Quotes & Sayings About The Little Things In Life That Count

People who get through life dependent on other people's possessions are always the first to lecture you on how little possessions count. — Ben Elton

I don't have any frustrations. It sounds a little silly, but life is too short for me. I don't worry about all the things that happen, I just think about what to do with them. I work a lot with blind people in my spare time and I count my blessings every day. — Paul Polman

You have always been fond of little Nina." "Of course I have." "And in part, that is because she is such an independent spirit." "Precisely." "Then you must trust in her. And even if she is single-minded to a fault, you must trust that life will find her in time. For eventually, it finds us all." The Count nodded for a moment, reflecting on Marina's — Amor Towles

When the world changes, you have to adapt and change with it. It's not just death and taxes that we can always count on in life ... add 'change' to that mix. No matter what, tomorrow will always be a little bit different than today ... — Christopher Jones

Elinor retreated to the terrace where the night air on her skin felt like a hot bath. She was hurt, it had been such an onslaught. All the things she'd achieved in the past four years, the independent life she'd built for herself, seemed to count for nothing here. The only thing that mattered to her mother was finding a husband. As for painting, well, nice little hobby, very suitable, but you won't have much time for that when the children arrive. — Pat Barker

A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life:
1. Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day.
2. Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.
3. Never spend your money before you have it.
4. Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.
5. Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves.
6. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
7. We never repent of having eat too little.
8. Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.
9. How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
10. Take things always by their smooth handle.
11. Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.
12. When angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100. — Thomas Jefferson

I'm human," he said in a tormented tone. "And I'm not." He dropped his hand to her shoulder. "I never knew softness," he breathed. "Not until the moment you touched me in your store. My life is violent and dangerous. Its dark and twisted and no place for someone like you. I have more people wanting me dead than I can count. They will stop at nothing, and you.." He ground his teeth before he spoke again. "You'll never want again for anything in your life. I swear it on what little bit of human soul I have left. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The pain, so unexpected and undeserved, had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. I realized I didn't hate the cabinet door, I hated my life ... My house, my family, my backyard, my power mower. Nothing would ever change; nothing new could ever be expected. It had to end, and it did. Now in the dark world where I dwell, ugly things, and surprising things, and sometimes little wondrous things, spill out in me constantly, and I can count on nothing. — Philip K. Dick

I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway's worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away. — Yann Martel

I wish i could tell you that through the tragedy i mined some undiscovered, life-altering absolute that i could pass on to you.I didn't.The cliches apply-people are what count,life is precious,materialism is over rated, and the little things matter,live in the moment-and i can repeat them to you ad nauseam.you might listen, but you won't internalize.Tragedy hammers it hm.Tragedy etches into your soul.You might not be happier.But you will be better. — Harlan Coben

I used to be a classic workaholic, and after seeing how little work and career really mean when you reach the end of your life, I put a new emphasis on things I believe count more. These things include: family, friends, being part of a community, and appreciating the little joys of the average day. — Mitch Albom

Inej placed her hands on Nina's shoulders. "We'll see each other again."
"Of course we will. You've saved my life. I've saved yours."
"I think you're ahead on that count."
"No, I don't mean in the big ways." Nina's eyes took them all in. "I mean the little rescues. Laughing at my jokes. Forgiving me when I was foolish. Never trying to make me feel small. It doesn't matter if it's next month, or next year, or ten years from now, those will be the things I remember when I see you again."
Kaz offered his gloved hand to Nina. "Until then, Zenik."
"Count on it, Brekker." They shook. — Leigh Bardugo

Wisdom is not just knowing fundamental truths, if these are unconnected with the guidance of life or with a perspective on its meaning. If the deep truths physicists describe about the origin and functioning of the universe have little practical import and do not change our picture of the meaning of the universe and our place within it, then knowing them would not count as wisdom. — Robert Nozick

Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue
for having once known woman's holy love and a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears! — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Of course we will. You've saved my life. I've saved yours."

"I think you're ahead on that count."

