good a material as any to build a life from. — Peter Carey

Feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable. - Every consideration of the subject, in short, makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved. - I shall do very well again after a little while - and then, it will be a good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives, and I shall have been let off easily. When — Jane Austen

Page holds Musk up as a model he wishes others would emulate - a figure that should be replicated during a time in which the businessmen and politicians have fixated on short-term, inconsequential goals. "I don't think we're doing a good job as a society deciding what things are really important to do," Page said. "I think like we're just not educating people in this kind of general way. You should have a pretty broad engineering and scientific background. You should have some leadership training and a bit of MBA training or knowledge of how to run things, organize stuff, and raise money. I don't think most people are doing that, and it's a big problem. Engineers are usually trained in a very fixed area. When you're able to think about all of these disciplines together, you kind of think differently and can dream of much crazier things and how they might work. I think that's really an important thing for the world. That's how we make progress. — Ashlee Vance

A hero sacrifices for the greater good. A hero is true to his or her conscience. In short, heroism means doing the right thing regardless of the consequences. Although any person could fit that description, very few do. Choose this day to be one of them. — Brandon Mull

One more nice thing about short stories is that you can create a story out of the smallest details -an idea that springs up in your mind, a word, an image, whatever. In most cases it's like jazz improvisation, with the story taking me where it wants to. And another good point is that with short stories you don't have to worry about failing. If the idea doesn't work out the way you hoped it would, you just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that they can't all be winners. Even with masters of the genre like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver -even Anton Chekhov- not every short story is a masterpiece. I find this a great comfort. You can learn from your mistakes (in other words, those you can't call complete success) and use that in the next story you write. — Haruki Murakami

You'll find that marriage is a good short cut to the truth. No, not quite that. A way of doubling back to the truth. Another thing you'll find is that the years of illusion aren't those of adolescence, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they're the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties, the false maturity if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head. Your age, by the way, Jim. That's when you first realize that sex is important to other people besides yourself. A discovery like that can't help knocking you off balance for a time. — Kingsley Amis

I do Twitter, but I'm still not great on it - I'm not good at writing short little jokes, so my Twitter's not really a jokey thing. — Cecily Strong

Indebtedness among historians is a peculiar thing, however. We don't simply, in mechanical fashion, inherit a body of knowledge, add something to it, and pass it on. We also question, test, and shake here and there the intellectual scaffolding surrounding our predecessors' work, in the full, ironic knowledge that someone else is going to come along and give the scaffolding surrounding our own work a good shake, too, that no historian, in short, is ever permitted the final word. — Paul A. Cohen

It's a good thing wrinkles don't start 'til you're 50ish.
So, wrinkles, then Happy 60th, and then
Just think, you'll be 70
In just those short years, numbering ten — John Walter Bratton

The first thing I did was commit to my success and playing to win. I swore I would focus and not even consider leaving this business until I was a millionaire or more. This was radically different from my previous efforts, where, because I always thought short-term, I would constantly get side-tracked by either good opportunities or when things got tough. — T. Harv Eker

I will say you've shown up what thin stuff clergymen were peddling, most of them. When I had a congregation before the war, I used to tell them that the life of their spirit in relation to God was the biggest thing in their lives, and that their part in the economy was nothing by comparison. Now, you people have engineered them out of their part in the economy, in the market place, and they're finding out--most of them--that what's left is just about zero. A good bit short of enough, anyway. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The most important thing is not that my short game looks good, but that it feels good, because at the end of the day, what you need is to feel it, and I'm starting to feel it. — Sergio Garcia

I came to realize that good and evil were out of my reach, that time was the only thing I had any control over. I could buy time, create intervals. I could not truly make the world a better place, but I could make part of it a better place for a short while. — Sylvain Neuvel

I write very raw, ugly, illiterate first drafts very quickly (novels are always in first draft in under a year) and then I spend years and years fine-tuning, revising, editing, etc. What inspires me? Who knows. I am not inspired that much. That's why I write long form fiction - I am not much of a short story writer. Ideas come seldom, but when a good one comes, I really stick to it and see it out. I'm a problem-solver - I've never thrown out an entire manuscript; I've always forced myself to repair it until it was a lovable thing again. — Porochista Khakpour

A Very Short Poem for Poor Lovers
You've got nothing,
I've got nothing,
And it's not a good thing. — Arzum Uzun

To be good, is to be like God. Our purpose in life is to try and reach that standard. We will always fall short, but in our lifetime if we try our best to make a world where everyone is treated equally with respect, empathy, and compassion, the big payoff is that we will be rewarded with that exact thing in Heaven. — Lewis N. Roe

Two against thirty two," Niten said. "Good odds."
"I've never fought the Spartoi before," Prometheus admitted. "I only know of them by their reputation - and it's fearsome."
"We have an equal reputation," Niten said.
"Well, you do," the Elder said. "I was never that much of a fighter. And after the fall of the island, I rarely took up weapons again."
"Fighting is a skill you never forget," Niten said, a touch of sadness in his voice. "I fought my first duel when I was thirteen. I've been fighting ever since."
"But you are more than just a swordsman," Prometheus said. "You are an artist, a sculptor and a writer."
"No man is ever just one thing," Niten answered. His shoulder dropped and his short sword appeared in his left hand, water droplets sparkling from the blade. "But first and foremost, I was always a warrior." He jabbed his sword into the fog and stirred it like liquid. — Michael Scott

All at once, because life's too short and it's always like magic when you find a good thing. All at once, because I'm much too wise to not know that lightning can't really hit the same spot twice when it comes. All at once because right now, surrendering to irrationality seems to be the only thing that makes sense. — Nessie Q.

If you call a thing bad you do little, if you call a thing good you do much — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Isaac basically knew just one thing for sure: Many are born, few flourish, all die. If you didn't die as a sacrifice for God today, you would die of an incomprehensible plague tomorrow, or of undeserved starvation the day after, or of good old-fashioned senseless human slaughter before the next harvest. Life was short in those days and people were grateful for whatever they could get. They didn't expect wireless video game consoles, fast German cars, dental insurance, anti-depressants, and a pension. — Chris F. Westbury

One good thing about leaving daily journalism was that I was no longer obliged to read all the book prize short lists. — Annalena McAfee

So many misconceptions surround the notion of heroism. Far too many categorize a hero as a champion on the battlefield, a commander of legions, a master of rare talent or ability. Granted, there have been heroes who fit those descriptions. But many men of great evil as well. Heed me. A hero sacrifices for the greater good. A hero is true to his or her conscience. In short, heroism means doing the right thing regardless of the consequences. Although any person could fit that description, very few do. Choose this day to be one of them.
(Beyonders - A World Without Heroes) — Brandon Mull