The Only Important Thing Quotes & Sayings

Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, money, circumstances, than failures and success, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, ability, or skill. It will make or break a business, a home, a friendship, an organization. The remarkable thing is I have a choice every day of what my attitude will be. I cannot change my past. I cannot change the actions of others. I cannot change the inevitable. The only thing I can change is attitude. Life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. — Charles R. Swindoll

Making your unknown known is the important thing - and keeping the unknown always beyond you - catching - crystalizing your simpler clearer vision of life - only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead - that you must always keep working to grasp ... — Georgia O'Keeffe

You young folks today think you invented the world," Aunt Will said. "Still, a dash of unlawful scrumping might work for you. A lot more folks have tried that recipe than my own, even if we don't hear testimonials."
She chuckled naughtily at that suggestion. Jesse giggled a bit herself.
The important thing was that her aunt was nodding and smiling again.
"But beware, DuJess," Aunt Will told her. "Every cure has its side effects. It only seems fair to warn you. I suspect that a regular tonic of Piney Baxley can be potently habit forming. — Pamela Morsi

I'm a skeptic ... Global Warming it's become a new religion. You're not supposed to be against Global Warming. You have basically no choice. And I tell you how many scientists support that. But the number of scientists is not important. The only thing that's important is if the scientists are correct; that's the important part. — Ivar Giaever

Yes, I know, because schools are cruel, illogical, and unfair. But the thing is, life is cruel, illogical, and unfair. That is why the education system works so well. If schools and teachers did a good job and inspired children and made them enthusiastic about every subject, they would only be sadly disappointed when they got out into the real world. Better to disappoint them when they're young. It is more important to learn to cope with disappointment than learn how to do long division." - Nanny Piggins — R.A. Spratt

She lived her life believing in the power of simplicity. Whether it had to do with fashion, work or relationships, she used to say, "Boil it all down to what counts the most: What is the essence of what you are trying to do, what is the most important thing? Things only get complicated when you are trying to address too many issues. — Sean Hepburn Ferrer

Boundaries are important. And not only because they keep the wolves out and the sheep in. They determine how much interaction there can be between one thing and another, and how much exposure something local might have to the outside world. — Anonymous

There's something deep in the heart of every person that wants
to protect culture. The only thing about my pending career that
was changed because of 9/11 was that I began to see it was the community,
not the librarian, that was important to the library. Librarians
were only as important as the community they inspired. If I
was going to continue with this career, my job wouldn't be to protect
information, it would be to bring the community together and
inspire them to appreciate everything a library stands for. — Scott Douglas

Braque always said that the only thing that counts, in painting, is the intention, and it's true. What counts is what one wants to do, and not what one does. That's what's important. — Pablo Picasso

It seems to me that dealing with little boys is a lot like playing poker. You need to know when to hold them, when to fold them, and when to walk away. But the most important thing you need to know is, oral contraceptives are only 97 percent effective. — Paula Wall

In a world pulsating with so much information, the only information that you need is the stuff that will lead you straight to your own soul. Think of this: Most of the information that is fed to you, is motivated by the desire to earn money. Forget what the magazines say, what the forums say, what all the experts say. Your soul does not need to be spoon-fed with stuff it doesn't need. Your soul needs to be seen and found, and what leads you to that, is the only information that you need. — C. JoyBell C.

The thing with kids is that you only get one chance to do it right. It's really important to share their gifts while they're discovering them. That's why spelling bees are such a compelling story. They stimulate them intellectually, they awaken their competitive spirit, but it's fun. There's something fun about words. — Laurence Fishburne

I've learned that it is important to be beautiful to people. That all that matters is that you are lovely to the people around you and the people that you meet. It doesn't matter if you're a show off or a little bit vain, as long as you're good to your mum, and that you're kind, and that you're lovely. And that everything is transient and superficial and to not get attached to material things because you're going to lose it all. And the only thing that is constant is love. — Russell Brand

Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything. — Margaret Mitchell

I think an education is not only important, it is the most important thing you can do with your life. — Dean Kamen

There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still). — John Berryman

The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important. — Sam Altman

I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour - write, write, write. — Madeleine L'Engle

I agree with you that it is important to examine our presuppositions, throughly and once for all, in order to establish something solid. For I hold that it is only when we can prove all that we bring forward that we perfectly understand the thing under consideration. I know that the common herd takes little pleasure in these researches, but I know also that the common herd take little pains thoroughly to understand things. — Gottfried Leibniz

