Shortest Quotes & Sayings

You can have computer sights of anything you like, but I think you have to go to the enemy on the shortest distance and knock him down from point-blank range. You'll get him from in close. At long distance, it's questionable. — Erich Hartmann

Harrison's 8,400-word inaugural speech was the longest ever, while his 30-day Presidency was the shortest. — George Washington

To use the symbolic language of Bodkin's scheme, he would then be abandoning the conventional estimates of time in relation to his own physical needs, and entering the world of total neuronic time, where the massive intervals of the geological timescale calibrated his existence. Here, a million years was the shortest working unit, and the problems of food and clothing were as irrelevant as they would have been to a Buddhist contemplative lotus-squatting before an empty rice bowl under the protective canopy of the million-headed cobra of eternity. — J.G. Ballard

Philosophy's work is finding the shortest path between two points. — Khalil Gibran

War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end. — Stonewall Jackson

The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to truth; all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and grandiloquence, from which we can learn nothing. — Charles Caleb Colton

Sometimes the shortest journeys take longest, don't they? — Sarah Waters

There's no such thing as perfect. Chasing 'Perfect' is the shortest road to not achieving it. — Gary Vaynerchuk

All the old traditions tell us that there is more than one path to the great Goal ... The shortest and easiest pathway of all is the pathway of Love. It is the one pathway that is open to all, irrespective of what their personal conditions or circumstances may be. For every person, everywhere, true attainment awaits through the yoga of Love, for yoga means union and it is our union with God that makes the attainment possible. — Emmet Fox

The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust - not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God. — Brennan Manning

This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent a winter with her lover in the country. This, of course, is the barest outline, and futile to discuss. It's as pointless as throwing birdseed on the ground while snow still falls fast. Who expects small things to survive when even the largest get lost? People forget years and remember moments. Seconds and symbols are left to sum things up: the black shroud over the pool. Love, in its shortest form becomes a word. — Ann Beattie

A story is the shortest distance between being a stranger and being a friend. — Paul Smith

What can I do?" Klaus asked.
"You can pray this works," Violet said, but the Baudelaire sisters were so quick with their tasks that there was no time for even the shortest of religious ceremonies. — Lemony Snicket

In terms of distance, the prodigal's pigsty is the farthest point from home; in terms of time, the pigsty is the shortest distance to the father's house. — Os Guinness

If you visit London, you'll occasionally cross paths with young men (and less often women) on motor scooters, blithely darting in and out of traffic while studying maps affixed to their handlebars. These studious cyclists are training to become London cabdrivers. Before they can receive accreditation from London's Public Carriage Office, cabbies-in-training must spend two to four years memorizing the locations and traffic patterns of all 25,000 streets in the vast and vastly confusing city, as well as the locations of 1,400 landmarks. Their training culminates in an infamously daunting exam called "the Knowledge," in which they not only have to plot the shortest route between any two points in the metropolitan area, but also name important places of interest along the way. Only about three out of ten people who train for the Knowledge obtain certification. — Joshua Foer

In the end, as at the beginning, the divine turns out to be most interested in the unique life of the individual soul. That's what was meant by the old idea that "inside people is where god learns." This is not a religious notion, but more of a spiritual insight. For this conversation god is simply the shortest way to refer to the divine. When a unique life becomes fully livedeveryone involved learns something and it becomes clear that god was involved all along. — Michael Meade

My mother would tell me that the shortest cut to purification after the unholy touch was to cancel the touch by touching any Mussalman passing by. — Mahatma Gandhi

Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humouring everybody's nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools they humour?' said Lydgate, moving to Mr. Farebrother's side, and looking rather absently at the insects ranged in fine gradation, with names subscribed in exquisite writing. 'The shortest way is to make your value felt, so that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not.'
'With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value, and you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that. Either you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, or you wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellow pull you ... — George Eliot

We seem trapped in the Short Now. The present generation enjoys the greatest power in history, but it appears to have the shortest vision in history. That combination is lethal. — Stewart Brand

First, In showing in how to avoid attempting impossibilities. Second, In securing us from important mistakes in attempting what is, in itself possible, by means either inadequate or actually opposed to the end in view. Thirdly, In enabling us to accomplish our ends in the easiest, shortest, most economical, and most effectual manner. Fourth, In inducing us to attempt, and enabling us to accomplish, object which, but for such knowledge, we should never have thought of understanding.
On the ways that a knowledge of the order of nature can be of use. — John Herschel

