Quotes & Sayings About Slowly But Surely

I took a few dragging steps toward the locker-room door. 'You're doing something to me that I wouldn't do to a dog,' I mumbled. 'What you're doing to me is worse than if you were to kill me. You're locking me up in shadows for the rest of my life. You're taking my mind away from me. You're condemning me slowly but surely to madness, to being without a mind. It won't happen right away, but sooner or later, in six months or in a year - Well, I guess that's that.'
I fumbled my way out of the locker room and down the passageway outside, guiding myself with one arm along the wall, and past the sergeant's desk and down the steps, and then I was out in the street.
("All At Once, No Alice") — Cornell Woolrich

Slowly but surely, the older I get, the fatter I get. It just goes. — John DiMaggio

In my opinion, neither organisms nor organizations evolve slowly and surely into something better, but drift until some small change occurs which has immediate and overwhelming significance. The special role of the human being is not to wait for these favorable accidents but deliberately to introduce the small change that will have great significance. — Edwin Land

International exchanges are not a great tide to sweep away all differences, but they will slowly wear away at the obstacles to peace as surely as water wears away a hard stone. — George H. W. Bush

Memory is so corrupt that you remember only what you want to; if you want to forget about something, slowly but surely you do. — Stefan Zweig

Dear friends of Haiti, we are indeed on the right track. Slowly but surely we are rising from the ashes. — Laurent Lamothe

Priests, ministers and rabbis are asking where the children are going. Slowly but surely, they're seeing that people are hungry for something beyond the doctrine. It isn't that they don't want religious truth. But they want the mystical core, the heart of the religious truth. — Marianne Williamson

I went to drama school in Paris and started doing theatre with a friend. Then I moved into movies and slowly but surely I got roles. — Jean Reno

That which is useless dies. Animals that fail to serve some useful purpose in the scheme of things slowly but surely become extinct. Let any part of the human body cease to perform its ordained function, and it withers-as when an arm is kept long in a sling. This same decree, that nothing useless is permitted to survive, runs through the mind of the industrial world. — B.C. Forbes

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together - surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing. — Carl Sagan

The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practice it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the light within them dies. — Terry Waite

But after making love to him through tears and anger, I realized he was a perfect stranger to me now. How could I want something back that never existed? I couldn't unknow everything I had discovered, and I didn't want to. I liked the woman I was becoming - slowly, but surely - and I was interested in where this new road would take me. — Brandi Glanville

But what's your ultimate goal, you'll say. That goal will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely, as the croquis becomes a sketch and the sketch a painting, as one works more seriously, as one digs deeper into the originally vague idea, the first fugitive, passing thought, unless it becomes firm. — Vincent Van Gogh

Mankind is not special by virtue of our address in the universe, or what spins around us, or because life originated here. Slowly, but surely, we've been compelled to renounce the comfort of these beliefs. — Nathan Myhrvold

At some point in the future, new stars will cease being born. Slowly but surely, the stars of our universe are winking out. A day will come when the night sky will be totally black, and the day sky will be totally black as well. Solar systems will become planets orbiting dead stars. According to astrophysical calculations, in about a million billion years, plus or minus, even those dead solar systems will be disrupted from chance gravitational encounters with other stars. In about ten billion billion years, even galaxies will be disrupted, the cold spheres that were once stars flung out to coast solo through empty space. — Alan Lightman

The thing is, work has simply swamped my whole existence. Slowly but surely it's robbed me of my mother, my wife, and everything that meant anything to me. It's like a germ planted in the skull that devours the brain, spreads to the trunk and the limbs, and destroys the entire body in time. No sooner am I out of bed in the morning than work clamps down on me and pins me to my desk before I've even had a breath of fresh air. It follows me to lunch and I find myself chewing over sentences as I'm chewing my food. It goes with me when I go out, eats out of my plate at dinner and shares my pillow in bed at night. It's so extremely merciless that once the process of creation is started, it's impossible for me to stop it, and it goes on growing and working even when I'm asleep. ... Outside that, nothing, nobody exists. — Emile Zola

Esme slowly turned the picture over, her hands beginning to tremble again. Inscribed across the back of the photograph, in a woman's elegant script, were two words. The ink might have faded, but the sentiment would surely endure forever.
Dix's strong, warm arms went around her. He rested his cheek against hers as they whispered in unison,"My Darling". — Teresa Medeiros

Prayer is subversive activity. It involves a more or less open act of defiance against any claim by the current regime ... [As we pray,] slowly but surely, not culture, not family, not government, not job, not even the tyrannous self can stand against the quiet power and creative influence of God's sovereignty. — Eugene H. Peterson