"No, I don't mean in the big ways." Nina's eyes took them all in. "I mean the little rescues. Laughing at my jokes. Forgiving me when I was foolish. Never trying to make me feel small. It doesn't matter if it's next month, or next year, or ten years from now, those will be the things I remember when I see you again. — Leigh Bardugo

You've got little time on earth, make each day count — Sunday Adelaja

When I was teaching basketball, I urged my players to try their hardest to improve on that very day, to make that practice a masterpiece.
Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can't do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So make today a masterpiece. You have control over that.
This rule is even more important in life than basketball. You have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. Only then will you will be able to approach being the best you can be. It begins by trying to make each day count and knowing you can never make up for a lost day. — John Wooden

If you will count, count the stars, dear one. How many stars in the sky, looking down on us as we lie in each other's arms and taste joy? How many gleaming fish in the lake where I splash our son in the water and hear his streaks of glee ring out in the clear air? A fine little salmon you made, that night in the rain. How many times does the heart beat, how fast does the blood run when at last we touch, and touch again, and breathe the same desperate, longing breath? Count those things, for they are the stuff of life and hope. — Juliet Marillier

Shawn, I love you." His mouth fell open a little bit. He said,"I will never leave you unless you send me away."
"Why would I want to do that? The best part of my life has been when I'm with you. I love you and I want you with me, always."
"I love you too, Dawn. I just want you to know what I have always known: I will never leave you unless you send me away. We've both had so many losses in our lives, I want to be there to be one thing that you know you can count on, and that's me. — Dawn Inmon

She leans over the desk to write and even though I feel bad for doing it, I watch her body as she does. Her shirt lifts just a little as she's bending over and whether she's aware of it or not, her lower back is exposed. I've spent the last eight years ignoring this girl, but one small view of her back and it's putting my body into overdrive.
I've never wanted to kiss someone there so much in my life. — Melyssa Winchester

There is so little time. We need to make every moment count. — Shannon Delany

We sense a dangerous disease infecting our modern culture and eroding hope: an increasingly prevalent view that greatness owes more to circumstance, even luck, than to action and discipline
that what happens to us matters more than what we do. In games of chance like a lottery or roulette, this view seems plausible. But taken as an entire philosophy, applied more broadly to human endeavor, it's a deeply debilitating life perspective, one that we can't imagine wanting to teach young people. Do we really believe that our actions count for little, that those who create something great are merely lucky, that our circumstances imprison us? Do we want to build a society and culture that encourage us to believe that we aren't responsible for our choices and accountable for our performance? — James C. Collins

Life is slow and subtle. Love takes time to show and grow. In life, little acts count. In fact, that is what a life is all about, a long parade of moments deceptively inconsequential. — John F. Kavanaugh

Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is three-score years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Abandoning the tiny story of me and embracing the forever Story of Jesus will allow our little lives to be filled with the wonder of God as we live for the unending applause of His name. And joining our small stories to His will give us what we all want most in life, anyway: the assurance that our brief moments on earth will count for something in a Story that never ends. — Louie Giglio

When you do drugs, you count like a chemist: The numbers are wild, the formulas are easy. Then, when you try to get clean, you start to count like a pharmacist: How many hours between doses? How much or how little do you need to maintain? Then, when you finally give it up completely, you count like Noah in his dinky, seafaring ark full of pairs of every animal in God's creation: You count days. You wait for the rain to stop, for the sky to clear, for life to ever seem normal again. And then eventually it does. Then you start to count how many cups of black coffee you need just to get through every day, how many cigarettes you smoke. You know the address of every Starbucks in a mile radius, which is easy because there so many, and you know the names of every restaurant where they allow you to smoke, which is easy because they are so few. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

It is a dreadful thing to wait and watch for the approach of death; to know that hope is gone, and recovery impossible; and to sit and count the dreary hours through long, long, nights - such nights as only watchers by the bed of sickness know. It chills the blood to hear the dearest secrets of the heart, the pent-up, hidden secrets of many years, poured forth by the unconscious helpless being before you; and to think how little the reserve, and cunning of a whole life will avail, when fever and delirium tear off the mask at last. Strange tales have been told in the wanderings of dying men; tales so full of guilt and crime, that those who stood by the sick person's couch have fled in horror and affright, lest they should be scared to madness by what they heard and saw; and many a wretch has died alone, raving of deeds, the very name of which, has driven the boldest man away.
("The Drunkard's Death") — Charles Dickens

You'll find out it's little savors and little things that count more than big ones. A walk on a spring morning is better than an eighty-mile ride in a hopped-up car, you know why? Because it's full of flavors, full of a lot of things growing. You've time to seek and find. I know, you're after the broad effect now, I suppose that's fit and proper. But you got to look at grapes as well as watermelons. You greatly admire skeletons and I like fingerprints; well, and good. Right now such things are bothersome to you, and I wonder if it isn't because you never learned to use them. If you had your way you'd pass a law to abolish all the little jobs, the little things. But then you'd leave yourselves nothing to do between the big jobs and you'd have a devil of a time thinking up things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life. — Ray Bradbury

