Small Stakes Quotes & Sayings

If we were built, what were we built for? ... Why do we have this amazing collection of sinews, senses, and sensibilities? Were we really designed in order to recline on the couch, extending our wrists perpendicular to the floor so we can flick through the television's offerings? Were we really designed in order to shop some more so the economy can grow some more? Or were we designed to experience the great epiphanies that come from contact with each other and with the natural world? — Bill McKibben

In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. — Douglas Adams

When you're down to small stakes, you have to play long odds. — Joe Abercrombie

"I'm a guy like this," Gino explained to Jeanie; "I like anythin' against the odds. I don't like nothin' safe. I'm a guy like this too: I don't like gettin' caught. But mostly I'm a guy like this: I don't like gettin' laughed at."
He lived as he drove, as he gambled and as he loved: for keeps. Taking no man's laughter. And letting the small stakes go. — Nelson Algren

Bit burrs. Tongue-tying. Saddling for exercise and saddling for races. There was shoeing and bandaging, conditioning and equipment. I had to learn to read track surfaces and stakes sheets, and calculate weight allowances. I had to know the diseases and ailments forward and back - bowed tendons and splints, foundering, bucked shins, bone chips, slab fractures, and quarter cracks. Thoroughbreds were glorious and also fragile in very specific ways. They often had small hearts, and the exertion of racing also made them susceptible to haemorrhaging in the lungs. Undetected colic could kill them - and — Paula McLain

Our forefathers paved the way for us. Let's take their values, and their strengths, and rededicate ourselves to doing whatever it takes to keep America the greatest country in the history of man. And woman. — Nikki Haley

I don't usually like a smoky eye; if there is any smokiness, it's got to be a light color. — Nadine Velazquez

Bing Crosby and I play a lot of golf together and I have a small course at my place where we often play for side stakes. The only troulbe is that when I win, I always have to engage and attorney before I can draw the money. — Bob Hope

The river plunged down in a long waterfall, plashing into several rocky pools on its way down the cliff. — Alison Croggon

My life was wailing like a beautiful prayer, the moments stretching into hours, the days to years. I could see now that it was possible to live a long life poorly, or a short life well, and that at any moment one might shift their position and, after years of hibernation, decide to crawl out of the den and live. — Kim Dinan

A kind and generous man by nature, he had stumbled, by chance, over that common Philosopher's stone (much more easily discovered than the object of the alchemist's researches), which sometimes trips up kind and generous men, and has the fatal property of turning gold to dross and every precious thing to poor account. — Charles Dickens

I got a little bit of a sense for the subculture, which is the equivalent of any subculture, really. The stakes are high, even if you live in a small town. It's like the annual bass fishing contests, or whatever it is. The stakes are always absurdly high, and this is no different. The competition at this butter carving things, from what I understand, is not that far off from what we're depicting in the movie. — Ty Burrell

As long as the Earth can make a spring every year, I can. — Alice Walker

The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small — Henry Kissinger

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. — Henry A. Kissinger

Far back in the mists of ancient time, in the great and glorious days of the former Galactic Empire, life was wild, rich and largely tax free. Mighty starships plied their way between exotic suns, seeking adventure and reward among the furthest reaches of Galactic space. In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before
and thus was the Empire forged.
... In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it. — Douglas Adams

He had always pitched in his conversational ante, and if he had contributed infrequently thereafter, it was because he was only interested when the stakes reached a certain minimum level. Small talk was usually a waste of time. — Kim Stanley Robinson

The stakes are too high for us to die with a small vision. — Louie Giglio

Boredom is a terrible affliction of the soulless. — Laini Taylor

Self-dealing, essentially, occurs when managers run companies to line their own pockets instead of those of the companies' owners. It's been a perennial problem in American capitalism and became a real dilemma when America moved toward a model in which corporations would be run by professional managers who had only small ownership stakes. — James Surowiecki

I was brought up in a way that when you're at a dinner party, you don't grab a chip unless it's been offered to everyone else. It's the manners of being brought up by English parents. — Hugh Jackman

I used to sports gamble a lot and I was getting killed on that but then I found poker and really enjoyed it. But it was a hobby more than anything else. I played it every day but only on pretty small stakes. — Chris Moneymaker

I own almost 100 hotels in North America. Some of them are only in management, but some of them we have some small stakes in them. — Al-Waleed Bin Talal

People can be threatened by someone with ambition, no matter how low the stakes or how small the rewards. And while lots of people will plant a smile on their face and say they're pleased, behind closed doors the whispers form a kind of toxic cloud of gas that goes out on the wind and finds you eventually. — Julia Kent

Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small. — Laurence J. Peter

The stakes involved in Washington policy debates are often so high
whether we send our young men and women to war; whether we allow stem cell research to go forward
that even small differences in perspective are magnified. The demands of party loyalty, the imperative of campaigns, and the amplification of conflict by the media all contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion. Moreover, most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives
professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems. I can see how, after a certain amount of time in the capital, it becomes tempting to assume that those who disagree with you have fundamentally different values
indeed, that they are motivated by bad faith, and perhaps are bad people. — Barack Obama