So much of writing is fed by vanity and the feeling that what you are doing is the most important thing in the world and it has not been done before and only you can do it. Without these feelings, many writers would not be able to write anything at all. — Pankaj Mishra

I stopped glorifying women as beautiful only if they were also thin. In fact, beautiful was the very last thing I decided I would tell Gigi she was each day, after brilliant, hilarious, curious, creative, and daring. There are so many important things to be in this world, it's unfair to devote so much of what describes us to our body size. — Brittany Gibbons

The other important thing to understand is that as humans we see only a segment of reality in the greater cosmic scheme of things, so we are really never in a position to judge anyone or anything. — Karen Kingston

My car's my best friend. My office. My home. My location. I have a very intimate sense when I am in a car with someone next to me. We're in the most comfortable seats because we're not facing each other, but sitting side by side. We don't look at each other, but instead do so only when we want to. We're allowed to look around without appearing rude. We have a big screen in front of us and side views. Silence doesn't seem heavy or difficult. Nobody serves anybody. And many other aspects. One most important thing is that it transports us from one place to another. — Abbas Kiarostami

The most important thing, I believe, about books for babies and very young children is that they are shared between the child and a caring adult. It is time for physical closeness and comfort, of quiet and harmony, of sharing ideas and emotions, laughing and learning together. The learning and benefit that take place are not only enjoyed by the child. Any adult who takes time to share books with small children will be rewarded, enriched, and revitalized by it, every time. — Jan Ormerod

I have what I call an iron prescription that helps me keep sane when I naturally drift toward preferring one ideology over another and that is: I say that I'm not entitled to have an opinion on this subject unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who support it. I think only when I've reached that state am I qualified to speak. This business of not drifting into extreme ideology is a very, very important thing in life — Charlie Munger

because I know I would do the best job. Maybe the only thing that's important to you is money, but that matters the least to me. Leaders care about the common good, not the self-interest of one selfish man. — E.L. Todd

How fair is it to judge a person based on his sexual preferences, or their 'otherness'? As long as a person is not 'harmful' for others or not violating the rights of others, I think we need not be bothered about their personal lives, whom they love or whom they marry. It is a personal choice. I think the most important thing about a person is his or her 'humanity', kindness, selflessness not their 'sex life' (only as long as he or she is not violating the rights of others or causing harm to others).
It is entirely a disgrace on humanity to 'discriminate' a person solely based on their 'otherness'.
I am surprised to see how the society stands against or make fun out of 'gay' people, who are totally harmless, ignoring the 'human' in them, but feel 'OK' with 'rapists', 'sex maniacs', 'prostitution' and 'sexual violence against women and children' occurring in Sri Lanka every day. — Ama H. Vanniarachchy

Women remain children all their lives, for they always see only what is near at hand, cling to the present, take the appearance of a thing for reality, and prefer trifling matters to the most important. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Sometimes fitness is a good thing to have, but you have to recognise that fitness takes you only so far, and skills are the most important thing. Fitness just helps you execute those cricketing skills for longer and more consistently, maybe. — Rahul Dravid

They're all about where people come from. The only thing important is where somebody's going. — Johnny Depp

By the time I visited those battlefields, I knew that they had been retrofitted as the staging ground for a great deception, and this was my only security, because they could no longer insult me by lying to me. I knew - and the most important thing I knew was that, somewhere deep with them, they knew too. I like to think that knowing might have kept me from endangering you, that having understood and acknowledged the anger, I could control it. I like to think that it could have allowed me to speak the needed words to the woman and then walk away. I like to think this, but I can't promise it. The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The most important thing is setting up these directives for yourself. Like, "I'm only going to use these three colors - go!" That's why Einstein wore the same thing every day; you don't want to have to reinvent the wheel every morning. — Annie E. Clark

Records are only one-dimensional. Even film is only one-dimensional. That's why music and live theatre is so important, because it's not the same thing. A recording is just a record of part of the experience, but it's not the whole experience. — Steve Earle

