Simple But Important Quotes & Sayings

There seems to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be. It is so painful to watch and experience. The astonishing thing is that the battle for survival has become so "normal" that few people really believe that it can be different ... Oh how important is discipline, community, prayer, silence, caring presence, simple listening, adoration, and deep, lating faithful friendship. We all want it so much, and still the powers suggesting that all of that is fantasy are enormous. But we have to replace the battle for power with the battle to create space for the spirit. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Obama does look good, but he could look better. The most important thing for politicians is to keep their clothes really simple and make sure their clothing actually fits. — Thom Browne

The reason that the little things are more important than the big ones, turns out to be very simple: one can fake the big things in one's behaviour, but not the little things. The little things lack the three "f's": feigning, fabrication, fakeness. Plus the most important "c": contrivance. — Nicos Hadjicostis

When I grew up, I simply didn't have mentors that said, "Science is important. Science helps you build a country. Science makes a country powerful." And that's such a simple thought, but when you think about what's powered Taiwan and Korea and Silicon Valley and Cambridge. — Juan Enriquez

It is the structure of the armies at the Institute. The hierarchy is good for simple tasks. Some fingers are more important than others. Some are better at certain things. All fingers are controlled by the highest order, the brain. The brain's control is effective. It makes your thumb and fingers work together. But the single brain's control is limited. Imagine each one of the fingers had a brain of its own that interacted with the main brain. The fingers obey, but they function independently. What could the hand do then? What could an army do? I twirl the stick along my fingers in intricate patterns. Exactly. — Pierce Brown

I never bought into the whole "second amendment" argument as it relates to the 21st century. Originally, it was put into place for the simple reason that our forefathers were fighting or had just fought off a government that threatened them with weapons. If those in the revolution had no weapons, there would be no United States of America, but rather New England of the New World. So, I understood why they thought it was so important. — Martin Manley

Look at The King's Speech. For one thing, you can look at it: no lens caps left on there. What's more, the story is simple. The world's most important man can't speak properly, so he gets taught to speak properly. But then disaster strikes! It looks like he might not be able to speak properly after all. Finally, in a triumphant climax, he speaks properly. It's a feelgood ending for everybody, apart from the 450,000 Britons killed in the war he just announced on the radio. — Charlie Brooker

But even technical work filled with formulas can be valuable and important. Einstein offered a lot of technical work on quantum physics, which mostly eludes me. I refer to his work, and I have studied it, but I am not a physicist. But look at Einstein's simple statement that the most important decision you ever will make is the decision whether you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe. — Wayne Dyer

To me, it's simple: if you've got the time, use it to get ready. What else could you possibly have to do that's more important? Yes, maybe you'll learn how to do a few things you'll never wind up actually needing to do, but that's a much better problem to have than needing to do something and having no clue where to start. — Chris Hadfield

But I knew the first question Mom asked Gail was, Is its a boy or a girl? Because, for some reason, that is the first thing everybody wants to know the minute you're born. Should we label it with pink or blue? Wouldn't want anyone to mistake the gender of a infant! Why is that so important? Its a baby! And why does it have to be a simple answer? One or the other? Not all of us fit so neatly into the category we get saddled with on Day One when the doctor glances down and makes a quick assessment of the available equipment. — Ellen Wittlinger

The authors of the four passages share a number of practices: an insistence on fresh wording and concrete imagery over familiar verbiage and abstract summary; an attention to the readers' vantage point and the target of their gaze; the judicious placement of an uncommon word or idiom against a backdrop of simple nouns and verbs; the use of parallel syntax; the occasional planned surprise; the presentation of a telling detail that obviates an explicit pronouncement; the use of meter and sound that resonate with the meaning and mood.
The authors also share an attitude: they do not hide the passion and relish that drive them to tell us about their subjects. They write as if they have something important to say. But no, that doesn't capture it. They write as if they have something important to show. And that, we shall see, is a key ingredient in the sense of style. — Steven Pinker

There are writers who pour out words, concepts that sound really important but that basically say nothing. I always tried to be as concise as possible, all to try and reach everyone, but especially the simple people, those who needed to be reached more than anyone else. — Chespirito