We will never cease our critique of those persons who distort the past, rewrite it, falsify it, who exaggerate the importance of one event and fail to mention some other; such a critique is proper (it cannot fail to be), but it doesn't count for much unless a more basic critique precedes it: a critique of human memory as such. For after all, what can memory actually do, the poor thing? It is only capable of retaining a paltry little scrap of the past, and no one knows why just this scrap and not some other one, since in each of us the choice occurs mysteriously, outside our will or our interests. We won't understand a thing about human life if we persist in avoiding the most obvious fact: that a reality no longer is what it was when it was; it cannot be reconstructed. Even the most voluminous archives cannot help. — Milan Kundera

Sometimes in life you have to count on the little things to keep you happy ... — Rida Altaf

The ones who count are those persons who - though they may be of little renown - respond to and are responsible for the continuation of the living spirit. — Martin Buber

Collateral learning in the way of formation of enduring attitudes, of likes and dislikes, may be and often is much more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history that is learned. For these attitudes are fundamentally what count in the future. The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning. If impetus in this direction is weakened instead of being intensified, something much more than mere lack of preparation takes place. The pupil is actually robbed of native capacities which otherwise would enable him [sic] to cope with the circumstances that he meets in the course of his life. We often see persons who have had little schooling and in whose case the absence of set schooling proves to be a positive asset. They have at least retained their native common sense and power of judgement, and its exercise in the actual conditions of living has given them the precious gift of ability to learn from the experiences they have. — John Dewey

The Bourne Underneath the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain, Beauty reckoned of no worth: There a very little girth Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain. — Christina Rossetti

All the things in life that were put here to savor, you eliminate.
Save time, save work, you say." He nudged the grass trays disrespectfully. "Bill, when
you're my age, you'll find out it's the little savors and little things that count more than
big ones. A walk on a spring morning is better than an eighty-mile ride in a hopped-up car, you know why? Because it's full of flavors, full of a lot of things growing. You've time
to seek and find. — Ray Bradbury

In the early morning as dawn was just beginning to streak through the cabin windows, Jack was stirred awake by the soft sound of slightly off-key humming. He found Mel nestled into the crook of his arm, her breath tickling his chest. She was purring, humming, her lips moving slightly, as though singing. It might've troubled him if her expression had been sad or disturbed. But she was smiling. She snuggled closer, throwing a leg over his. And this sleepy little music, contented, drifted out of her. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd spent the entire night in bed with a woman. And already, he couldn't imagine waking up alone. He pulled her closer knowing he'd never been happier in his life. — Robyn Carr

Make your life count, Henry David Weston. For when you reach the end of your days, you will not look back and wish you'd garnered more money, or power, or fame. You will look back and wish that you had been a better parent, spouse, friend, and Christian. And you will wish for just a little more time with those you love. — Julie Klassen

Love and marriage are about work and compromise. They're about seeing someone for what he is, being dissapointed , and deciding to stick around anyway. They're about commitment and comfort, not some kind of sudden, hysterical recognition'. 'That's not what I want. Disspointment and comfort is not what I want'. 'Why not? Because you expect it to be magical and mystical? Because you don't want to work?' 'Why can't it be magical? Why can't it be mystical?' 'Because if you count on magic and mysticism, then as soon as shit happens, as soon as life interferes, as soon as your stepson treats you badly, or your husband's ex-wife has a fit about something, or your baby dies, as soon as life happens, the magic will disappear and you'll be left with nothing. You can't count on magic. Trust me, I know. Sweetheart, little girl, you can't count on magic'. — Ayelet Waldman

As I glanced around my room, sliding my dinosaur back and forth on its chain, I though that maybe that was the point--that instead of happy endings, you get beginnings. Hundreds of little beginnings happening every moment, each of them layering into histories deep and tangled and new, histories you count on to remain, no matter what changes the world throws at you. — Meg Leder

The Twelve Chairs is about the same thing. It's all about money or love. We know we need money, we know we have to get money, we know we have to hurt others to get money. But we don't know until maybe it's a little too late in life that love is the most important thing. Love, friendship, affection, bonhomie, whatever. Those are the only things that really count: to love and be loved. — Mel Brooks

Unless you count the way the words sink into Neil, the way his life feels a little more solid than it did five minutes before. — David Levithan