You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man. — Wilhelm Reich

I have a bunch of calendars I used before I went digital. Every once in a while, I'll open up one from 1991 and look at all the names and appointments and things that, at the time, seemed so important. Meetings that I was really worried about, things that I was getting calls four times a day about, and I wonder, "Where did it all go? Where are they now?" It's so strange, everything has disappeared. The only thing that stays behind is the work. — Michael Bierut

The only important thing about design is how it relates to people. — Victor Papanek

Injuries are not only a physical question, which is the most important thing, of course, but also a question of your mind. If you're thinking: 'I'm not going to make it', 'I can't cope', 'it hurts', 'it's never going to get better', then it won't. — Luis Suarez

So we did the only thing we knew to do. We got in the car and drove to Dallas to be at the funeral with Jen. As she and her family walked down the center aisle behind her dad's casket, she smiled at us despite the big tears that were rolling down her cheeks. And that's when I learned one of the most important lessons I've ever learned about what it means to be a good friend: you show up for your people. You don't wait for your friend to ask you to come; you get in your car and go. You don't have to know the right words to say, you don't have to offer sage wisdom about loss and love; you just show up. You hold her hand and hug her neck and wipe her tears. You let her know that you hurt because she is in pain, and you'd do anything to take it from her if you could. You listen.... You show up for your friend, in the good times and the bad times. — Melanie Shankle

Humor is the most important thing in life. It trumps everything else and it's the only thing that helps me deal with everything else. — Paul Rudd

It is not important how successful you are, the only thing that matters is how good a person you are... — Vedang Sati

The only thing I can be sure of at any given time is what I am thinking myself. I have no idea what the others are thinking. Do they think space is big and dangerous? I do. What do they believe in? I think nobody ought to be alone. That one should be with someone. With friends. With the person one loves. I think it is important to love. I think it's the most important thing. — Erlend Loe

The only thing that's important is that every day I'm waking and doing something that I really love to do. — Brit Marling

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

The importance of our being free to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to misconceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

No one ever said your life would be easy. The nature of being human makes life for all of us a challenge. The most important thing to consider here is this. Your life is only as challenging as you think it is. Think of challenge as a teacher and yourself the student. It's up to you to figure out what the lesson is to be learned. To learn that lesson and build the strength and courage to face other challenges ... . — James A. Murphy

It is important and vital is to keep that education for critical consciousness around intersectionalities, so that people are able to not focus on one thing and blame one group, but be able to look holistically at the way intersectionality informs all of us: whiteness, gender, sexual preferences, etc. Only then can we have a realistic handle on the political and cultural world we live within. — Bell Hooks

The important thing isn't that we're freakazoidal about the same things
it's that she's as freakazoidal about her stuff as I am about mine, and that enthusiasm can't help but unite us, even if the object thereof doesn't. If two people are twisted enough to connect on a deep level, it's only natural there will be lots of angles where they don't connect at all. — Rob Sheffield

Sure, it's nice to win. But there's only one thing that's important to me and that's the money we're going to get, win or lose ... I don't love baseball, I like it. And to me, baseball means money, and that's all I care about. — Vida Blue

Each life has a different purpose, and some people can find their purpose more easily than others. The key, the most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that's not your only choice"
"No matter why you're here, no matter why any of us are here, you're never tied down to fate. You're never locked in. You make your own choices, Kira, and you can't let anyone ever take that away from you. — Dan Wells

What I do as an individual player is only important if it helps the team to win. That is the most important thing. — Cristiano Ronaldo

From all these experiences the most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together and that type design, in its restraint, should be only felt but not perceived by the reader. — Adrian Frutiger

For example
I wonder
could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I hate about my nickname, the way that number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. — Yann Martel

To my mind, the most important thing in any form of fiction is the human element, but only if it takes us beyond the everyday, into situations that examine the complexities that may fascinate or puzzle us. To dwell on the mundane as some kind of a writing exeercise is useless. — Graham Worthington

I'm only a little ashamed to say I outsprinted the boy. Old habits die hard. It's good to be faster than what's chasing you, but really the important thing in running away is to be faster than the slowest of those being pursued. Rule number one: be ahead of the next man. Or child. — Mark Lawrence