As you begin your information collection, it's vitally important for Jan to feel good about the path she's chosen, so that she'll be inclined to continue to share truthful information with you. Your focus, then, needs to be on rewarding Jan for her decision, and we've found that a simple thank-you is a very powerful reward: "Jan, thank you for that. That took a lot of courage." You'll also need to squash any urge to bask in your victory - far from haughty, your tone should be sympathetic: "I know that was very difficult, but you did the right thing. — Philip Houston

Color is definitely an important factor for me during all phases of producing a cover. I always start out with a loose idea of what I want to see when I'm doing my initial sketches. This choice can be informed by anything, but I usually tend to lean toward more simple color schemes ... something with a very obvious push between warms and cools. — Lee Bermejo

Certainly the shahadah contained an important theological innovation, but that innovation was not monotheism. With this simple profession of faith, Muhammad was declaring to Mecca that the God of the heavens and the earth required no intermediate whatsoever, but could be accessed by anyone. — Reza Aslan

The problem is some of the populism on both the far left and the far right, it can make a Tweet but not make a policy. And, you know, when you are dealing with issues that are as important and serious as this, I understand why people search for simple solutions. — Tony Blair

Persistence trumps talent.
What's the most powerful force in the universe? Compound interest. It builds on itself. Over time, a small amount of money becomes a large amount of money. Persistence is similar. A little bit improves performance, which encourages greater persistence which improves persistence even more. And on and on it goes.
Lack of persistence works the same way
only in the opposite direction.
Of course talent is important, but the world is lit erred with talented people who didn't persist, who didn't put in the hours, who gave up too early, who thought they could ride on talent alone. Meanwhile, people who might have less talent pass them by.
That's why intrinsic motivation is so important. Doing things not the get an external reward like money or a promotion, but because you simple like doing it. The more intrinsic motivation you have , the more likely you are to persist. The more you persist, the more likely you are to succeed. — Daniel H. Pink

the City is not a simple partnership; it is a partnership of partnerships, each of which already has a pattern of its own, a pattern that government did not give it. These partnerships best flourish in that larger partnership which is the City, and law merely assures the background conditions - the most important of which is simple justice - they need in order to do so. Thus the proper aim of the state is not to do everything itself but to support a life which was there before it. — J. Budziszewski

Following the Lord's authority, one of the distinctives of
Christian cultural understanding is that it also is minimally concerned with politics. The restoration of the nations is not, in any important sense, a political process. Rather, the process is one of baptism and catechism. The means given for the conversion of the heathen were the waters of baptism and the words of instruction. When the lessons have been learned, there will of course be some political consequences. But they will be minimal for the simple reason that the state itself, in a nation that has come to repentance, will also be minimal. For the Christian, the political realm is a creature to be redeemed, sinful like the rest of us and with a long way to go before it retires to more biblical proportions. — Douglas Wilson

One thing I can assure you, life is not easy, but it can be simple. Focus on what's important and don't let your distractions derail you. — Tony Curl

I think that of all the principles for journalism, the most important is to complicate simple things and simplify complicated things. At first sight, you may think something is simple, but it may conceal a great deal. However, facing a very complex thing, you should find out its essence. -Jin Yongquan — Judy Polumbaum

Religion is important for humanity, but it should evolve with humanity. The first priority is to establish and develop the principle of pluralism in all religious traditions. If we, the religious leaders, cultivate a sincere pluralistic attitude, then everything will be more simple. It is good that most religious leaders are at least beginning to recognize other traditions, even though they may not approve of them. The next step is to accept that the idea of propagating religion is outdated. It no longer suits the times. — Dalai Lama

Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us. — Sargent Shriver

You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a hen. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. — Douglas Adams

I have stopped having goals. If you have many goals, and you don't reach your goals, it is very upsetting, so I just think of keeping it simple, working hard and going and playing the game. But I know there are going to be very important series for Indian cricket. I will just try my best to be in my fittest form. — Yuvraj Singh

I'm a simple cook, and there's a lot I don't eat. But food is important. It translates so easily into pleasure. — Mona Simpson