We should not speak of one that prospers well As happy, till his life have run its course, And reached its goal. An evil spirit's gift In shortest time has oft laid low the state Of one full rich in great prosperity, When the change comes, and so the Gods appoint. — Sophocles

I bet that the best thing about being a hermaphrodite is that you always get to use the bathroom with the shortest line. — Brad Wilkerson

Gratitude is the shortest path to happiness. — Harry Hoover

A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points. — Madeleine L'Engle

In Mere Christianity, no less than in his more fantastical works, the Narnia stories and science fiction novels, Lewis betrays a deep faith in the power of the human imagination to reveal the truth about our condition and bring us to hope. "The longest way round is the shortest way home"2 is the logic of both fable and of faith. — C.S. Lewis

The shortest horror story:
The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door. — Frederic Brown

The shortest distance between two points is the line from me to you. — Fisher Amelie

I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible. — Bertrand Russell

People - pardon me, journalists and politicians - have often accused me of believing that I'm above the law. And yet, who isn't? Everywhere you prod it, even with the shortest stick, the established system isn't simply corrupt, it's unequivocally putrescent. The law is created by demonstrable criminals, enforced by demonstrable, interpreted by demonstrable criminals, all for demonstrably criminal purposes. Of course I'm above the law. And so are you. — L. Neil Smith

The shot has gone under my rib, Boulard my boy, so it must have been the shortest one who fired.
Even his final sigh was a police investigation. — Timothee De Fombelle

The shortest route to deeper and richer worship is a clearer theology. — Paul David Manson

The shortest road to wealth lies in the contempt of wealth. — Seneca The Younger

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about. — Francis Bacon

Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses. This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing minute is every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. — Marcus Aurelius

Willpower is the shortest shortcut to success. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The shortest distance to leadership is service. — Myles Munroe

Nobody wants to be born a One. One's have the shortest lifespan. They must turn themselves in to The Protectorate for termination at age twenty-five. If I were ever going to feel sympathy for Darian, it would be because of that. Knowing he'd die the youngest of all the citizens is probably what made Darian go mad. — Shannon Duffy

A few hours' mountain climbing make of a rogue and a saint two fairly equal creatures. Tiredness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity - and sleep finally adds to them liberty. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Too often instead of taking a stand we try to take the shortest route directly out of wherever we've found ourselves standing. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Let us seek Death, or he not found, supply With our own hands his office on ourselves; Why stand we longer shivering under fears, That show no end but death, and have the power, Of many ways to die the shortest choosing, Destruction with destruction to destroy. — John Milton

God is very generous and does not deny His grace to anyone. Indeed he gives more than what we ask of Him. Faithfulness to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit-that is the shortest route. — Mary Faustina Kowalska

Except in mathematics, the shortest distance between point A and point B is seldom a straight line. I don't believe in mathematics. — Albert Einstein

That's why I've never thought of retiring because I do it all the time whether on the stage or off. I found that in a precarious situation, a smile is the shortest distance between people. When one needs to reach out for sympathy or a link with people, what better way is there? — Victor Borge

Many years spent listening to the tribulations of man have persuaded me that the satisfaction of all desires is completely counterproductive to happiness. Instant and unrestrained gratification is the shortest and most direct route to unhappiness. — James E. Faust

The shortest way to arrive at glory should be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. And the virtue of Alexander appears to me with much less vigor in his theater than that of Socrates in his mean and obscure. I can easily conceive Socrates in the place of Alexander, but Alexander in that of Socrates I cannot. — Michel De Montaigne

Get up and dance, get up and smile, get up and drink to the days that are gone in the shortest while. — Simon Fowler

The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the center of a very large tree. — Confucius

Though thou shouldst be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought
to the same. For the present is the same to all, though that which perishes is not the same; and so that which is lost appears to be a mere moment. — Marcus Aurelius

The longest way round is the shortest way home.
(Quoting Alexander MacLaren, The Wearied Christ and Other Sermons) — C.S. Lewis

August. The lines are the shortest, though. — Steven Rubenstein

We are surrounded by the dry thorns of the Inquisition on all four sides; throwing around words burning like fire is the shortest way to one's grave! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

[Mary] is the safest, easiest, shortest and most perfect way of approaching Jesus and will surrender themselves to her, body and soul, without reserve in order to belong entirely to Jesus. — Louis De Montfort

To make the world work for 100 percent of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone. — Russell Brand

You have to understand, my dears, that the shortest distance between truth and a human being is a story. — Anthony De Mello