It's a strange thing, but somehow we expect more of girls than of boys. It is the sisters and wives and mothers, you know, Caddie, who keep the world sweet and beautiful. What a rough world it would be if there were only men and boys in it, doing things in their rough way! A woman's task is to teach them gentleness and courtesy and love and kindness. It's a big task, too, Caddie
harder than cutting trees or building mills or damming rivers. It takes nerve and courage and patience, but good women have those things. They have them just as much as the men who build bridges and carve roads through the wilderness. A woman's work is something fine and noble to grow up to, and it is just as important as a man's. — Carol Ryrie Brink

If I love something I do it, and if I don't, I don't. I think that this is the most important choice that any of us can make in life, in art, in history: to do the thing you love. If you love it, it is important. If you love it then while you are doing it, you are a true expression of yourself and your time and your story. You are authentic. If you don't love it you betray not only yourself but also your history, your culture, your position in your society. — Lina Wertmuller

The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. The life everlasting is independent of any form but manifests itself in all forms. Life then does not die ... but the forms are dissolved. — Sri Aurobindo

After Jesus showed up, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up.
Of course, just because Jesus replaces the Old Testament doesn't mean that you should necessarily skip it. That would be like skipping Batman and Robin just because the story starts over in Batman Begins. The important thing to realize is that both the old and new stories are about an all-powerful being trying to rid the world of evildoers, only in the new one The Batman can eat pork. — Stephen Colbert

I have come to know that it [death] is an important thing to keep in mind - not to complain or to make melancholy, but simply because only with the honest knowledge that one day I will die I can ever truly begin to live. — R.A. Salvatore

They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much - but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing? — Hermann Hesse

The most important thing a developer can do for a learner is to listen in an active way. This includes hearing not only what is said, but also how it is said and what it means; recognizing, then encouraging or challenging, the learner's patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, particularly those that support or detract from the learner's goals and ultimate growth; and having the experience, intuition, and wisdom to know when to just listen and when to say or do something. — Ginger Lapid-Bogda

Most people, who have quit smoking, have had at least one unsuccessful try in the past. It is not important how many times you try to quit. The only important thing is, that eventually you stay quit — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is an awful, just sickening feeling, I discovered, to live with somebody, to exist in the midst of sharing a life, only to realize it is utterly doomed. It was botulism of the soul. I'd had such ambition for building a life together, because I wanted that strength of character and security. But I had overlooked the most important thing: he wasn't right for me. I wasn't right for him. Merely wanting us to be right and good together wasn't enough. — Augusten Burroughs

It was simple. His world was Kate. If he denied that, he might as well stop breathing right now.
"I have to go," he blurted out, standing up so suddenly that his thighs hit the edge of the table, sending walnut shell shards skittering across the tabletop.
"I thought you might," Colin murmured.
Benedict just smiled and said, "Go."
His brothers, Anthony realized, were a bit smarter than they let on.
"We'll speak to you in a week or so?" Colin asked.
Anthony had to grin. He and his brothers had met at their club every day for the past fortnight. Colin's oh-so-innocent query could only imply one thing - that it was obvious that Anthony had completely lost his heart to his wife and planned to spend at least the next seven days proving it to her. And that the family he was creating had grown as important as the one he'd been born into.
"Two weeks," Anthony replied, yanking on his coat. "Maybe three."
His brothers just grinned. — Julia Quinn

Women must find their own answer. That's the important thing. I'm no longer interested in books about women written by men. Even if I could believe in their objectivity, I just can't find their opinions relevant. Now I will only believe what a woman has to say about women, because even if it's not entirely true, it's her struggle and she's on the way to the answer.
Many of you seek masculine approval. Even though you have inside you your way of talking and writing, you have mountains of it inside you, and even though it is enough to begin expressing yourselves so long as it is with your vocabulary, your abstractions, and your own conceptualization, I think you are still afraid of the master: men. Of their judgment. As long as you have this fear, you will not progress. I think the future belongs to women. Men have been completely dethroned. Their rhetoric is stale, used up. We must move on the rhetoric of women, one that is anchored in the organism, in the body. — Marguerite Duras

There is nothing like watching the woman you are in love with make a baby, make a miracle! It is one hell of a ride, and I am only seven months in. Time is flying by, but I am taking it all in. It is the most important thing that I have ever been a part of in my life. — Matt Cohen

As Nietzsche wrote, "The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it - what it costs us." Perhaps you will attain your goal, and a worthy goal at that, but at what price? Apply this standard to everything, including whether to collaborate with other people or come to their aid. In the end, life is short, opportunities are few, and you have only so much energy to draw on. And in this sense time is as important a consideration as any other. Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others - that is too high a price to pay. Power — Robert Greene