My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century. — Noam Chomsky

But man has other needs as well: emotional needs. These, too, are few, but every bit as important as his physical requirements, yet not so simple. If they aren't met, they can be as devastating as physical hunger, as uncomfortable as a lack of shelter, as incapacitating as thirst. The frustration, isolation and anxiety brought about by unmet emotional needs can, like physical privation, produce death or a degree of living death - neurosis and psychosis. — Leo Buscaglia

Wisdom is not to be found in the art of oratory, or in great books, but in a withdrawal from these sensible things and in a turning to the most simple and infinite forms. You will learn how to receive it into a temple purged from all vice, and by fervent love to cling to it until you may taste it and see how sweet That is which is all sweetness. Once this has been tasted, all things which you now consider as important will appear as vile, and you will be so humbled that no arrogance or other vice will remain in you. Once having tasted this wisdom, you will inseparably adhere to it with a chaste and pure heart. You will choose rather to forsake this world and all else that is not of this wisdom, and living with unspeakable happiness you will die. — Nicolaus Cusanus

Writing is not about the end product, yes that is extremely important. It's not even about the grammar or style you write in; style and grammar are in the eye of the beholder. With each person, someone will find problems so grammar and style are moot. Writing, truly diving in is about the creative process...discovering a newer side of yourself as you are writing; creating. The adventure from page one to being done is what it is about. Do you feel good with the end product? do you feel good half way through? The point to this is simple...feedback is vital to selling your work, paying attention to hurtful feedback can destroy your pursuit of your dreams. so write for you...sell to others but write from your soul. Whether it's fiction/faction/non fiction or somewhere in between if your heart and soul is not in it...you are not going to be happy with it. — Kyle Williamson

It is a good rule of thumb for spiritual directors to ask themselves, What truly constitutes our spiritual concern here? Am I really being attentive to the Lord in this? What things are getting in the way of our simple, humble intention towards the working of the Holy Spirit in this person's life? All human experience can be said to be spiritual in the largest sense, but spiritual direction should deal primarily with those qualities that seem most clearly and specifically spiritual, those that reveal the presence or leadings of God, or evidence of grace, working most directly in a person's life. This becomes increasingly important as spiritual direction progresses over time with any given individual. In the course of spiritual maturation, concern with superficial psychological experience must give way to a much more basic concern for the discernment of good and evil. — Gerald G. May

If there's one overarching theme in "Guys Read", it's the simple but important message: "read what you like, when you like, whatever that happens to be. — School Library Journal

The theory of natural selection is the centerpiece of The Origin of Species and of evolutionary theory. It is this theory that accounts for the adaptations of organisms, those innumerable features that so wonderfully equip them for survival and reproduction; it is this theory that accounts for the divergence of species from common ancestors and thus for the endless diversity of life. Natural selection is a simple concept, but it is perhaps the most important idea in biology. — Douglas J. Futuyma

The Witness is a huge step forward, and it is a necessary and important step in meditation, but it is not ultimate. When the Witness or the soul is finally undone, then the Witness dissolves into everything that is witnessed. The subject/object duality collapses and there is only pure nondual awareness, which is very simple, very obvious. — Ken Wilber

No matter how much (or how little) help someone provides, always say thanks. Thank yous are simple but important. — Beverly K. Bachel

THE FIRST AGREEMENT Be Impeccable with Your Word THE FIRST AGREEMENT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE and also the most difficult one to honor. It is so important that with just this first agreement you will be able to transcend to the level of existence I call heaven on earth. The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. It sounds very simple, but it is very, very powerful. Why your word? Your word is the power that you have to create. Your word is the gift that comes directly from God. The Gospel of John in the Bible, speaking of the creation of the universe, says, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God." Through the word you express your creative power. It is through the word that you manifest everything. Regardless of what language you speak, your intent manifests through the word. What you dream, what you feel, and what you really are, will all be manifested through the word. — Miguel Ruiz

The casting is very simple actually, but it is very important. You choose the best actor for the role, and you test them and you test them, and you bring them back, and you have to make sure the actors fit the roles. — Hany Abu-Assad

