Three Phrase Quotes & Sayings

The Master said, If out of the three hundred songs I had to take one phrase to cover all my teachings, I would say 'Let there be no evil in your thoughts.' — Confucius

These two were busy explaining to the harassed man that the phrase "too much Mozart" was, given any reasonable definition of those three words, an inherently self-contradictory expression, and that any sentence which contained such a phrase would be thereby rendered meaningless and could not, consequently, be advanced as part of an argument in favor of any given program-scheduling strategy. — Douglas Adams

I admit. I confess. I confront. The three likely phrase to live stressless. — Bhavik Sarkhedi

One of the general patterns of good (i.e., striking and memorable) writing is the effect of repetition. If you use a certain element - a plot device, an image, a noticeable phrase - once, readers may or may not notice it consciously, but it doesn't disturb the flow of their reading. If you use that element twice, they won't notice it consciously - but they will notice it subconsciously, and it will add to the resonance of the writing or to their sense of depth and involvement (and if it's a plot device, it will heighten the dramatic tension). But if you use that element three times, everybody will notice it the third time you do it. — Diana Gabaldon

Q: Where and when do you do your writing?
A: Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules ... afternoons are best, but I'm too lethargic for any real regime. When I'm in the flow of something I can do a regular 9 to 5; when I don't know where I'm going with an idea, I'm lucky if I do two hours of productive work. There is nothing more off-putting to a would-be novelist to hear about how so-and-so wakes up at four in the a.m, walks the dog, drinks three liters of black coffee and then writes 3,000 words a day, or that some other asshole only works half an hour every two weeks, does fifty press-ups and stands on his head before and after the "creative moment." I remember reading that kind of stuff in profiles like this and becoming convinced everything I was doing was wrong. What's the American phrase? If it ain't broke ... — Zadie Smith

There is a phrase for this that has become quite common: "I'm spiritual but not religious." Polls show that some 20 percent of Americans identify overall with that phrase. And some polls have shown that, in the younger generation - those between eighteen and twenty-nine - this percentage explodes to an astonishing 75 percent!2 In other words, three out of four young individuals have a deep spiritual yearning that no existing religion is addressing. — Ken Wilber

Both John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela use the same three-word phrase which in my mind says it all, which is, 'Freedom is Indivisible,' you can't slice it up, otherwise it ceases to be freedom. You can dislike Charlie Hedbo ... But the fact that you dislike them has nothing to do with their right to speak. — Salman Rushdie

Spring is gray and miserable and rainy for three or four weeks while the snow melts. The ditches turn into creeks and everything you own is clammy as a frog belly. Then one morning, you walk outside and the sun is out and the clover has grown over the ditches and the trees are pointed with leaves, like ten thousand green arrowheads, and the air smells like..." and here he had to fumble for a phrase, "like a roomful of stately ladies and one wet dog. — Josiah Bancroft

When we hear the phrase "rescue animal," we tend to think of a dog or cat being rescued by a human. But when Enzo came into my life, I learned that more often than not, the rescued animal is the human, and the rescuer usually has four legs (or sometimes three). — Tracey Stewart

Are you lecturing me again, Orion? Is that what this is?' ... 'I would never dream of lecturing you. I just thought it was interesting to think about.'
'Mmm-hmm. And how many times did you practice how you'd phrase this little gem of wisdom when you told me/'
He runs a had through his thick, dark curls. 'Ah, umm ... who says I practiced it?'
I raise a single eyebrow at him.
'Two. Maybe three. Five. Not more that five — Kiersten White

I plan to write three words on my arm before entering the Box, hoping that its simple message will plant seed in the Gladers who see it. To remind them, even subconsciously, what it is we fight for. It's a phrase I saw on a cold, dark night long ago, the Crank pits seething behind me. It's a phrase that I believe with all my heart, despite the horrors.