NO. No no no. I don't want to screw you. I just love you. When did who you want to screw become the whole game? Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? It's so stupid, Tiny! I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck about sex?! People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do. I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them? Those are important questions, I guess. But they're not that important. You know what's important? Who would you die for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you pick?! — John Green

Time is the most important thing there is. That is the only element that you can't withdraw from the situation and still have the situation exist. Everything depends on time. — John Hartford

Don't make me out to be something worth saving. We both know I'm a waste." His voice was so quiet. "I wish I was better at telling you why you have to stay here. I wish I could put into words the part of my heart that has your name written on it. That part hurts right now. You have to be here. You love life too much. You're so important. I wish I could make you understand this." He tried to smile at her valiant efforts. "I would keep you if I could. You can sleep here, right on this couch. Beckett, I will let you hold this baby when it comes." She touched her stomach. "Does that tell you how much you mean to me? It's the only thing I can come up with." He shrugged. "Mouse would be disappointed. He'd feel like he didn't do his job if you died ... Eve loves you. Wherever she is - in this strip club - is that what you've been wishing for?" Beckett shook his head. "No, right? She loves you. You can't kill someone she loves. You just can't. — Debra Anastasia

The only important thing to realise about history is that it all took place in the last five minutes. — Celia Green

The only thing that makes a name important, and yours, is that it's given to you by someone who loves you — Cassandra Clare

Forgiveness is a very curious thing, in that you must not only know how to forgive; but you must also know how to accept forgiveness. Both of these aspects are equally important. When someone forgives you - believe it. — C. JoyBell C.

Family has always been the most important thing in my life. The only real goal that I ever had was to be a good mother. — Goldie Hawn

Financially, it was very successful. Which is the most important thing. That is the only way you get to make another movie. It's very simple. The market will value you. — Nicolas Winding Refn

Quality time does not mean we must spend our moments gazing into each other's eyes. It may mean doing something together that we both enjoy. The particular activity is secondary, only a means to creating the sense of togetherness. The important thing is not the activity itself but the emotions that are created between both. — Gary Chapman

The important thing is character. It's my character I've got to mould. I'm sure one can do anything with oneself if one tries. It's only a matter of will. — W. Somerset Maugham

I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. — C.S. Lewis

Percy was waiting for them. He looked mad.
He stood at the edge of the glacier, leaning on the staff with the golden eagle, gazing down at the wreckage he'd caused: several hundred acres of newly open water dotted with icebergs and flotsam from the ruined camp.
The only remains on the glacier were the main gates, which listed sideways, and a tattered blue banner lying over a pile of now-bricks.
When they ran up to him, Percy said, "Hey," like they were just meeting for lunch or something.
"You're alive!" Frank marveled.
Percy frowned. "The fall? That was nothing. I fell twice that far from the St. Louis Arch."
"You did what?" Hazel asked.
"Never mind. The important thing was I didn't drown. — Rick Riordan

When she smoothed my shirt and stepped back, I said, 'Mama, why do you always look at me like I'm dressed in a fancy suit?' She said, 'Because I see your soul, Leland Keller. Your soul is as a spick- and- span and sharp as a man in his church suit. That's what's important in life. Make sure your soul is dressed right, always in its church clothes. That's the only thing that matters to God' ... — Joey W. Hill

Second only to a viable approach to acting, the most important thing an actor can find is a creative family. To have a solid core group of people that you take that journey with together is invaluable. — Jim Parrack

Your guess [about the future of technology] is as good as mine. The only thing I'm sure of is (a) most of the predictions I hear are almost certainly wrong, and (b) the things that will turn out to be important will come as a surprise, even though in hindsight they'll seem perfectly obvious. — Steve Krug

For me, beauty is always retreating from one's grasp: the only thing I consider important is what existed once, or ought to have existed. — Yukio Mishima

*Have humility. Learn from everyone you can. Even if it's just one takeaway. *Be grateful for the many lessons you get, and realize that everything is a lesson. *Only be around people you love and who inspire you. *Life is a billion times smaller than the point of a needle. Don't waste it doing things you were told to do. Do the things you love to do. *Health is the most important thing, else your body today won't let you enjoy tomorrow. *Every day, be creative. Creativity is a muscle. *You're going to make mistakes, but 80% is always good enough. Keep learning the next thing. *Life will constantly hit you until you are senseless. Don't forget these are lessons. — James Altucher

