Short Leaving Quotes & Sayings

Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us. — Theodore Roosevelt

What is meditation? What is leaving one's body? What is fasting? What is holding one's breath? It is fleeing from the self, it is a short escape of the agony of being a self, it is a short numbing of the senses against the pain and the pointlessness of life. The same escape, the same short numbing is what the driver of an ox-cart finds in the inn, drinking a few bowls of rice-wine or fermented coconut-milk. Then he won't feel his self any more, then he won't feel the pains of life any more, then he finds a short numbing of the senses. When he falls asleep over his bowl of rice-wine, he'll find the same what Siddhartha and Govinda find when they escape their bodies through long exercises, staying in the non-self. — Hermann Hesse

What is meditative absorption? What is leaving the body? What is fasting? What is holding the breath? These are a flight from the ego, a brief escape from the torment of being an ego, a short-term deadening of the pain and absurdity of life. This same escape, this same momentary deadening, is achieved by the ox driver in an inn when he drinks a bowl of rice wine or fermented coconut milk. Then he no longer feels his self, then he no longer feels the pains of life - he achieves momentary numbness. Falling asleep over his bowl of rice wine, he reaches the same result Siddhartha and Govinda reach when, through long practice sessions, they escape their bodies and dwell in nonego. That is the way it is, Govinda." Govinda — Hermann Hesse

With a cold barren weariness that quenched the dry glow of anger, he thought, What can you do about these people? The terrible thing is, there are such a lot of them. There are so many, they expect to meet each other wherever they go.
Not wicked, he thought: that's not the word, that's sentimentality. These are just runts. Souls with congenitally short necks and receding brows. They don't sin in the sight of heaven and feel despair: they only throw away lighted cigarettes on Exmoor, and go on holiday leaving the cat to starve, and drive on after accidents without stopping. A wicked man nowadays can set millions of them in motion, and when he's gone howling mad from looking at his own face, they'll be marching still with their mouths open and their hands hanging by their knees, on and on and on. ... — Mary Renault

that there is no reason he should grieve. He will perhaps say it was too early for me to leave for the forest. But even if affection should prevent me from leaving my family just now of my own accord, in due course death would tear us apart, and in that we would have no say. Birds settle on a tree for a while, and then go their separate ways again. The meeting of all living beings must likewise inevitably end in their parting. This world passes away and disappoints the hopes of everlasting attachment. It is therefore unwise to have a sense of ownership for people who are united with us as in a dream - for a short while only and not in fact.3 — Huston Smith

AS THE DARKNESS grew, and with Samuel gone, Annie thought she'd join her children upstairs, but she stopped outside the door when she heard Birdie mention Cy's name. Since he'd left, Birdie spoke to her in short angry sentences, as if Cy's leaving were Annie's fault. She wished she could hold her and say she understood. She had more in common with Birdie than she could admit. But she knew how trying to talk to her would go. They were each spinning in the dark, like flies in a glass of water, flapping around for something to latch onto. Something — Rae Meadows

After I had gone through this matter with the President I told him of my condition of health and that my doctors felt that I must take a complete rest and that I thought that that meant leaving the Department finally in a short time. — Henry L. Stimson

Leadership success means your mission and vision must outlive you, but this will not happen by accident. We have enough stories around us to prove that lasting legacies have to be well managed, planned and structured for continuity. If not, you will carry your name, success and influence to the grave, only leaving short-lived memories of your achievements and impact. — Archibald Marwizi

Life is too short to continue hating anyone for along time. We all have faults, but the time will come soon when we die, when our wickedness will pass away with our bodies, leaving only the pure flame of the spirit. That's why I never think of revenge, I never consider life unfair. I live in calm, looking forward to do the end. — Charlotte Bronte

A father is not to act harshly in word or deed toward his children, goad them to frustration and anger, discourage or demean them, neglect them, or harm them in any way. He is instead to be a blessing from the Lord to his children by taking responsibility to raise them rather than leaving it to the mother and various institutions, such as schools, churches, foster care systems, adoption agencies, and prisons. In short, fathers are supposed to be Pastor Dad, actively involved in the development of every aspect of their children's growth with love, humility, and wisdom. — Mark Driscoll