Male, female, gay, straight, legal, illegal, country of origin - who cares? You can either cook an omelet or you can't. You can either cook five hundred omelets in three hours - like you said you could, and like the job requires - or you can't. There's no lying in the kitchen. The restaurant kitchen may indeed be the last, glorious meritocracy - where anybody with the skills and the heart is welcomed. But if you're old, or out of shape - or were never really certain about your chosen path in the first place - then you will surely and quickly be removed. Like a large organism's natural antibodies fighting off an invading strain of bacteria, the life will slowly push you out or kill you off. Thus it is. Thus it shall always be. The ideal progression for a nascent culinary career would be to, first, take a jump straight into the deep end of the pool. Long before student loans and culinary school, take the trouble to find out who you are. — Anthony Bourdain

I never had one day that I didn't want to be on the ice, because I always had an objective for that day. I had a rigorous plan and schedule in place that I had to adhere to. It was a step-by-step process of slowly but surely inching toward the Olympic Games and using every day as a series of goals to be accomplished. — Apolo Ohno

But I can say just as surely that this minute, in a northern-California valley, I can taste-smell-hear-see and feel between my teeth the potato chips I ate slowly one November afternoon in 1936, in the bar of the Lausanne Palace. They were uneven in both thickness and color, probably made by a new apprentice in the hotel kitchen, and almost surely they smelled faintly of either chicken or fish, for that was always the case there. They were a little too salty, to encourage me to drink. They were ineffable. I am still nourished by them. That is probably why I can be so firm about not eating my way through barrels, tunnels, mountains more of them here in the land where they hang like square cellophane fruit on wire trees in all grocery stores, to tempt me sharply every time I pass them. — Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher

Food probably has a very great influence on the condition of men. Wine exercises a more visible influence, food does it more slowly but perhaps just as surely. Who knows if a well-prepared soup was not responsible for the pneumatic pump or a poor one for a war? — Georg C. Lichtenberg

As much as my parents were worried about me moving to London at 17, they could see that I was hungry to find my path. And it probably helped that they saw me succeeding at it, slowly but surely. — Luke Evans

Tobacco Will Slowly and Surely Kill You. And so will time, Gwynn thought. But if you want the job done quickly, professionals recommend bullet. — K.J. Bishop

I think most models fear growing old, but from a tender age I had always chosen to play someone grown up. I am slowly but surely catching up with the people that I have spent the last decade and a half trying to portray. — Erin O'Connor

From what you read and hear nowadays, it seems that murder under certain aspects is slowly but surely being made acceptable to a large section of the community." She — Agatha Christie

Time steals from us the capacity to be smitten, does it not? It slowly but surely washes away all your enthusiasm and deposits uncertainty in its place. — K.J. Bishop

You're bleeding," he said. "A thorn prick, no more," she stated. "I didn't know fairy creatures could bleed. I always fancied them spun of mist and moonlight, not flesh and blood." "Let go." "No, my love - " "I'm not a fairy creature, and I am surely not your love." "It's just an expression." "It's a lie. But 'tis no high wonder to me. I'd be expecting falsehoods from a Sassenach." "Poor Caitlin. Does it hurt?" Very slowly, with his eyes fixed on hers, he put her finger to his lips and gently slipped it inside his mouth. Too shocked to stop him, she felt the warmth of his mouth, the moist velvet brush of his tongue over the pad of her finger. Then with an excess of gentleness he drew it out and placed her hand in her lap. "I think the bleeding's stopped," he said. — Susan Wiggs

My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself. — Errol Morris

I'm old enough to remember when the Republic shot itself right in the knee. It wasn't taken over by the Empire. It became the Empire slowly, surely, not overnight but over years and decades. Fruit always tastes nice when it's ripe. But it can't stay like that. Every nice piece of fruit will rot on the branch if it hangs there long enough. You remember that. — Chuck Wendig

Slowly but surely, the U.S. military is being converted into a global oil-protection service. — Michael Klare

Slowly but surely, we are acquiring that famous culture of democracy, which is our objective. — Paul Biya

Mrs Whatsit was surely no longer a Mrs Whatsit. She was a marble-white body with powerful flanks, something like a horse but at the same time completely unlike a horse, for from the magnificently modeled back sprang a nobly formed torso, arms, and a head resembling a man's, but a man with a perfection of dignity and virtue, an exaltation of joy such as Meg had never before seen. No, she thought, it's not like a Greek centaur. Not in the least. From the shoulders slowly a pair of wings unfolded, wings made of rainbows, of light upon water, — Madeleine L'Engle

