Thing To Obtain Quotes & Sayings

You may have sought and tried to obtain instant godliness. There is no such thing....We want somebody to give us three easy steps to godliness, and we'll take them next Friday and be godly. The trouble is, godliness doesn't come that way.
~Jay Adams~ — Jerry Bridges

Other than damnation I know no magic to satisfy your wishes; for ye believe one thing, desire another, speak unlike, act differently and obtain the living value. — Austin Osman Spare

73. When you have done a good act and another has received it, why do you look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return? — Marcus Aurelius

If you persist in trying To attain what is never attained (It is Tao's gift!) If you persist in making effort To obtain what effort cannot get; If you persist in reasoning About what cannot be understood, You will be destroyed By the very thing you seek. — Thomas Merton

Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, "The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out;" as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's playfellows in that game — Francis Bacon

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
- Sir William Henry Bragg — William Henry Bragg

Yes, I am aware of the enticements required to obtain them," Kang replied with distaste. "I believe the Russians could teach the West a thing or two about capitalistic extortion. — Clive Cussler

Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowlegde of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper; outward obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of proptiety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for, at least, twenty years of their lives. — Mary Wollstonecraft

Do you see the logic in this conclusion? First, God's perfect qualities are excellent in themselves. Second, God's works extend from his perfect qualities, and so they are also excellent in themselves. Third, the expression of God's perfect qualities in his works are to be seen and known by other beings who obtain knowledge of these qualities. Finally, this knowledge is excellent in itself as well. So it follows that it is an excellent thing in itself for a society of created beings to know God and his works. — Jonathan Edwards

Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it. — Michel De Montaigne

Whatever worldly thing we may covet - zealously striving to obtain and then retain - never seems to bring an end to our desires. Covetousness, envy, jealousy, and greed always escalate into a vicious spiral, as we seek greater and greater gratification but find less and less contentment ... Striving to acquire the things of the world not only does not bring lasting happiness and peace, but it drives us to seek more. When "all we've ever wanted" is grounded in the temporal trappings of this world, it is never enough! — Brent Top

The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security. — Bertrand Russell

This is my main shortcoming: I was so determined not to lose time that I often did the wrong thing. Not losing time has been my permanent concern since I was three years old, when it dawned on me that time is the warp of life, its very fabric, something that you cannot buy, trade, steal, falsify, or obtain by begging. — Nina Berberova

For my part, the thing I would wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security. But what the typical modern man desires to get with it is more money, with a view to ostentation, splendour, and the outshining of those who have hitherto been his equals. — Bertrand Russell

As to acknowledging that he was about to obtain a triumph with the ideas of another man, he never thought of such a thing. It is generally in perfect good faith that the jackdaw struts about in the peacock's feathers. — Emile Gaboriau

For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better. For pessimists, there is no amount of happiness - should such a thing as happiness even obtain for human beings except as a misconception - that can compensate us for life's hurt. As a worst-case example, a pessimist might refer to the hurt caused by some natural or human-made cataclysm. To adduce a hedonic counterpart to the horrors that attach to such cataclysms would require a degree of ingenuity from an optimist, but it could be done. And the reason it could be done, the reason for the eternal stalemate between optimists and pessimists, is that no possible formula can be established to measure proportions and types of hurt and happiness in the world. If such a formula could be established, then either pessimists or optimists would have to give in to their adversaries. — Thomas Ligotti

The quantity of money, which is readily parted with to obtain a thing is called its price. — Jean-Baptiste Say

It is better to give love. Hatred is a low and degrading motion and is so poisonous that no man is strong enough to use it safely. The hatred we think we are directing against some person or thing or system has a devilish way of turning back upon us. When we seek revenge we administer slow poison to ourselves. When we administer affection it is astonishing what magical results we obtain. — Thomas Dreier

When we try to express communion with God in words, we rapidly reach the end of our capacities. But in the depths of our being Christ is praying for more than we imagine. Compared to the immensity of that hidden prayer of Christ in us, our explicit praying dwindles to almost nothing. That is why silence is so essential in discovery the heart of prayer.
Although God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never wants to impose anything on us. Often God's voice comes in a whisper, in a breath of silence. Remaining in silence in God's presence, open to the Spirit, is already prayer.
It is not a matter of trying to obtain inner silence at all costs by following some method that creates a kind of emptiness within. The important thing is a childlike attitude of trust by which we allow Christ to pray within us silently, and then one day, we will discover that the depths of our being ar inhabited by a Presence. — Taize

There had been very little in Douglas Ashton's life that he ever wanted. Most of it he could obtain, the rest of it, a loving mother and father, his sister back from the dead, was unobtainable.
At that moment, he found himself wanting something.
And what he wanted was for Julia to lose herself with him.
He wanted this stubborn, tempestuous Julia Fairfax to disappear and an acquiescent, but still tempestuous, Julia Ashton to take her place. He wanted to brand her with his name and shackle her with his ring.
Did she not understand that was a good thing? — Kristen Ashley

To his family, Pasteur remarks in frustration, "How difficult it is to obtain the triumph of truth! Opposition is a useful stimulant, but bad faith is such a pitiable thing. How is it that they are not struck with the results shown by statistics? — Bill Wasik

If a young person is surviving by trading sex for the thing they need, what useful purpose is served by criminalizing that activity? Doesn't everybody have the right to try and survive? it might cost more to create shelters or group homes, drug treatment programs, schools for emancipated minors, counseling services, medical care and job training. But such programs can salvage human lives that are otherwise going to be cut short or wasted.
If we can afford massive kiddy porn stings, why can't we afford to do this? Is it because, as a society,we obtain more pleasure out of trying to control young people, and punishing the minors who escape our control, than we would out of taking good care of kids who are in trouble? — Patrick Califia-Rice