Someone once asked a desert father named Abba Anthony, "What must one do to please God?" The first two pieces of advice were expected: Always be aware of God's presence, and always obey God's Word. But the third was surprising: "Wherever you find yourself - do not easily leave." The idea was that community is hard, authentic friendship is hard, patience in work is hard - so leaving will always look more attractive in the short run. But over the long haul, leaving easily has a tendency to produce people who live in a pattern of giving up. Do not easily leave. — John Ortberg Jr.

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

An anarchist society is by definition a Free Society, but a Free Society is not necessarily Anarchist. It might fall short in several respects. Some failings might seriously limit its desirability. For instance, a Revolution carried out by men in a male-dominated society, might perpetuate sex discrimination, which would limit freedom and undermine the Revolution by leaving it possible for aggressive attitudes to be fostered. The liberal illusion that repressive forces must be tolerated which will ultimately wipe out all freedom
lest the right to dissent be imperilled
could well destroy the revolution. — Albert Meltzer

You have to take care of freedom. Can't be afraid of it, like Fromm said, like MacLeish said. Can't be too scared or too bold. Like a plant, you had to water it and weed it and keep it safe from frosts. And we lost it, somehow. We let the wrong ideas do the talking. We liked the easy short-term too much, and couldn't commit to the difficult long-term. We even stopped breeding, toward the end there, didn't we? Our birth rate went below replacement level. America was worth exploiting, but it wasn't worth leaving for anyone else, anyone who came after. Maybe evolution just shook its head and let us clear ourselves off the map. Mother Nature doesn't think much of life that isn't willing to replicate. — Algor X. Dennison

I tear down Baxter, which loops around the last mile down to Back Cove.
And then I stop short. The buildings have fallen away behind me, giving way to ramshackle sheds, sparsely situated on either side of the cracked and run-down road. Beyond that, a short strip of tall, weedy grass slants down toward the cove.
The water is an enormous mirror, tipped with pink and gold from the sky. In that single, blazing moment as I come around the bend, the sun - curved over the dip of the horizon like a solid gold archway - lets out its final winking rays of light, shattering the darkness of the water, turning everything white for a fraction of a second, and then falls away, sinking, dragging the pink and the red and the purple out of the sky with it, all the color bleeding away instantly and leaving only dark.
Alex was right. It was gorgeous - one of the best I've ever seen. — Lauren Oliver

After leaving Barnes & Noble, I went to a drive-through fast food restaurant to get a Diet Dr Pepper. Right as I pulled up to the window, my cell phone rang. I wasn't quite sure, but I thought it might be Charlie's school calling, so I answered it. It wasn't the school - it was someone calling to confirm an appointment. I got off the phone as quickly as I could. In the short time it took me to say, "Yes, I'll be at my appointment," the woman in the window and I had finished our soda-for-money transaction. I apologized to her the second I got off of the phone. I said, "I'm so sorry. The phone rang right when I was pulling up and I thought it was my son's school." I must have surprised her because she got huge tears in her eyes and said, "Thank you. Thank you so much. You have no idea how humiliating it is sometimes. They don't even see us." I — Brene Brown

I've lived so little that I tend to imagine I'm not going to die; it seems improbable
that human existence can be reduced to so little; one imagines, in spite of oneself,
that sooner or later something is bound to happen. A big mistake. A life can just as
well be both empty and short. The days slip by indifferently, leaving neither trace nor
memory; and then all of a sudden they stop. — Michel Houellebecq