I think you know what it is. — James Dashner

The psychiatric interviewer is supposed to be doing three things: considering what the patient could mean by what he says; considering how he himself can best phrase what he wishes to communicate to the patient; and, at the same time, observing the general pattern of the events being communicated. In addition to that, to make notes which will be of more than evocative value, or come anywhere near being a verbatim record of what is said, in my opinion is beyond the capacity of most human beings. — Harry Stack Sullivan

His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools
the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans
and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, 'You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink. — Terry Pratchett

[The Head of Radio Three] had been ensnared by the Music Director of the college and a Professor of Philosophy. These two were busy explaining to the harassed man that the phrase "too much Mozart" was, given any reasonable definition of those three words, an inherently self-contradictory expression, and that any sentence which contained such a phrase would be thereby rendered meaningless and could not, consequently, be advanced as part of an argument in favour of any given programme-scheduling strategy. — Douglas Adams

They made love then. Kassad, at twenty-three standard years, had been in love once and had enjoyed sex many times. He thought he knew the way and the why of it. There was nothing in his experience to that moment which he could not have described with a phrase and a laugh to his squadmates in the hold of a troop transport. With the calm, sure cynicism of a twenty-three-year-old veteran he was sure that he would never experience anything that could not be so described, so dismissed. He was wrong. He could never adequately share the sense of the next few minutes with anyone else. He would never try. — Dan Simmons

Beatrix Adams," he said. "You know I trust you with everything. The anatomical representation of my heart, my life ... even my car."
"You must really love me," I said, matching my steps with his.
I knew he did, of course. We try not to say it casually too much, because we want it to mean something. Not just a throwaway phrase like "How's it going" or "See you later." But when I'm in his arms, when we're alone, he whispers "I love you," and those three words never stop amazing me. Never. — Jenn Bennett

What are your fees?" inquired Guyal cautiously. "I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and actionable language; for ten I use the language of cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five, I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce, I babble in an unknown tongue. — Jack Vance

The catchall phrase big data means three things. First, it is a bundle of technologies. Second, it is a potential revolution in measurement. And third, it is a point of view, or philosophy, about how decisions will be-and perhaps should be-made in the future — Steve Lohr

At one point in the story, following a brazen daytime bank robbery, Electro is shown escaping from the authorities by climbing up the side of a building, as easily as Spider-Man . . . we see one observer exclaim, "Look!! That strangely-garbed man is racing up the side of the building!" A second man on the street picks up the narrative: "He's holding on to the iron beams in the building by means of electric rays - using them like a magnet!! Incredible!"

There are three feelings inspired by this scene. The first is wonder as to why people rarely use the phrase "strangely-garbed" anymore. The second is nostalgia for the bygone era when pedestrians would routinely narrate events occurring in front of them, providing exposition for any casual bystander. And the third is pleasure at the realization that Electro's climbing this building is actually a physically plausible use of his powers. — James Kakalios

Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

So many struggled so that all of us could have a voice in this great democracy and live up to the first three words of our constitution: We the people. I love that phrase so much. Throughout our country's history, we've expanded the meaning of that phrase to include more and more of us. That's what it means to move forward. — Kerry Washington

Dazzlement and enchantment are Bester's methods. His stories never stand still a moment; they're forever tilting into motion, veering, doubling back, firing off rockets to distract you. The repetition of the key phrase in "Fondly Fahrenheit," the endless reappearances of Mr. Aquila in "The Star-comber" are offered mockingly: try to grab at them for stability, and you find they mean something new each time. Bester's science is all wrong, his characters are not characters but funny hats; but you never notice: he fires off a smoke-bomb, climbs a ladder, leaps from a trapeze, plays three bars of "God Save the King," swallows a sword and dives into three inches of water. Good heavens, what more do you want? — Alfred Bester

The Naturalization Act of 1790, three years after the Constitution, said the children of citizens shall be considered natural born citizens. That's in 1790. Five years later, in 1795, they amended the Naturalization Act of 1795 and said the children of citizens, wherever born, are citizens is excluded the phrase "natural- born citizens" when they amended the act! — Donald Trump

It happens to us quite often-it feels as though I'm not playing my instrument, something else is playing it and that same thing is playing all three of our instruments. That's what I mean when I say it's frightening sometimes. Maybe we'll all play the same phrase out of nowhere. It happens very often with us. — Ginger Baker

In any situation in life, you only have three options. You always have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you would leave it but not leaving it, and not accepting it. It's that struggle, that aversion, that is responsible for most of our misery. The phrase that I probably use the most to myself in my head is just one word: accept. — Timothy Ferriss