The shortest answer is doing the thing. — Ernest Hemingway,

Samuel, safety is my watchword. Rest assured that proper procedures will be followed at all times."
Skipper giggled. "Tell me, Mump. What ARE proper procedures exactly?"
"Simple," said Mump. "One: cause maximum chaos in the shortest possible time. Two: try not to get your head blown off. — Steve Voake

Motive Waves There are two types of Motive Waves: Impulse Waves and Diagonal Triangles. Impulse Waves The basic characteristics of Impulse Waves are as follows: 1. Wave 2 never retraces (corrects) more than 100% of Wave 1. 2. Most of the times Wave 3 is the longest wave in the 5 Wave series but is never the shortest. 3. Wave 4 never overlaps Wave 1. 4. Wave 2 and Wave 4 always alternate i.e., if Wave 2 is a zigzag, Wave 4 will be a complex correction and vice-versa. 5. Wave 4 retraces atleast until the end of fourth wave of lower degree. 6. Impulse waves occur within parallel trend channels i.e. when we connect the ends of wave 2 and 4, and draw a line parallel to it from the end of wave 3, Wave 5 can be expected to end at the upper trend line. 7. Impulse Wave formations during bull and bear markets are as shown in Figures below. — Jasjeet Kaur

Weight is caused by one element being situated in another; and it moves by the shortest line towards its centre, not by its own choice, not because the centre draws it to itself, but because the other intervening element cannot withstand it. — Leonardo Da Vinci

That that life which any the longest liver, or the shortest liver parts with, is for length and duration the very same, for that only which is present, is that, which either of them can lose, as being that only which they have; for that which he hath not, no man can truly be said to lose. — Marcus Aurelius

let us start by picturing the Japan archipelago lying in the sea by the Chinese mainland. If its proximity allowed it to become part of the Sinosphere and acquire a written culture, its distance benefited the development of indigenous writing. The Dover Strait, separating England and France, is only 34 kilometers (21 miles) wide. A fine swimmer can swim across it. In contrast, the shortest distance between Japan and the Korean Peninsula is five or six times greater, and between Japan and the Chinese mainland, twenty-five times greater. The current, moreover, is deadly. . . . Japan's distance from China gave it political and cultural freedom and made possible the flowering of its own writing. — Minae Mizumura

Pain dies quickly, and lets her weary prisoners go; the fiercest agonies have shortest reign. — William C. Bryant

A straight line is the shortest possible line between any two points - an axiom equally true in morals as in mathematics. — Maria Edgeworth

My dear," Rose said, "you might be surprised at how much happiness you can find in the pages of the shortest love stories. Unlike penises, their length truly does not count. — Samantha Sotto

In modeling, my height was a big challenge to overcome, because I was pretty much the shortest girl on the runway whenever I was doing the catwalk. The clothes didn't fit and the shoes didn't fit. It was an issue, but luckily, it didn't prevent me from working. — Devon Aoki

'No' is the second shortest word in the English language, but one of the hardest to say. — Raymond Arroyo

Poetry is the shortest distance between two humans. — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Where evil may be done, it is right to ponder; where only suffered, know the shortest pause is much too long. — Hannah More

It's funny because my life is full of this:

you think you're escaping, until you run into yourself.

Twenty-three years later it turns out that the longest way round is the shortest way home,

and I've been running in circles since the get-go.

What a riot, huh? — Changdictator

The shortest verse in the Bible is 'Jesus wept.' The only thing wrong with it is the past tense. — R. K. Milholland

So far are we generally from thinking what we often say of the shortness of life, that at the time when it is necessarily shortest we form projects which we delay to execute, indulge such expectations as nothing but along train of events can gratify, and suffer those passions to gain upon us which are only excusable in the prime of life. — Lyndon B. Johnson

So the shortest day came, and the year died. — Susan Cooper

One stifling summer afternoon last August, in the attic of a tiny stone house in Pennsylvania, I made a most interesting discovery: the shortest, cheapest method of inducing a nervous breakdown ever perfected. In this technique ... , the subject is placed in a sharply sloping attic heated to 340 F and given a mothproof closet known as the Jiffy-Cloz to assemble. — S.J Perelman

We're going to see leadership emerge as the most important element of business - the attribute that is highest in demand and shortest in supply. — Tom Peters

When the boy begins to understand that the visible point is preceded by an invisible point, that the shortest distance between two points is conceived as a straight line before it is ever drawn with pencil and paper ... the fountain of all thought has been opened to him ... the philosopher can reveal him nothing new, as a geometrician he has discovered the basis of all thought. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Americans are incredibly inpatient. Someone once said that the shortest period of time in America is the time between when the light turns green and when you hear the first horn honk. — Jim Rohn

You know what we need?"
I was sitting between Eddie and Lissa, on our flight from Seattle to Fairbanks. As the shortest-marginally-and the mastermind, I'd gotten stuck with the middle seat.
"A new plan?" asked Lissa.
"A miracle?" asked Eddie.
I paused and glared at them both before responding. Since when had they become the comedians here? — Richelle Mead

Nature operates in the shortest way possible. — Aristotle.