We've taken everything from her, brother," Maven murmurs, drawing close. "Surely we can give her this?"
And then slowly, reluctantly, Cal nods and waves me into his room. Dizzy with excitement, I hurry inside, almost hopping from foot to foot.
I'm going home.
Maven lingers at the door, his smile fading a little when I leave his side. "You're not coming." It isn't a question.
He shakes his head. "You'll have enough to worry about without me tagging along."
I don't have to be a genius to see the truth in his words. But just because he isn't coming doesn't mean I will forget what he's done for me already. Without thinking, I throw my arms around Maven. He doesn't respond for a second, but slowly lets an arm drop around my shoulders. When I pull back, a silver blush paints his cheeks. I can feel my own blood run hot beneath my skin, pounding in my ears. — Victoria Aveyard

It seems like people need to get into the last album until they can tolerate the next one. And then, slowly but surely, by the time the new one's available, they've gotten into the last one and they really love it. — Rob Brown

Thinking back, it was such a surreal day; when I wasn't sitting or crying I slowly paced the house like a zombie, waiting and weeping. I did not watch TV, read or listen to the radio. I was just 'there', thinking too much. Our old life, the one that included and was planned around the son we were fervently awaiting, was over. Our new life, the one where we had to learn to live without him, had not yet begun. We were in limbo. He was gone but he was with us. Was I still pregnant? I surely looked pregnant, but my baby was no longer alive inside of me, and I carried him inside of me not because of courage or dedication, but because I had to. — Silvia Corradin

Slowly but surely I have been soaking Rilke up these last few months: the man, his work and his life. And that is probably the only right way with literature, with study, with people or with anything else: to let it all soak in, to let it all mature slowly inside you until it has become a part of yourself. That, too, is a growing process. Everything is a growing process. And in between, emotions and sensations that strike you like lightning. But still the most important thing is the organic process of growing. — Etty Hillesum

Little by little, even with other cares, the slowly but surely working poison of the garden-mania begins to stir in my long-sluggish veins. — Henry James

I'm glad to hear you got what you came for," he drawled slowly, trying to capture Brenna's undivided attention, "but actually it's a little hard to believe. You're still empty-handed." He motioned at her hands and the small satchel she carried. "Whatever you came for must be in there? Am I right?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Mr. Rose, did anyone ever tell you that curiosity killed the cat?"
He let go a laugh that spooked a flock of common yellowthroats from a fir tree along the road. They swooped into the sky and Brenna's lips curled up as she watched them fly away. She was softening...
"Yes, they have, Mrs. Lane," he said. "They most surely have. But I've also been told that satisfaction brought it back. What about you? — Caroline Fyffe

Slowly but surely the sea is freezing over. — Robert Falcon Scott

More people than ever are slowly but surely turning their ears toward poetry. — Saul Williams

...I've had a lot of time to think about this, and yes, we could go down your route. The difficult, painful one, because, let's face it, Ellie, you're a fan of the hard way through. Or, we could, slowly but surely, try to forgive each other for all the mistakes we've made and the hurt we've caused each other. None of us sitting here is innocent... — Harper Bliss

In my lifetime, the world has become better, not worse. And the world is moving, very slowly but surely with more democracy and more liberal way of thinking, more inclusion and more diversity. — Isabel Allende

There was an anchor, tied around both of his ankles, and it was taking him deep, into black fathomless depths, drowning him slowly but surely.
I didn't tell him that he was dragging me down with him. — R.K. Lilley

That a language may retain its vitality and dignity, two things are necessary. In the first place, it must keep in close touch with life, and must respond to those constant alterations which look like corruptions but which are quite as often signs of growth. In the second place, it must submit to some kind of selective authority which creates a generally recognized but slowly changing norm of speech. Without the former condition a language will become rigid, conventional, and emotionless; without the second it will just as surely tend to become provincial and formless--even unintelligible, except locally and ephemerally. — Paul Elmer More

Because of you I can feel myself slowly but surely becoming the me I have always dreamed of being. — Tyler Knott Gregson

Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul. — Ernest Dimnet

Slowly, but surely, we are moving in the right direction. We're on the right track. The economy is getting stronger — Barack Obama

Slowly but surely, we're beginning to turn the tide on childhood obesity in America. Together, we are inspiring leaders from every sector to take ownership of this issue. — Michelle Obama

Can You Imagine?
For example, what the trees do
not only in lightening storms
or the watery dark of a summer's night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now - whenever
we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine
they don't dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade - surely you can't imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can't imagine
patience, and happiness, like that. — Mary Oliver