One important aspect of justice, Jose Miranda reminds us, involves the restoration of what has been stolen. Giving food to the hungry or clothing to the naked is not a charitable handout but an exercise in simple justice - restoring to the poor what is rightfully theirs, what has been taken from them unjustly. — Robert McAfee Brown

It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity. — Pierre-Simon Laplace

So basically it's very simple: to start with, if you want to win the match, you shouldn't be afraid of him. There are still many, many things to do, but above all this is the most important: Don't be scared of him! — Vladimir Kramnik

This exaggerated power comes not from the size of Natick's research budget, which is relatively small, but from the simple fact of having an overarching goal, a long-term plan, and relentless focus - which, come to think of it, may be the three traits in life most important to making things happen. — Anastacia Marx De Salcedo

Oh, very simple," Derek jeered. "It doesn't matter that I was born a bastard. She deserves nothing better than a man with a false name, fine clothes, and a sham accent. It's not important that I have no family and no religion. I don't believe in sacred causes, or honor, or unselfish motives. I can't be innocent enough for her. I never was. But why should that matter to her? — Lisa Kleypas

Most of us assume as a matter of common sense that space is nothing, that it's not important and has no energy. But as a matter of fact, space is the basis of existence. How could you have stars without space? Stars shine out of space and something comes out of nothing just in the same way as when you listen, in an unprejudiced way, you hear all sounds coming out of silence. It is amazing. Silence is the origin of sound just as space is the origin of stars, and woman is the origin of man. If you listen and pay close attention to what is, you will discover that there is no past, no future, and no one listening. You cannot hear yourself listening. You live in the eternal now and you are that. It is rally extremely simple, and that is the way it is. — Alan W. Watts

The most important thing a writer can do after completing a sentence is to stay in the room. The great temptation is to leave the room to celebrate the completion of the sentence or to go out in the den where the television lies like a dormant monster and rest up for a few days for the next sentence or to go wander the seductive possibilities of the kitchen. But. It's simple. The writer is the person who stays in the room. The writer wants to read what she is in the process of creating with such passion and devotion that she will not leave the room. The writer understand that to stand up from the desk is to fail, and to leave the room is so radical and thorough a failure as to not be reversible. Who is not in the room writing? Everybody. Is it difficult to stay in the room, especially when you are not sure of what you're doing, where you're going? Yes. It's impossible. Who can do it? The writer. — Ron Carlson

The point really is that a writer tends to write a book that he or she tends to write. It's as simple as that. Of course, it's important to make a living and all that, but the main impulse as far as I'm concerned - and I'm sure as other writers are concerned - is to tell a story that I feel impelled by. — Vikram Seth

Finally, let me share a feeling of mine, I hope it will not be misinterpreted as pride. I am seventy four now. But still, if they give me a duty in the wooden hut where I used to stay when I was a mentor long years ago, I will gladly run there and try to fulfill that duty. Perhaps, some of our friends can see that task as a simple and trivial one. But I have not underestimated this duty and would never do so. Even today, some people may consider our having lessons with the small circle of young scholars here as a simple and trivial job. However, in my opinion, this is the most important occupation that can take human to the highest levels. — M. Fethullah Gulen

He was amazed to find that the Karmapa, an eminent spiritual leader known the world over, treated him as though his visit were one of the most important things that had ever happened to the Karmapa in his life. This treatment did not manifest through grandiose gestures or ceremony, but rather through the simplicity and completeness of the Karmapa's presence, which offered my friend an experience of being completely loved. When I heard this story, I thought about how many conversations I have had during which my attention was halfhearted. I might be thinking about the next thing I had to do or the next person I had to talk to. How unfair that lack of attention now seems! The simple act of being completely present to another person is truly an act of love - no drama is required. — Sharon Salzberg

Beside her, she can feel each breath he draws. How is it possible to be so close to a person and still not know what you are to each other? With baseball, it's simple. There's no mystery to what happens on the field because everything has a label
full count, earned run, perfect game
and there's a certain amount of comfort in this terminology. There's no room for confusion and Ryan wishes now that everything could be so straightforward. But then Nick pulls her closer, and she rests her head on his chest, and nothing seems more important that this right here. — Jennifer E. Smith

Obviously, I believe that to pursue the American Dream is not only futile but self-destructive because ultimately it destroys everything and everyone involved with it. By definition it must, because it nurtures everything except those things that are important: integrity, ethics, truth, our very heart and soul. Why? The reason is simple: because Life/life is giving, not getting. — Hubert Selby Jr.