Consider the Divine Life as the most important thing to obtain. — The Mother

Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me.
Yet the fact that the cow chose me to obtain her pliers changes everything. This plunges me into a whole universe of alternative considerations. And in this universe of alternative considerations, the major problem is that everything becomes protracted and complex. I ask the cow, "Why do you want pliers?" And the cow answers, "I'm really hungry." So I ask, "Why do you need pliers if you're hungry?" The cow answers, "To attach them to branches of the peach tree." I ask, "Why a peach tree?" To which the cow replies, "Well, that's why I traded away my fan, isn't it?" And so on and so forth. The thing is never resolved. I begin to resent the cow, and the cow begins to resent me. That's a worm's eye view of its universe. — Haruki Murakami

The views of his Ministers were conveyed by the Governor of Natal to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord Ripon was told that if Asiatics were not prevented from voting, they would 'soon obtain a controlling voice'. Whereas white opinion was unanimous, 'on the other hand, there are probably not a dozen Asiatics in Natal who really object to the bill. The agitation has been got up by a young Parsee [sic] lawyer, a Mr Gandhi, who arrived here a few months ago. Had it not been for him, the whole thing would probably have passed sub silentio.' The Governor thus urged the Secretary of State to advise Her Majesty to approve the bill. — Ramachandra Guha

The scenes of our life are like pictures in rough mosaic, which have no effect at close quarters, but must be looked at from a distance in order to discern their beauty. So that to obtain something we have desired is to find out that it is worthless; we are always living in expectation of better things, while, at the same time, we often repent and long for things that belong to the past. We accept the present as something that is only temporary, and regard it only as a means to accomplish our aim. So that most people will find if they look back when their life is at an end, that they have lived their lifelong ad interim, and they will be surprised to find that something they allowed to pass by unnoticed and unenjoyed was just their life - that is to say, it was the very thing in the expectation of which they lived. And so it may be said of man in general that, befooled by hope, he dances into the arms of death. — Arthur Schopenhauer

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. — Thomas Paine

But the remarkable thing about the beetles was their sensitivity to all the grammar and directives and slogans and even unstated desires of the ant world, which they learned to manipulate. They first memorized the proper antenna-vibration and foreleg-tap which the ants themselves used to request food. The poor workers, busy going here and there and back again all day and never getting a chance to think, automatically assumed that these fearsome strangers had been authorized by the Central Committee since they knew the password, and so they regurgitated a drop or two of fruit juice on cue, much the same as when one is traveling across Europe or Asia on the train and a person in uniform requests one's passport, one's ticket, takes them away, and comes back, or else does not come back, having sold them; a badge and a superior manner can obtain anything in this world. — William T. Vollmann

Man does not yet obtain assurance but
only the wish for assurance, which is not at all the same thing. Nietzsche, too, hesitated on this brink:
"That is what is unforgivable in you. You have the authority and you refuse to sign." Yet finally he had to
sign. But the name of Dionysos immortalized only the notes to Ariadne, which he wrote when he was
mad. — Albert Camus

I believe it is quite possible for us to obtain an outer peace at the present time. Historically speaking, when human beings are faced with the choice between destruction and change, they are apt to choose change, and it's about the only thing that will make them choose change. So we have the possibility at the present time to take a different direction in the world - the possibility exists! — Peace Pilgrim

The particular thing about science is to combine that [the dreams of obtaining power] with a retreat from the world. Other people want to obtain power by going out into the world, but the scientist really wants to obtain power by retreating from the world. — Max Delbruck

It would be strange if the weather-gage had to be explained to so old a sea-dog; though I must confess that there was a time when I confused it with that thing which creaks on the roof, showing which way the wind is blowing. Yet could you not obtain this valuable gage by some less arduous means than running a hundred miles and hiding behind a more or less mythical island which no one has ever seen, and that in the dark, a perilous proceeding if ever there was one? — Patrick O'Brian

For one thing, the Catholic Church in particular has this one thing - confession - in which you could go, confess to a priest and obtain absolution of your sins. And there was a routine and a ritual and I think - I think that it did help. — Susan Jacoby

That was the splendid thing about life: Though it was cruel, it was also mysterious, filled with wonder and surprise; sometimes the surprises were so amazing that they qualified as miraculous, and by witnessing those miracles, a despondent person could discover a reason to live, a cynic could obtain unexpected relief from ennui, and a profoundly wounded boy could find the will to heal himself and medicine for melancholy. — Dean Koontz

Those who love much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well ... Love is the best and noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be.
If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one's love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger. — Vincent Van Gogh

Catey, happiness doesn't just happen to us, especially when we've been living without it for so long. Happiness is a choice we make every single day. We wake up and decide that no matter what happens we will find a way to obtain the very thing our heart needs to flourish. — Lisa N. Paul

I stick my finger in existence - it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint? — Soren Kierkegaard

To love God, which was a thing far excelling all the cunning that is possible for us in this life to obtain. — Thomas More

The discovery of a completely unknown manuscript at a period in which historical science is carried to such a high degree appeared almost miraculous. We hastened, therefore, to obtain permission to print it, with the view of presenting ourselves someday with the pack of others at the doors of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, if we should not succeed - a very probable thing, by the by - in gaining admission to the Academie Francaise with our own proper pack. This permission, we feel bound to say, was graciously granted; which compels us here to give a public contradiction to the slanderers who pretend that we live under a government but moderately indulgent to men of letters. — Alexandre Dumas