Here the further question of the relation of spiritual life to public life and politics comes in. It must mean, for all who take it seriously, judging public issues from the angle of eternity, never from that of national self-interest or expediency; backing our conviction, as against party of prejudice, rejecting compromise, and voting only for those who adopt this disinterested point of view. Did we act thus, slowly but surely a body of opinion - a spiritual party, if you like - might be formed; and in the long run make its influence felt in the State. But such a programme demands much faith, hope, and charity; and courage too. — Evelyn Underhill

I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory. — Jean-Dominique Bauby

stick to truth and we shall succeed, may be slowly, but surely. — Swami Vivekananda

No will will believe it at first,' Cressida continued. 'You were right about that. But then they'll start to think, and slowly but surely, the pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. Someone will remember that they said something to you that ended up in a column. Or that you were at a particular house party. Or that they'd seen Eloise Bridgerton snooping about, and doesn't everyone know that the two of you tell each other everything?'
'What do you want?' Penelope asked, her voice low and haunted as she finally lifted her head to face her enemy.
'Ah, now, there's the question I've been waiting for. — Julia Quinn

When you build an audience, you don't have to buy people's attention - they give it to you. This is a huge advantage. So build an audience. Speak, write, blog, tweet, make videos - whatever. Share information that's valuable and you'll slowly but surely build a loyal audience. — Jason Fried

I thought again about the contradiction Mozambique was. On the one hand there were people like Dona Maria, compassionate and caring, and on the other hand there was those who had no concern for the people in this country.
Rita's opinion, however, was that no matter how well intentioned the Europeans were, they never quite measured up. According to her, this concern for the Mozambicans from people like Dona Maria, although commendable, was a mere drop in the ocean compared with the reality in which the blacks were tortured, burned, raped, emasculated, drowned, decapitated, disemboweled, abducted and slowly but surely decimated. [196] — Farida Karodia

Out of all the addictions in the world, Attention is slowly but surely becoming one of the most dangerous. — Saahil Prem

What we used to blithely call 'wasting time' was actually a euphemism for the tenement architecture of our lives; there wasn't an ounce of waste in a ton of those lost hours. Proof of this could be seen in the fact that even as we imagined we were killing time with movies and phone calls, careers and frozen pizzas, time was slowly but surely killing us. But who knew? It — Adrian Barnes

In short, the Enlightenment privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any 'broader good' such as reflecting God's nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly but surely, this newer understanding of the meaning of marriage has displaced the older ones in Western culture. — Timothy Keller

Democracy does not race, it reaches the finish slowly but surely. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To see lonely, selfish, empty individuals transformed slowly but surely into warm, loving, wholesome, and happy people is to become aware of why Paul describes Christ as 'unsearchable riches'. — Ray Stedman

We started with entitlement programs that generously met the needs of individuals unable to provide enough for themselves. This slowly but surely created a portion of the population that became unwilling to provide for themselves and a population that learned new tactics to get more and more government assistance. — G.S. Kyle

As we educate a child
removing out of its path those obstacles over which we ourselves, in early days, have stumbled, and strengthening its mind with the aid of our own matured experience
we, as it were, construct a new and better replica of ourselves, and thus enable the race to move slowly, but surely, forward towards the ultimate goal of existence
towards perfection. — Leonid Andreyev

Most music careers slowly but surely go down. — Malik Bendjelloul

We are reducing the number of relationships. We are slowly but surely consuming the massive reserves of energy that have been accumulating and are stored in the ecosystems. — Gunter Pauli

That's mine!" Kostya said in a still somewhat strangled voice as he lurched forward.

Gabriel reached for the box but Misha held tight to it, backing up a couple of steps as he eyed us.

"You are who?" he asked.

"Konstantin Fekete, wyvern of the black dragons. The phylactery belongs to me."

"The black dragons," Misha said slowly. "Surely they all died centuries ago?"

"Not all. There are still a few of us. And we will regain what we once held-"

Everyone in the room except Cyrene chanted in unison, "-but was taken from us. We will face death to restore to the sept the pride, the glory, the true essence, of what it once was."

Kostya glared at us all.