At the time I thought this was my big chance for love, that I was going something very romantic and important, but looking back on it now, it all seems part of a very simple equation: I left the house where I lived with someone who loved me to go to the house of someone who did not love me at all. — Ann Patchett

I think it's worth trying to do something about obvious sources of stress in your life. But even more important is learning and practicing methods to neutralize the harmful effects of stress on the body and mind. There are many possibilities, anything from meditation and yoga to listening to relaxing music. My personal favorite is simple breathing techniques - they're very effective, take very little time, and they're free. — Andrew Weil

People have seen that I intend to sweep away everything we have been taught to consider - without question - as grace and beauty; but have overlooked my work to substitute a vaster beauty, touching all objects and beings, not excluding the most despised - and because of that, all the more exhilarating ...
I would like people to look at my work as an enterprise for the rehabilitation of scorned values, and, in any case, make no mistake, a work of ardent celebration ...
I am convinced that any table can be for each of us a landscape as inexhaustible as the whole Andes range ... I am struck by the high value, for a man, of a simple permanent fact, like the miserable vista on which the window of his room opens daily, that comes, with the passing of time, to have an important role in his life. I often think that the highest destination at which a work of art can aim is to take on that function in someone's life. — Jean Dubuffet

That's what I was struggling out of nightmares to reach, to seize. Joy. But where can I seize this holy grail of joy? I look back down to the page. Was this the clue to the quest of all most important? Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo - the table of thanksgiving. I sit there long ... wondering ... is it that simple? — Ann Voskamp

Mantras have an important place in meditation. But the idea has become somewhat prevalent in the West, and in the East to some extent, that the simple repetition of a mantra will eventually cause enlightenment — Frederick Lenz

I don't like things that can be reproduced. Wood isn't important in itself but rather in the fact that objects made in it are unique, simple, unpretentious. — Georg Baselitz

I've used a lot of jersey, but I've also done a lot of complex pattern weaves in these fabrics in solid colors, and there are lots of little dresses for cocktail and evening. I've done a series of very important evening dresses as well, just to show that these two ideas can also work well together. Today's woman can wear an important evening dress or a simple pant and top. It's all in the personality of the woman. — Giorgio Armani

Scientists want full proof under laboratory conditions. And the answer is very simple: When Im put under pressure, I cant perform. Even the phenomenon Im most known for. When Im on stage, Im not under pressure and it happens. In other important places, it happens. But in a laboratory where I really want it to happen, its very hard for me. — Uri Geller

Nobody has money right now. And eating is very important, but it doesn't need to be expensive. And to make - it doesn't need to be fancy, as long as it's fresh and simple. The simpler it is, the more fancy it actually comes out tasting. — Debi Mazar

I don't know why it so happens in life that one absolutely can't do something simple but important. — Sasha Sokolov

Many people achieved important goals in their lives, but hardly any of them seemed any happier for it. Even worse, some complained that other areas of their lives had suffered along the way. The reason is simple: they didn't change the framework components of their personality - beliefs, decisions, and other subconscious structures that are typically negatively-oriented. Those basic structures had been triggered by the fulfillment of the goal and were subsequently creating a mess in people's lives. — Nebo D. Lukovich

If only you'd remember before ever you sit down to write that you've been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won't even underline that. It's too important to be underlined. — J.D. Salinger

I am not a very timid type. It's very important to some people, but not to me. I have a simple philosophy: worry about those things you can fix. It you can't fix it, don't worry about it; accept it and do the best you can. — Jimmy Doolittle

Knowledge equals power ...
The string was important. After a while the Librarian stopped. He concentrated all his powers of librarianship.
Power equals energy ...
People were stupid, sometimes. They thought the Library was a dangerous place because of all the magical books, which was true enough, but what made it really one of the most dangerous places there could ever be was the simple fact that it was a library.
Energy equals matter ...
He swung into an avenue of shelving that was apparently a few feet long and walked along it briskly for half an hour.
Matter equals mass.
And mass distorts space. It distorts it into polyfractal L-space.
So, while the Dewey system has its fine points, when you're setting out to look something up in the multidimensional folds of L-space what you really need is a ball of string. — Terry Pratchett