Two words. Three vowels. Four constenants. Seven letters. It can either cut you open to the core and leave you in ungodly pain or it can free your soul and lift a tremendous weight off you shoulders. The phrase is: It's over. — Maggi Richard

Integrity, humor and patience were the three words for Atticus Finch. There was also a phrase for him: pick at random any citizen from Maycomb County and its environs, and ask him what he thought of Atticus Finch, and the answer would most likely be, I never had a better friend. — Harper Lee

The phrase 'Founding Fathers' is a proper noun. It refers to a specific group: the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were other important players not in attendance, but these fifty-five made up the core. Among the delegates were twenty-eight Episcopalians, eight Presbyterians, seven Congregationalists, two Lutherans, two Dutch Reformed, two Methodists, two Roman Catholics, one unknown, and only three deists- Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin. This took place at a time when church membership usually entailed "sworn adherence to strict doctrinal creeds." This tally proves that 51 of 55 -a full 93 percent- of the members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political underpinnings of our nation were Christians, not deists. — Gregory Koukl

Remember this phrase: Get Paid, Get Laid, Lose Weight because those are the three things people will pay for. — James Altucher

"On my honor" - what an ennobling phrase! Three short words, nine letters, but the summation of all we call character. From the Boy Scout's Oath. — Ezra Taft Benson

I think that three-act fundamentalism in film culture is a problem sometimes, because it's almost too obvious, or it's too expected. And it's not the only way to fill two hours, or to phrase things, or to order thoughts, or order ideas. — Jane Campion

A phrase such as 'the idea derived from evolution that ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis' for example, not impossibly intricate in itself but somehow resistant to effort, as though it triggered something obdurate and even delinquent in his mind. Or the promise to look at an argument from three points of view, each of which had five salient features, the first of which had four distinguishable aspects. It was like discovering that a supposedly sane person with whom one had been enjoying a perfect normal conversation was in fact quite mad. Or, if not mad, sadistic. — Howard Jacobson

She went to the public school that the three youngest girls attended and in halting English told the teacher that the children must be encouraged to speak only English; they were not to use a German word or phrase ever. In that way, she protected them against their father. She grieved when her children had to leave school after the sixth grade and go out working. She grieved when they married no-account men. She wept when they gave birth to daughters, knowing that to be born a woman meant a life of humble hardship. Each — Betty Smith

Let me phrase it like this - do you want to live in the kitchen for the next four days, sweating your ass off while you make a meal it will take twenty minutes to eat? Do you want to attack a pile of dishes for three hours afterward? Do you want to spend a week eating old turkey and cranberry sauce because — Jen Lancaster

The most interesting thing about writing is the way that it obliterates time. Three hours seem like three minutes. Then there is the business of surprise. I never know what is coming next. The phrase that sounds in the head changes when it appears on the page. Then I start probing it with a pen, finding new meanings. Sometimes I burst out laughing at what is happening as I twist and turn sentences. Strange business, all in all. One never gets to the end of it. That's why I go on, I suppose. To see what the next sentences I write will be. — Gore Vidal

[Ognev] recalled endless, heated, purely Russian arguments, when the wranglers, spraying spittle and banging their fists on the table, fail to understand yet interrupt one another, themselves not even noticing it, contradict themselves with every phrase, change the subject, then, having argued for two or three hours, begin to laugh. — Anton Chekhov

It's so important to keep a marriage alive with small treats and doing little things for each other. Just remembering to say nice things and to have listening time is vital. That ghastly phrase 'quality time' means taking three minutes to sit down and be still with someone rather than yelling over your shoulder as you rush out. — Joanna Lumley

Presently, I sense within me the slightest touch. The harmony of one chord lingers in my mind. It fuses, divides, searches
but for what? I open my eyes, position the fingers of my right hand on the buttons, and play out a series of permutations.
After a time, I am able, as if by will, to locate the first four notes. They drift down from inward skies, softly, as early morning sunlight. They find me; these are the notes I have been seeking.
I hold down the chord key and press the individual notes over and over again. The four notes seem to desire further notes, another chord. I strain to hear the chord that follows. The first four notes lead me to the next five, then to another chord and three more notes.
It is a melody. Not a complete song, but the first phrase of one. I play the three chords and twelve notes, also, over and over again. It is a song, I realize, I know. — Haruki Murakami