Quotes & Sayings About Squabbles

The social sciences collectively know too little to waste time on foolish disciplinary squabbles. — Thomas Piketty

True love is mixed up with birdlike squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, apiece of flattery to the dupe's conceit. — Honore De Balzac

The story of evolution is more dramatic, more compelling, more intricate than any creation myth. Yet like any creation myth, it is a tale of transformations, of sudden and spectacular changes, eruptions of innovation that transfigured our planet, overwriting past revolutions with new layers of complexity. The tranquil beauty of our planet from space belies the real history of this place, full of strife and ingenuity and change. How ironic that our own petty squabbles reflect our planet's turbulent past, and that we alone, despoilers of the Earth, can rise above it to see the beautiful unity of the whole. — Nick Lane

The only thing for which we can combine is the underlying ideal of Socialism; justice and liberty. But it is hardly strong enough to call this ideal underlying. It is almost completely forgotten. It has been buried beneath layer after layer of doctnaire priggishness, party squabbles and half-backed progressivism until it is like a diamond hidden under a monition of dung. The job of the Socialist is to get it out again. Justice and liberty! Those are the words that have got to ring like a bugle across the world. — George Orwell

In fact, second lieutenants were primary-school teachers. Sure, teachers with guns, but a platoon commander was, nonetheless, the guy who sorted out the working day for 30 men under his command, taught their lessons, helped them with their homework, sorted out their petty squabbles and put plasters on their knees when they fell over in the playground. — Patrick Hennessey

There is no winner or loser - just one family, the U.M.P. The time for internal squabbles is behind us. — Jean-Francois Cope

Literature is too full of 'acknowledgments' and squabbles about originality ... — George Bernard Shaw

Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing - all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art - at the door. — Constantin Stanislavski

For a while I thought I had lost her for good, but in our own fucked up way we had
swallowed our pride and reached out to one another. We both knew it would never be easy, but
we were willing to try. I knew that Kate wasn't universally loved by the Pack, but they owed me.
I bled for them, I fixed their petty squabbles. I had given them everything, they would give me
this one thing. Or I would break it all apart. — Gordon Andrews

Think of all the squabbles Adam and Eve must have had in the course of their nine hundred years," wrote Martin Luther. "Eve would say, 'You ate the apple,' and Adam would retort, 'You gave it to me. — Philip Yancey

Petty human squabbles over borders and oil and creed vanish in the knowledge that this living marble surrounded by infinite emptiness is our shared home, and more, a home we share with, and owe to, the most wonderful inventions of life. — Nick Lane

Over the course of time many Americans have forgotten that "we the people" are actually at the top of the food chain as far as authority is concerned in this nation. The Republicans don't run our nation. The Democrats don't run our nation. We do. However, by dividing and engaging in political squabbles, we have allowed the government to grow so large and powerful that it has now become the boss, progressively taking charge of all of our lives. — Ben Carson

There is really a je ne sais quoi about turkey cooking - the air of festivity, the family squabbles, the constant basting - that does not apply to the turkey breast, which is, really, a convenience of food ... A turkey without seasonal angst is like a baseball game without a national anthem, a winter without snow, a birthday party without candles. — Laurie Colwin

All wars are sacred," he said. "To those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn't make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. — Margaret Mitchell

Carol's liveliest interest was in her walks with the baby. Hugh wanted to know what the box-elder tree said, and what the Ford garage said, and what the big cloud said, and she told him, with a feeling that she was not in the least making up stories, but discovering the souls of things. They had an especial fondness for the hitching-post in front of the mill. It was a brown post, stout and agreeable; the smooth leg of it held the sunlight, while its neck, grooved by hitching-straps, tickled one's fingers. Carol had never been awake to the earth except as a show of changing color and great satisfying masses; she had lived in people and in ideas about having ideas; but Hugh's questions made her attentive to the comedies of sparrows, robins, blue jays, yellowhammers; she regained her pleasure in the arching flight of swallows, and added to it a solicitude about their nests and family squabbles. — Sinclair Lewis

I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans. — John Steinbeck

The topic of trust is an important factor in all matters of the heart - and here's why. Men lie to women. Women lie to men. And most people agree that some lying is even necessary - to avoid petty squabbles and to grease the wheels of a relationship. — Joyce Brothers

I'm struck again by the irony that spaceflight-conceived in the cauldron of nationalist rivalries and hatreds-brings with it a stunning transnational vision. You spend even a little time contemplating the Earth from orbit and the most deeply engrained nationalisms begin to erode. They seem the squabbles of mites on a plum. — Carl Sagan

Some of my relatives held on to imagined memories the way homeless people hold onto lottery tickets. Nostalgia was their crack cocaine, if you will, and my childhood was littered with the consequences of their addiction : unserviceable debts, squabbles over inheritances, the odd alcoholic or suicide. — Mohsin Hamid

Unfortunately, what I am waiting for is myself, as others hahahaha on streets where squabbles threaten and desire is dread. — Morrissey