And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance ...
... One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father. — Michael J. Fox

The man had come looking for a magical solution to his woes, but he had found an answer much more simple. Pain lost its power when other things became more important. — Brandon Sanderson

You cannot simply take a mala from someone else and start using it. When you buy a mala you have to make sure that it accords with the advice we have just discussed, and then before you use a mala - whether it is old or new - you should bless it. How do we bless the mala? There are different methods for blessing a mala, and some are more elaborate than others. In Buddhism there are two types of conduct: elaborate and simple. Elaborate conduct, for example, involves having many thangkas, statues, and lots of offerings, such as flowers and so forth. However, Buddhism is also very practical, and so there are more simple forms of practice where you utilize visualization. However, you should not use unelaborated versions of practice simply out of laziness. Making offerings are an important part of practice since these actions accumulate merit, and it is merit that brings about our happiness. People often refer to luck and fortune, but really — Zurmang Gharwang Rinpoche

For Children: You will need to know the difference between Friday and a fried egg. It's quite a simple difference, but an important one. Friday comes at the end of the week, whereas a fried egg comes out of a chicken. Like most things, of course, it isn't quite that simple. The fried egg isn't properly a fried egg until it's been put in a frying pan and fried. This is something you wouldn't do to a Friday, of course, though you might do it on a Friday. You can also fry eggs on a Thursday, if you like, or on a cooker. It's all rather complicated, but it makes a kind of sense if you think about it for a while. — Douglas Adams

Any one of my many shrinks could tell you that I was looking for my father. Wasn't everyone? The explanation didn't quite content me. Not that it seemed wrong: it just seemed too simple. Perhaps the search was really a kind of ritual in which the process was more important than the end. Perhaps it was a kind of quest. Perhaps there was no man at all, but just a mirage conjured by our longing and emptiness. When you go to sleep hungry you dream of eating. When you go to sleep with a full bladder you dream of getting up to pee. When you go to sleep horny you dream of getting laid. Maybe the impossible man was nothing more than a specter made of our own yearning. Maybe he was like the fearless intruder, the phantom rapist women expect to find under their bed or in their closets. Or maybe he was really death, the last lover. — Erica Jong

I won't forget those kind of things, but I just want to write them down and look at them. It's almost like when things like music come out and you're listening to a song and you have experiences with art or phenomena that supersede your simple relationship with them as just a piece of art. They're more than that. That's just what those quote are for me. They're big, they're important. — Justin Vernon

I think that's what's important, to see how we ourselves can become all that we are and can be. Everybody says they want to change, but it's not that simple, it's not that easy. Who's ready to change and give up? Who's ready to get out of their rut and leave it behind, not just pour honey or syrup over their heads and over the rut? Who's ready to change and give up that rut, who's ready willing and able? — Surya Das

One of the reasons I think the population question is important, if we want to be as green as possible, any of our energy that is truly renewable is limited. Solar and wind are intermittent and they're so diffuse, it's difficult to harness them in a significant way. But one thing we could be doing is making it a law (like it is in Israel and Cyprus) to take every building eight stories or under and heat all of the water in those buildings with solar energy. It's absolutely simple and cheap technology. — Alan Weisman

To live with integrity, it is important to know what's right and what's wrong, to be educated morally. However, merely KNOWING is not enough. Virtuous character matters more than moral knowledge. The reason is simple: like the self-confessing apostle Paul in Romans 7, most of those who do wrong know what's right but find themselves irresistibly attracted to its opposite. Faith idles when character shrivels — Miroslav Volf

The simple choice to pray usually happens to the exclusion of something else in our lives. Often that something else is frivolous, but at times prayer must come at the expense of important things, such as our own work, our sleep or our time with loved ones. — Jason Mandryk

It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing - and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite - that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that. — Mark Twain