The most important thing a person could learn from being around horses is how to control the expression of their emotions, even the non-verbal ones, and lose all unnatural fears. Fear only binds what should be free. That applies in all areas of thought, belief and actions. If you can't overcome it, then resist it. Be courageous. — Judith-Victoria Douglas

Everyone has a unique perspective and that's valid. Everyone's perspective is valid. That doesn't mean that everyone has the same degree of skill level as an entertainer, but skill isn't the only important thing. It's also what kind of perspective and feelings you're bringing to it. — Joseph Gordon-Levitt

What is the good of words if they aren't important enough to quarrel over? Why do we choose one word more than another if there isn't any difference between them? If you called a woman a chimpanzee instead of an angel, wouldn't there be a quarrel about a word? If you're not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about. — G.K. Chesterton

Every father loves their children. I love my two sons very dearly. The only thing that is important to me is that they do what they want to do. They shouldn't feel a sense of obligation. — Kerry Stokes

In general, dividing literature into prose and poetry began with the appearance of prose, for only in prose could such a division be expressed. By its nature, by its essence, art is hierarchical, automatically, and in this hierarchy, poetry stands above prose. If only because poetry is older. Poetry really is a very strange thing, because it belongs to a troglodyte as well as to a snob. It can be produced in the Stone Age and in the most modern salon, whereas prose requires a developed society, a developed structure, certain established classes, if you like. Here you could start reasoning like a Marxist without even being wrong. The poet works from the voice, from the sound. For him, content is not as important as is ordinarily believed. For a poet, there is almost no difference between phonetics and semantics. Therefore, only very rarely does the poet give any thought to who in fact comprises his audience. That is, he does so much more rarely than the prose writer. — Joseph Brodsky

Always try to associate yourself closely with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you. Apart from the rewards of friendship, the association might pay off at some unforeseen time - that is only an accidental byproduct. The important thing is that the learning will make you a better person. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that results exist only on the outside.The result of a business is a satisfied customer. The result of a hospital is a satisfied patient. The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work ten years later. Inside an enterprise there are only costs. — Peter Drucker

You can only have the courage and strength to do what you think is right. It may turn out to be wrong, but you will at least have done it, and that is the important thing. We must act according to the best dictates of our reason, and then leave God to judge its ultimate value. — Irving Stone

For many years I was trying to find answers only through books but then I realized that basically, life is about experience and the thing that you have to do is experience life instead of only reading about it. Reading is very important, but it's not enough. After reading, you have to take some decisions in your hands and move forward and be the human being that you are, and then going and meeting people and work. — Paulo Coelho

The important thing was that we were being polite and not saying all the things that were making us unhappy, which was the only way we knew how to love each other. — Ruth Ozeki

A solid theatrical education can only improve a screen performance. It gives you a fuller capacity to read a script and understand a character, for one thing. It's important to alternate between the two activities. — Toni Servillo

The funny thing is that although we place so much energy and importance on our wedding day, it isn't the biggest day of our life. The biggest day of your life is every day thereafter. Because it's not the pledge to love someone that matters, but the act of fulfilling that pledge that is most important. In other words, it's only just begun. — Laura Wolf

In the beginning of my career, I wanted to be chased by girls more than anything - that's why I got the guitar. By the time we were in ABBA, the music was the only important thing. — Bjorn Ulvaeus

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

HST: Wasn't there a Harris Poll that showed that only 3 percent of the electorate considered the Watergate thing important?
McGovern: Yeah. That's right. Mistakes that we made seemed to be much more costly. I don't know why, but they were. I felt it at the time, that we were being hurt by every mistake we made, whereas the most horrendous kind of things on the other side somehow seemed to--because, I suppose, of the great prestige of the White House, the President's shrewdness in not showing himself to the press or the public--they were able to get away with things that we got pounded for. — Hunter S. Thompson

The important thing is not so much to read fast, as to read each book at the speed it deserves. It is as regrettable to spend too much time on some books as it is to read others too quickly. There are books you know well, just from flicking through them, others you only grasp at second or third reading, and others again which will last you a lifetime. — Jacques Bonnet