When I struggle to get into the game and make an impact: Get backs to set close target and give me something to hit. Call drive so I can get involved. Get in position early, run hard, demand the ball. When ref is being inconsistent with his rulings. Especially when it is eliminating my effect: Be calm when I talk to him. Use right words - Can I speak when you have a moment? Is that the standard for the game? Put pressure on him. Use short sentences which are to the point. When I get taken out trying to get at ball at breakdown: If they are putting one or two on me, must be opportunities for others. Talk to others (8, 12, 13) and get them to do my job. When I get taken out, identify who and why it is working. When I'm planting and not getting shoulders on when tackling: Why? Maybe I'm on the dancefloor too early. Leaving a little later will help. Just keep going, and no worries about being stepped. Big guys coming, get low and use shoulder. Just need to be confident. NO FEAR. — Richie McCaw

Hardly had the glow been kindled by some good deed on your part or by some little triumph over your rivals or by a word of praisefrom your parents or mentors when it would begin to cool and fade leaving you in a very short time as chill and dim as before. — Samuel Beckett

Rather than leaving generous people on the short end of an unequal bargain, practices of generosity are actually likely instead to provide generous givers with essential goods in life - happiness, health, and purpose - which money and time themselves simply cannot buy. That is an empirical fact well worth knowing. — Christian Smith

Anger Works
Anger can be extremely rewarding in the short term. It can distract you from pain and threatening feelings. You may use anger to provoke fear and anxiety in others. Such anger makes others feel threatened, allowing you to gain control. But regularly directing anger at someone is likely to make him or her even less supportive. Ultimately, that person will withdraw completely- leaving you feeling even more isolated. — Bernard Golden

Travel broadens, they say. My personal experience has been that, in the short term at any rate, it merely flattens, aiming its steam-roller of deadlines and details straight at one's daily life, leaving a person flat and gasping at its passage. — Laurie R. King

How had I lost so much in such a short period of time? It would seem like leaving your family, living in some foreign place, and being separated from the person you love should be events that take years to roll into place, not just a day. — Kiera Cass

I wanted a sailboat, he said. But you didn't want anything. Don't be bitter, I said. It's never too late. No, he said with a great deal of bitterness. I may get a sailboat. As a matter of fact I have money down on an eighteen-foot two-rigger. I'm doing well this year and can look forward to better. But as for you, it's too late. You'll always want nothing. He had had a habit throughout the twenty-seven years of making a narrow remark which, like a plumber's snake, could work its way through the ear down the throat, halfway to my heart. He would then disappear, leaving me choking with equipment. What I mean is, I sat down on the library steps and he went away. I looked through The House of Mirth, but lost interest. I felt extremely accused. Now, it's true, I'm short of requests and absolute requirements. But I do want something. I want, for instance, to be a different person. — Grace Paley

Relief is a short-lived emotion, passive and thin. The agony of doubt disappears, leaving little memory of how it really felt. Life aligns behind the new truth. — Ann Brashares

Patience. I colored patience gray, hung over with black clouds. I colored hope yellow, just like the sun we could see for a few short morning hours. Too soon the sun rose high in the sky & disappeared from view, leaving us bereft and staring at blue. — V.C. Andrews

People say I talk slowly. I talk in a way sometimes called laconic. The phone rings, I answer, and people ask if they've woken me up. I lose my way in the middle of sentences, leaving people hanging for minutes. I have no control over it. I'll be talking, and will be interested in what I'm saying, but then someone - I'm convinced this what happens - someone - and I wish I knew who, because I would have words for this person - for a short time, borrows my head. Like a battery is borrowed from a calculator to power a remote control, someone, always, is borrowing my head. — Dave Eggers

Why it is that animals, instead of developing in a simple and straightforward way, undergo in the course of their growth a series of complicated changes, during which they often acquire organs which have no function, and which, after remaining visible for a short time, disappear without leaving a trace ... To the Darwinian, the explanation of such facts is obvious. The stage when the tadpole breathes by gills is a repetition of the stage when the ancestors of the frog had not advanced in the scale of development beyond a fish. — Francis Maitland Balfour