When a person dies, he disappears, along with his past, current lifestyle, and his future. Many people die in missions and wars. They die easily and in surprisingly simple ways. Hayate was one of them. Those who died had hopes and dreams, but everyone has something as important as those: parents, siblings, friends, lovers; people who are important to you, they trust and help each other. The bond between the people important to you ever since birth and the string that binds them becomes thicker and stronger as time goes by ... It's beyond reason. Those bound to you by that string will do that because it is important. — Masashi Kishimoto

It was a short session of the simple being-ness that he had long coveted for The Afterlife. What Glynis had called "doing nothing," The smelling and seeing and hearing and small noticings of sheer animal presence in the world surely constituted activity of a sort, perhaps the most important kind. This was a form of companionship that he'd been especially cherishing with Glynis of late: devoid of conversation, but so surprising in its contrast to being by yourself. — Lionel Shriver

The techniques are all means of dealing with one simple idea: She wrote it. (That is, the "wrong" person
in this case, female
has created the "right" value
i.e., art.)
Denial of Agency: She didn't write it.
Pollution of Agency: She shouldn't have written it.
Double Standard of Content: Yes, but look what she wrote about.
False Categorizing: She is not really she [an artist] and it is not really it [serious, of the right genre, aesthetically sound, important, etc.] so how could "she" have written "it"?
Or simply: Neither "she" nor "it" exists (simple exclusion). — Joanna Russ

Privacy is a protection from the unreasonable use of state and corporate power. But that is, in a sense, a secondary thing. In the first instance, privacy is the statement in words of a simple understanding, which belongs to the instinctive world rather than the formal one, that some things are the province of those who experience them and not naturally open to the scrutiny of others: courtship and love, with their emotional nakedness; the simple moments of family life; the appalling rawness of grief. That the state and other systems are precluded from snooping on these things is important - it is a strong barrier between the formal world and the hearth, extended or not - but at root privacy is a simple understanding: not everything belongs to everyone. — Nick Harkaway

It would be good," thought Prince Andrei, glancing at the little image that his sister had hung around his neck with such reverence and emotion, "It would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to Princess Marya . How good it would be to know where to seek help in this life, and what to expect after it, beyond the grave! How happy and at peace I should be if I could now say:" Lord have mercy on me! ... But to whom should I say this? To some power
indefinable and incomprehensible, to which I not only cannot appeal, but which I cannot express in words
The Great All or Nothing," he said to himself, "or to that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Marya? There is nothing certain, nothing except the nothingness of everything that is comprehensible to me, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all important! — Leo Tolstoy

My homies in Gadsden aren't as exposed as I am culturally, which is awesome - that's why I love going home. I'm in the kitchen with people who don't know anything but the simple life, what's important to them, and what's dope. — Yelawolf

Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair - the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief.
Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth.
More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty. — Terry Pratchett

American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that. — Edward R. Murrow

The simple rule: some get saved, but most don't. The choices are important before the years begin to go so very fast. — Jill McCorkle

Simplicity is simple. Perhaps this sounds redundant. But it's true, and it's important. — Blake Mycoskie

As a Dominican man, you're socialized to be a playboy. You spend a lot of time being taught that women are important, but without the really positive framework of why. You figure out quickly it's because of culo (ass). But there is a sense that it's not that simple. — Junot Diaz

Melody is the single most important thing to any song, period. I don't care what anybody says, it trumps everything. Not because that's my opinion but because I think it's actually indisputable fact. The human brain retains melody easier than it retains words. It's that simple. — Ryan Tedder

The failure of Popper's demarcation criterion throws up an important question. Is it actually possible to find some common feature shared by all the things we call 'science...'? It may be that they share some fixed set of features that define what it is to be science, but it may not.... If so, a simple criterion for demarcating science from pseudo-science is unlikely to be found. — Samir Okasha

A feminazi is a woman to whom the most important thing in life is seeing to it that as many abortions as possible are performed. Their unspoken reasoning is quite simple. Abortion is the single greatest avenue for militant women to exercise their quest for power and advance their belief that men aren't necessary. Nothing matter but me, says the feminazi; the is an unviable tissue mass. Feminazis have adopted abortion as a kind of sacrament for their religion/politics of alienation and bitterness. — Rush Limbaugh

But, as the results presented in this book (and others) show, we are all far less rational in our decision making than standard economic theory assumes. Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless-they are systematic and predictable. We all make the same types of mistakes over and over, because of the basic wiring of our brains. So wouldn't it make sense to modify standard economics and move away from naive psychology, which often fails the tests of reason, introspection, and-most important-empirical scrutiny?