Astrology furnishes a splendid proof of the contemptible subjectivity of men. It refers the course of celestial bodies to the miserable ego: it establishes a connection between the comets in heaven and squabbles and rascalities on earth. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Up till now I always thought bickering was just something children did and they outgrew it. Of course, there's sometimes a reason to have a 'real' quarrel, but the verbal exchanges that take place here are just plain bickering. I should be used to the fact that these squabbles are daily occurrences, but I'm not and never will be as long as I'm the subject of nearly every discussion. (They refer to these as 'discussions instead of 'quarrels', but Germans don't know the difference!) — Anne Frank

As a person, I do not like tension in squabbles; I also do not like being on tenterhooks. When I am in love, it's the same. Especially with regards to love, I want very much to protect it. — Joo Won

But I won't watch them go to war again. I've been to war, you know, to save civilization from the reptile hordes. I bled for it, I saw friends and other men die for it. And then I watched men like you piss it away again, the civilization we'd saved, in squabbles over a few hundred square miles of territory and what language the people get to speak there, what color their skin and hair is and what kind of religious horseshit they get crammed down their throats. — Richard K. Morgan

On the field, priorities suddenly become crystal clear. Lostness stares me in the face, hems me in all about. Issues are black and white, life and death. How many of our church squabbles, debates of theology, and worries about politics could be set aside by getting our eyes back on the lost masses? The priority of their eternal destiny trumps all these lesser things. — Steve Smith

Good God. He felt like he'd just finished running the Boston Marathon.
How did she do it? How the hell did she do all that every day, and probably a lot more? But just
the dinner, the squabbles, the mess, the sheer volume of stuff that needed to be remembered, done,
handled with three kids. It was mentally and physically exhausting.
Fun, he admitted, but exhausting.
And she'd have to get up in the morning, get them up, dressed, fed. Then go to work. After
work, she'd replay - basically - what he'd just done. And with all that, she still had to maintain the house
and run a business.
Did women have superpowers?
Regardless, he was sending his mother flowers in the morning. — Nora Roberts

Campaigns and primaries can get ugly. There are always messy squabbles. — Joy-Ann Reid

Despite the sisters' pretend rivalry and occasional squabbles, they were each other's staunchest ally and closest friend. Few people in Lillian's life had ever loved her except Daisy, who adored the ugliest stray dogs, the most annoying children, and things that needed to be repaired or thrown out altogether.
And yet for all their closeness, they were quite different. Daisy was an idealist, a dreamer, a mercurial creature who alternated between childlike whimsy and shrewd intelligence. Lillian knew herself to be a sharp-tongued girl with a fortress of defenses between herself and the rest of the world- a girl with well-maintained cynicism and a biting sense of humor. — Lisa Kleypas

The crossing of space ... may do much to turn men's minds outwards and away from their present tribal squabbles. In this sense, the rocket, far from being one of the destroyers of civilisation, may provide the safety-value that is needed to preserve it. — Arthur C. Clarke

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. — Lou Gehrig

The Samaritans and the Jews were enemies, two tribes caught in an ancient argument about birthright and ethnicity who lived in segregated neighborhoods. By Jesus's time they were forbidden to have contact with each other, and violent squabbles sometimes erupted. The lawyer, who was a Jew, surely knew of both the informal customs and formal laws separating the two groups. Samaritans and Jews were not good neighbors. Yet Jesus turns the ancient Jewish command to love your neighbor into a story about these hostile groups. The man in the ditch, who is Jewish, is bypassed by those close to him by tribal ties (most likely the priest and the Levite were afraid the thieves were still about in the area and that they might be the next victim) and is eventually rescued by a Samaritan. Thus Jesus enlarges the sphere of neighborhood to include those we deem objectionable. — Diana Butler Bass

Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education. The twenty-first century will reverse this order. It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle. The discovery of a new scientific truth will be more important than the squabbles of diplomats. Even the newspapers of our own day are beginning to treat scientific discoveries and the creation of fresh philosophical concepts as news. The newspapers of the twenty-first century will give a mere 'stick' in the back pages to accounts of crime or political controversies, but will headline on the front pages the proclamation of a new scientific hypothesis.
Progress along such lines will be impossible while nations persist in the savage practice of killing each other off. I inherited from my father, an erudite man who labored hard for peace, an ineradicable hatred of war. — Nikola Tesla

The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles. — Anton Chekhov

Suddenly she sighed: "It is incredible how one can be happy for so many years in the midst of so many squabbles, so many problems, damn it, and not really know if it was love or not." By the time she finished unburdening herself, someone had turned off the moon. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Understand this: you no longer represent your homeworlds solely. "Coruscant, Alderaan, Chandrila ... All these and tens of thousands of worlds far removed from the Core are cells of the Empire, and what affects one, affects us all. No disturbances will be tolerated. "Interplanetary squabbles or threats of secession will meet with harsh reprisals. I have not led us through three years of galactic warfare to allow a resurgence of the old ways. The Republic is extinct. — James Luceno

For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, what you northerners never appreciate ... is that Texas is so big that you can live your life within its limits and never give a damn about what anyone in Boston or San Francisco thinks. — James A. Michener