It is a delight to watch a young and gifted chess player. To him have come no sinister experiences; to him continual carping care is foreign. Therefore he loves the attack and the bold sacrifice; for theirin lies the shortest way to his ultimate objective. — Richard Reti

People don't care about being duped as long as they're happy, which is the shortest form of happiness; hence 'self-duprication' becomes a habit. — Criss Jami

There are many paths to victory; choose the shortest one! There are many paths to defeat; choose the longest one! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Again and again we picture ourselves sitting together with the people we feel drawn to all our lives, precisely these so-called simple people, whom naturally we imagine much differently from the way they truly are, for if we actually sit down with them we see that they aren't the way we've pictured them and that we absolutely don't belong with them, as we've talked ourselves into believing, and we get rejected at their table and in their midst as we logically should get after sitting down at their table and believing we belonged with them or we could sit with them for even the shortest time without being punished, which is the biggest mistake, I thought. All our lives we yearn to be with these people and want to reach out to them and when we realize what we feel for them are rejected by them and indeed in the most brutal fashion. — Thomas Bernhard

The book of Jonah is one of the shortest books in the Bible. Yet, something beneath the surface whispers to us, hinting that there is much more beneath this little book. (page iii) — Michael Ben Zehabe

Way to equality. - A few hours of mountain climbing turn a villain and a saint into two rather equal creatures. Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity - and liberty is added eventually by sleep. 297 — Friedrich Nietzsche

If you act anxiously to hasten your results, you delay their arrival. Calm poise reveals the shortest route home. — Alan Cohen

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return; prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only, as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk. — Henry David Thoreau

Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space. — Edward R. Tufte

Be grateful for all ordeals, they are the shortest way to the Divine. — The Mother

It is odd to watch with what feverish ardour Americans pursue prosperity, ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they might not have chosen the shortest route to get it. They cleave to the things of this world as if assured they will never die, and yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach, as if they expected to stop living before relishing them. Death steps in, in the end, and stops them, before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit of that complete felicity which always escapes them. — Alexis De Tocqueville

The truly perfect pangram would contain all the letters of the alphabet in the right order, but the only thing that achieves that is the alphabet. There are phrases that use fewer characters, but they are not as catchy. And this is not for want of trying. Here are two of the shortest: 'Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim.' 'Sphinx of black quartz judge my vow. — Simon Garfield

There are twenty ways of going to a point, and one is the shortest; but set out at once on one. A man who has that presence of mind which can bring to him on the instant all he knows, is worth for action a dozen men who know as much, but can only bring it to light slowly. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are, all four of us, blood relatives, and we speak a kind of esoteric, family language, a sort of semantic geometry in which the shortest distance between any two points is a fullish circle. — J.D. Salinger

The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing. — Marcus Aurelius

Our age is one of frustration, anxiety, agitation, and addiction to "dope." Somehow we must grab what we can while we can, and drown out the realization that the whole thing is futile and meaningless. This "dope" we call our high standard of living, a violent and complex stimulation of the senses, which makes them progressively less sensitive and thus in need of yet more violent stimulation. We crave distraction - a panorama of sights, sounds, thrills, and titillations into which as much as possible must be crowded in the shortest possible time. To — Alan W. Watts

The straight line is regarded as the shortest distance between two people, as if they were points. — Theodor Adorno

Violet has the shortest wavelength of the spectrum. Behind it, the invisible ultraviolet. Roses are Red, Violets are Blue. Poor violet, violated for a rhyme. — Derek Jarman

Never go for someone that represents something that is more of a fantasy than reality in this crazy world of lonely people, unless it is for the shortest time possible, and unless you have clearly figured out an exit strategy. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

What is it about Iowa? I'm the shortest guy in the state. — Jason Alexander

Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, and an activity. It arises from curiosity and discovery. Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering. Other people, friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors, spouses, even your mother and I are not responsible for your happiness. Your life is your responsibility, and you always have the choice to do your best. Doing your best will bring happiness. Do not be overconcerned with avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. If you are concentrating on the results of your actions, you are not dedicated to your task. — Ethan Hawke