I regret to announce that - though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you - this is the END. I am going. I am leaving NOW. GOOD-BYE! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Excellent."
As soon as Bergman left earshot Vayl said, "I am going to buy you some pom-poms and a short pleated skirt-"
Hey, if Bergman needs a cheerleard, that's what he's getting."
Vayl tipped his head to one side and smiled wickedly. "I was just thinking perhaps I need a cheerleader as well."
Cassandra got up. "If that's where this conversation is headed, I'm leaving."
She wants some pom-poms too," I told Vayl.
I do not! — Jennifer Rardin

Dave, would you please tell your wife she can relax. She's got the job. It isn't necessary for her to keep pointing out our short-comings just so you can feel better about leaving us. — Delora Dennis

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

It's been a wild ride. I hope people can appreciate how special it is to see the people that ran well today; how special and sometimes fleeting greatness can be even from yourself. I gave it everything I had and for a short period of time I did very very well and I'm very proud of that and I'm leaving it at that. I did the best I could. — Alan Webb

My greatest accomplishment is succeeding in life, and I owe that to my family and twenty years in the military. I don't regret leaving the farm and ranch for the Army. Although I may have been a disappointment to my father, I achieved more than he could ever dream of in his short life. — Tom Johnson

Unlike the rest of you, I cheerfully admit to my own utter selfishness. I am self-made, self-absorbed, self-serving, self-referential, even self-deprecating, in a charming sort of way. In short, I am all the selfs except selfless. Yet every so often I run across a force of nature that shakes my sublime self-centeredness to its very roots. Something that tears through the landscape like a tornado, leaving nothing but ruin and reexamination in its wake. — William Lashner

As though you read my mind, you steady my head
between your hands and eye me intensely. Then your
mouth is on mine, hungry and aggressive. Your teeth
skim my lips, claiming me and I feel your tongue probing
inside of my mouth. The kiss ends as dramatically as it
began, leaving me reeling and wanting more. — Felicity Brandon

It was now Frodo's turn to feel pleased with himself. He capered about on the table; and when he came up a second time to the cow jumped over the Moon, he leaped in the air. Much too vigorously; for he came down, bang, into a tray full of mugs, and slipped, and rolled off the table with a crash, clatter, and bump! The audience all opened their mouths wide for laughter, and stopped short in gaping silence; for the singer disappeared. He simply vanished, as if he had gone slap through the floor without leaving a hole! — J.R.R. Tolkien

Above the decorous walking around me, sounds of footsteps leaving the verandas of far-flung buildings and moving toward the walks and over the walks to the asphalt drives lined with whitewashed stones, those cryptic messages for men and women, boys and girls heading quietly toward where the visitors waited, and we moving not in the mood of worship but of judgement; as though even here in the filtering dusk, here beneath the deep indigo sky, here, alive with looping swifts and darting moths, here in the hereness of the night not yet lighted by the moon that looms blood-red behind the chapel like a fallen sun, its radiance shedding not upon the here-dusk of twittering bats, nor on the there-night of cricket and whippoorwill, but focused short-rayed upon our place of convergence; and we drifting forward with rigid motions, limbs stiff and voices now silent, as though on exhibit even in the dark, and the moon a white man's bloodshot eye. — Ralph Ellison

The US was forced to withdraw troops from Iraq after an extremely costly decade-long military occupation, leaving in place a regime more closely allied to Iran, the US' regional adversary. The Iraq war depleted the economy, deprived American corporations of oil wealth, greatly enlarged Washington's budget and trade deficits, and reduced the living standards of US citizens. The Afghanistan war had a similar outcome, with high external costs, military retreat, fragile clients, domestic disaffection, and no short or medium term transfers of wealth (imperial pillage) to the US Treasury or private corporations. The Libyan war led to the total destruction of a modern, oil-rich economy in North Africa, the total dissolution of state and civil society, and the emergence of armed tribal, fundamentalist militias opposed to US and EU client regimes in North and sub-Sahara Africa and beyond. Instead — James F. Petras

Yes, he was leaving, but he'd told her repeatedly that they would find a way to make it work. and yes, it was true that they didn't know each other well, but considering the short time they'd been together, he'd learned enough to know that he could love her forever. all they needed was a chance. — Nicholas Sparks