If Independence is granted to India, power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed in India. — Winston S. Churchill

Some months earlier one of his oldest friends, Junto charter member Hugh Roberts, had written with news of the club and how the political quarreling in Philadelphia had continued to divide the membership. Franklin expressed hope that the squabbles would not keep Roberts from the meetings. "'tis now perhaps one of the oldest clubs, as I think it was formerly one of the best, in the King's dominions; it wants but about two years of forty since it was established." Few men were so lucky as to belong to such a group. "We loved and still love one another; we are grown grey together and yet it is too early to part. Let us sit till the evening of life is spent; the last hours were always the most joyous. When we can stay no longer 'tis time enough then to bid each other good night, separate, and go quietly to bed." And — H.W. Brands

They say sweethearts and squabbles are like flowers and rain. Takes both to make it springtime. — Pamela Morsi

Town designers are responsible for the total life of the town far more surely than doctors are responsible for the individual lives of their patients--for much medical history is act of God, whereas almost all town planning history is, alas, act of man. And compared with this all the professional squabbles, all the statistics, all the traffic flow, all the architectural fads, do not matter a damn. — Ian Nairn

And Bethod means to make war on this? He must be mad."
"Bethod, for all his waste and pride, understands the Union. They are jealous of one another, all those people. It may be a union in name, but they fight each other tooth and nail. The lowly squabble over trifles. The great wage secret wars for power and wealth, and they call it government. Wars of words, and tricks, and guile, but no less bloody for that. The casualties are many. Behind those walls they shout and argue and endlessly bite one another's backs. Old squabbles are never settled, but thrive, and put down roots, and the roots grow deeper with the passing years. It has always been so. They are not like you, Logen. A man here can smile, and fawn, and call you friend, give you gifts with one hand and stab you with the other. You will find this a strange place. — Joe Abercrombie

Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. — George R R Martin

All wars are sacred,to those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn't make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is 'save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!' Sometimes it's 'down with Popery!' and sometimes 'Liberty!' and sometimes 'Cotton, Slavery and States' Rights! — Margaret Mitchell

Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre & men of straw. They will have sweet tongues & silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power & India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air & water would be taxed in India. — Winston Churchill

I am President of all the people, good, bad, or indifferent, and as long as my opinions are known, ought perhaps to keep myself out of their squabbles. — Grover Cleveland

There is only this world and that numbing routines and brief squabbles and financial worries are an essential part of it, that in spite of the aches and boredomes and disappointments, living in this world is the closest we will ever come to seeing paradise. — Paul Auster

You've been off fighting the war in the Outer Rim. You don't know what it's been like, dealing with all the petty squabbles and special interests and greedy, grasping fools in the Senate, and Palpatine's constant, cynical, ruthless maneuvering for power - he carves away chunks of our freedom and bandages the wounds with tiny scraps of security. And for what? Look at this planet, Obi-Wan! We have given up so much freedom - how secure do we look? — Matthew Woodring Stover

All he wanted was enough time to consider all his options without being dragged into his household's petty squabbles or being nagged by his wife about that damnable pilgrimage. Was that so much to ask?
Apparently so, for he'd yet to find a peaceful moment at Caen, not with Marguerite sulking and Aimar lurking and Will acting put-upon and Geoff wanting to lay plans and Richard strutting around as if he were the incarnation of Roland and poor Tilda grieving over Maman's absence and his father refusing to heed any voice but his own. — Sharon Kay Penman

I'd take you home with me, see, but two of us in the same Behold? Just wouldn't work, ends up in all sorts of squabbles over interior design; and the human, well, one faery in the Behold of the Eye, that just gives them a little twinkle of imagination, but more than one and it's like a bloody fireworks display. They get all unstable and artistic, blinded by the glamour of everything, real or imagined, concrete or abstract. They get confused between beauty and truth and meaning, you see, start thinking every butterfly-brained idea must be true; before you know it they've gone schizo on you and you're in a three-way firefight with all the angels and the demons, them and their bloody ideologies. — Hal Duncan

This is the true reason, that my dear Jenny and I, as well as all the world besides us, have such eternal squabbles about nothing. - She looks at her outside, - I, at her in - . How is it possible we should agree about her value? — Anonymous

The squabbles of philandering Zeus and shrewish Hera are the Greeks' comment on married life. — Mason Cooley

'undertow'. It describes ( ... ) how underneath our own everyday lives - the shopping and squabbles and weeding and trips to the vet - there's a sense of being dragged slowly off, not against our will but regardless of it. And fighting the undertow, as children are quick to learn, is not usually the best way of getting back to the beach. Floating along with it, on the other hand, can be fatal.
It's really the struggle, the argument with oneself, that interests ... — Robert Dessaix

It is incredible how one can be happy for so many years in the midst of so many squabbles, so many problems, damn it, and not really know if it was love or not. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The people of America care about baseball, not about your squalid little squabbles. Reassume your dignity and remember that you (players during the 1981 strike) are the temporary custodians of an enduring public trust. — A. Bartlett Giamatti