Wouldn't economics make a lot more sense if it were based on how people actually behave, instead of how they should behave? As I said in the Introduction, that simple idea is the basis of behavioral economics, an emerging field focused on the (quite intrusive) idea that people do not always behave rationally and that they often make mistakes in their decisions. — Dan Ariely

But that night as I drove back to Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them. — Hugh MacLennan

And I can't let you out of here until I know what your plans are. (Kat)
To stop the annihilation of mankind and the earth. It's a simple plan, really, but an important one. Can I go now? (Sin) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I think most of us look at personal delights as somewhere between minimally important and borderline immoral. We like them, but we're not sure we ought to. We seldom give them a high priority when other demands are competing for our attention. Nevertheless, the soul feeds on simple joys and withers without them ... — Victoria Moran

He's often wished that he could capture the full essence of each woman's laugh on canvas, but he settles instead, on watching how, when a woman chuckles, her head moves slightly to the left or right so that the light grazes it at a new angle and creates a new pattern of highlight and shadow. It's this subtle shifting that he finds astounding - how everything and nothing can be written on a face through its lines, through the way skin around the eyes crinkle or how the shifting of a mouth belies joy or sarcasm or simple placation. He wonders what Vermeer might have said to that girl with the pearl earring, what words could have stirred in her that wanton expression, because even amateurs understand that faces allow an entry point and that negative space is the key to any good painting: what isn't included is sometimes more important than what is. — Adam Gallari

People can leave, and then they can come back. It sounds simple, like an obvious thing. But when I realized that, the truth if it seemed important. — Ava Dellaira

If you do the following three things, you will be successful in major college basketball. If you don't do them, it will be most difficult." He didn't say it would be impossible - typical of John Wooden - but he said it would be difficult. I was scrambling for my pen when he said, "Those three things are fairly simple: Number one, make certain, Dale, you always have better players than anybody you play. Now, with that locked up, make sure you always get the better players to put the team above themselves. And number three - this is very important, Dale Brown," he said, "don't try to be some coaching genius, or give the guys too much information, or too much stuff; always practice simplicity with constant repetition. — John Wooden

Obedience is the thing, living in active response to the living God. The most important question we ask of this text is not, 'What does this mean?' but 'What can I obey?' A simple act of obedience will open up our lives to this text far more quickly than any number of Bible studies and dictionaries and concordances. — Eugene H. Peterson

Perhaps there was, in the dim past, a communistic society, when the family was the only state, and pasturage or simple tillage the only form of life. But "in a more divided state of society," where the division of labor into unequally important functions elicits and enlarges the natural inequality of men, communism breaks down because it provides no adequate incentive for the exertion of superior abilities. The stimulus of gain is necessary to arduous work; and the stimulus of ownership is necessary to proper industry, husbandry and care. — Will Durant

Primary causes are unknown to us; but are subject to simple and constant laws, which may be discovered by observation, the study of them being the object of natural philosophy.
Heat, like gravity, penetrates every substance of the universe, its rays occupy all parts of space. The object of our work is to set forth the mathematical laws which this element obeys. The theory of heat will hereafter form one of the most important branches of general physics. — Joseph Fourier

He knew very well that the great majority of human conversation is meaningless. A man can get through most of his days on stock answers to stock questions, he thought. Once he catches onto the game, he can manage with an assortment of grunts. This would not be so if people listened to each other, but they don't. They know that no one is going to say anything moving and important to them at that very moment. Anything important will be announced in the newspapers and reprinted for those who missed it. No one really wants to know how his neighbor is feeling, but he asks him anyway, because it is polite, and because he knows that his neighbor certainly will not tell him how he feels. What this woman and I say to each other is not important. It is the simple making of sounds that pleases us. — Peter S. Beagle