"Don't get him going about that, please," Aisling said from where she stood behind us, leaning against Drake. "It's late, and once he starts, it can take hours. — Katie MacAlister

Oh! if, when we oppress and grind our fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds, are rising, slowly it is true, but not less surely, to Heaven, to pour their after-vengeance on our heads; if we heard but one instant, in imagination, the deep testimony of the dead men's voices, which no power can stifle, and no pride shut out; where would be the injury and injustice: the suffering, misery, cruelty, and wrong: that each day's life brings with it! — Charles Dickens

New affairs were exciting but they
were also hard work. The first kiss, the first fuck had some drama. People were interesting at first. Then later, slowly but surely, all the flaws and madness would manifest themselves. I would become less and less to them; they would mean less and less to me. — Charles Bukowski

I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may.
But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought. — Vincent Van Gogh

The progress of the world through all its evils making it fit for the ideals, slowly but surely. — Swami Vivekananda

As I get older, I'm slowing down and, yes, calming down in my desire to be taken seriously. That I can be entertaining and funny and high nervous energy can work against me as a serious composer, slowly but surely you'll see me be quieter just so that people will listen. — Marvin Hamlisch

Do not feed your ego and your problems, with your attention ... Slowly, surely, the ego will lose weight, until one fine day it will be nothing but a thin ghost of its former self. You will be able to see right through it, to the divine presence that shines in each of us. — Eknath Easwaran

Act that way and slowly but surely I will fade away. All the dawns and all the twilights will rob me, piece by piece, of myself, and before long my very life will be shaved away completely - and I would end up nothing. — Haruki Murakami

After two rounds of chemo, I've started to notice, slowly, but surely, my hair has started to appear more regularly in my shower drain, sink drain, pillowcase and comb. — Amy Robach

In its enervating plains, far removed from the invigorating sea-breeze and the bracing cold of the mountain ranges, the keen eye, undaunted heart, and relentless arm of the successive hardy northern immigrants slowly but surely tend to change to the placid look, folded hands and brooding mind of the Eastern Sage, who, content to dream his dream of life, wearily turns from the conflict and dire struggle for existence, — R.W. Frazer

You live by yourself for a stretch of time and you get to staring at different objects. Sometimes you talk to yourself. You take meals in crowded joints. You develop an intimate relationship with your used Subaru. You slowly but surely become a has-been. — Haruki Murakami

In the absence of love, we began slowly but surely to fall apart. — Marianne Williamson

I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle. — Zadie Smith

It is safe to say that almost every person living in New Orleans at the moment Hurricane Katrina struck shared your belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate God. But what was God doing while Katrina laid waste to their city? Surely He heard the prayers of those elderly men and women who fled the rising waters for the safety of their attics, only to be slowly drowned there. — Sam Harris

Take a deep breath
Pick yourself up,
dust yourself off
Start all over again
And again and again and again.
May be easier said than done, but it can be done. Slowly but surely - and sometimes, not so surely, but with radical hope.
Step by precious step.Hour by hour.Day by day. — KERN JEROME FIELDS DOROTHY

You don't turn a river by abruptly trying to get it to change direction. You don't have that much power. No matter how strong you are. The river will just overwhelm you and obstinately carry on pretty much as before. You can't make it change direction overnight. No one can. On the contrary, you have to start by flowing with it. You have to capture its own force and then slowly but surely lead it in the desired direction. The river won't notice it's being led if the curve is gentle enough. On the contrary, it will think it's flowing just the same as usual, seeing as nothing seems to have changed. — Jonas Karlsson

I am not afraid of the priests in the long-run. Scientific method is the white ant which will slowly but surely destroy their fortifications. And the importance of scientific method in modern practical life
always growing and increasing
is the guarantee for the gradual emancipation of the ignorant upper and lower classes, the former of whom especially are the strength of the priests. — Thomas Huxley

Growing up in the '50s and being in the '60s, in that revolutionary time space, I thought freedom was what I was looking for. Slowly but surely, it became clear that the last thing I was interested in was freedom. Because if you're going to be free, you have to be free from something. — Anthony Braxton

If the Negro was to learn, he must teach himself, and the most effective help that could be given him was the establishment of schools to train Negro teachers. This conclusion was slowly but surely reached by every student of the situation until simultaneously, in widely separated regions, without consultation or systematic plan, there arose a series of institutions designed to furnish teachers for the untaught. Above the sneers of critics at the obvious defects of this procedure must ever stand its one crushing rejoinder: in a single generation they put thirty thousand black teachers in the South; they wiped out the illiteracy of the majority of the black people of the land, and they made Tuskegee possible. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Christie was one of that large class of women who, moderately endowed with talents, earnest and true-hearted, are driven by necessity, temperament, or principle out into the world to find support, happiness, and homes for themselves. Many turn back discouraged; more accept shadow for substance, and discover their mistake too late; the weakest lose their purpose and themselves; but the strongest struggle on, and, after danger and defeat, earn at last the best success this world can give us, the possession of a brave and cheerful spirit, rich in self-knowledge, self-control, self-help. This was the real desire of Christie's heart; this was to be her lesson and reward, and to this happy end she was slowly yet surely brought by the long discipline of life and labor. — Louisa May Alcott