What Are Some Short Quotes & Sayings

The whole of the Sermon [Matt 5-7] is framed within Jesus's announcement that what his fellow Jews had longed for over many generations was now at last coming to pass - but that new kingdom didn't look like they had thought it would. Indeed, in some ways it went in exactly the other direction. No violence, no hatred of enemies, no anxious protection of land and property against the pagan hordes. In short, no frantic intensification of the ancestral codes of life. Rather, a glad and unworried trust in the creator God, whose kingdom is now at last starting to arrive, leading to a glad and generous heart toward other people, even those who are technically "enemies." Faith, hope, and love: here they are again. They are the language of life, the sign in the present of green shoots growing through the concrete of this sad old world, the indication that the creator God is on the move, and that Jesus's hearers and followers can be part of what he's now doing. — N. T. Wright

some linguists have also concluded that, while the innatist perspective provides a plausible explanation for first language acquisition, something else is required for second language acquisition, since it so often falls short of full success. From the cognitive psychology perspective, however, first and second language acquisition are seen as drawing on the same processes of perception, memory, categorization, and generalization. The difference lies in the circumstances of learning as well as in what the learners already know about language and how that prior knowledge shapes their perception of the new language. — Patsy M. Lightbown

Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over: Do you splurge or do you hoard? Do you live every day as if it's your last, or do you save your money on the chance you'll live twenty more years? Is life too short, or is it going to be too long? Do you work as hard as you can, or do you slow down to smell the roses? And where do carbohydrates fit into all this? Are we really all going to spend our last years avoiding bread, especially now that bread in American is so unbelievable delicious? And what about chocolate? — Nora Ephron

All of my short films are about marriages, and I think that this probably comes from some kind of unconscious fascination with my parents' story and what they went through. — Sarah Polley

There are no coincidences in life. What person that wandered in and out of your life was there for some purpose, even if they caused you harm. Sometimes, it doesn't make sense the short periods of time we get with people, or the outcomes from their choices. However, if you turn it over to God he promises that you will see the big picture in the hereafter. Nothing is too small to be a mistake. — Shannon L. Alder

Are you okay with what we ordered?" Angeline asked him. "You didn't pipe up with any requests."
Neil shook his head, face stoic. He kept his dark hair in a painfully short and efficient haircut. It was the kind of no-nonsense thing the Alchemists would've loved. "I can't waste time quibbling over trivial things like pepperoni and mushrooms. If you'd gone to my school in Devonshire, you'd understand. For one of my sophomore classes, they left us alone on the moors to fend for ourselves and learn survival skills. Spend three days eating twigs and heather, and you'll learn not to argue about any food coming your way."
Angeline and Jill cooed as though that was the most rugged, manly thing they'd ever heard. Eddie wore an expression that reflected what I felt, puzzling over whether this guy was as serious as he seemed or just some genius with swoon-worthy lines. — Richelle Mead

So we wait?" asked Severard.
"We wait, and we look to our defences. That and we try to find some money. Do you have any cash, Severard?"
"I did have some. I gave it to a girl, down in the slums."
"Ah. Shame."
"Not really, she fucks like a madman. I'd thoroughly recommend her, if you're interested."
Glokta winced as his knee clicked. "What a thoroughly heartwarming tale, Severard, I never had you down for a romantic. I'd sing a ballad if I wasn't so short of funds."
"I could ask around. How much are we talking about?"
"Oh, not much. Say, half a million marks?"
One of the Practical's eyebrows went up sharply. He reached into his pocket, dug around for a moment, pulled his hand out and opened it. A few copper coins shone in his palm.
"Twelve bits," he said. "Twelve bits is all I can raise. — Joe Abercrombie

Short story writers simply do what human beings have always done. They write stories because they have to; because they cannot rest until they have tried as hard as they can to write the stories. They cannot rest because they are human, and all of us need to speak into the silence of mortality, to interrupt and ever so briefly stop that quiet flow, and with stories try to understand at least some of it. — Andre Dubus

Life is too short to judge others. It is not our job to tell someone what they feel or who they are. Why not spend some time on yourself instead? I don't know you, but I can guarantee you have some issues you can work on. And maybe you've got a fit body and a perfect face, but I'll wager you've got insecurities too, ones that would keep you from stripping down to a purple bikini and modeling it in front of everyone.

As for the rest of you, remember this. YOU ARE WANTED. Big, small, tall, short, pretty, plain, friendly, shy. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise not even yourself.

Especially not yourself. — Jennifer Niven

Evan Connell said once that he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting the commas back in the same places. I like that way of working on something. I respect that kind of care for what is being done. That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they an best say what they are meant to say. If the words are heavy with the writer's own unbridled emotions, or if they are imprecise and inaccurate for some other reason
if the worlds are in any way blurred
the reader's eyes will slide right over them and nothing will be achieved. Henry James called this sort of hapless writing 'weak specification'. — Raymond Carver

Many years ago a friend assured me that we are all islands. Once in a while, another island travels along with us for a short stretch, and then it goes away, it slips off to some other place, and we never see each other again. Life is nothing more than a system of good-byes. Of releases. Of mutilations. The truth is we are incapable of giving anyone what they really need. — Luis Eduardo Reyes

Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it's some kind of "knack" or some kind of "affinity for machines" in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a "short between the earphones," failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. — Robert M. Pirsig

What are the gifts given to we who live Below?"
"Long life, health, strength, and happiness."
"What is the curse of those who live Above?"
"Short life, illness, weakness, and misery."
"Is this fair?"
"It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time of the Divide. Some have to stay Above so that humanity might survive Below."
"Then give thanks. — Ally Condie

I strongly believe in the fact
that there's still plenty of money and plenty of private equity capital
available around the globe. What are in short supply are great entrepreneurs
and great teams. A trading opportunity or a company's biggest
challenge is and has always been the team behind it. There's enormous
change under way in every facet of the world. Some is technology
driven, some is market driven. All that change creates unprecedented
opportunity, but to take full advantage of such opportunities I mostly
focus on the team. The right teams and right people behind those
opportunities always win. There is no secret sauce. Trading and investing
has, in my experience, boiled down to building relationships and
exchanging value. It consists of striking the right balance between
backing and interacting with the right teams with the right business
model at the right time and with the right amount of money. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

These are often the children of overbearing narcissistic parents who cannot tolerate the teenager's growing need for separateness and threaten the child with psychological or actual abandonment as a punishment for exercising independence. The child considers the risks and decides prematurely to do what is expected, becoming a doctor. . .without first engaging in a journey of self-discovery. When the parents' or culture's roles and values are adopted wholesale and without examination, the process of establishing a personal identity is short-circuited. Some of these individuals rework this struggle more successfully later in life, while others are never free from the narcissistic web and only feel good when they are pleasing someone other than themselves. — Sandy Hotchkiss

When all is said and done, we are in the end absolutely dependent on the universe; and into sacrifices and surrenders of some sort, deliberately looked at and accepted, we are drawn and pressed as into our only permanent positions of repose. Now in those states of mind which fall short of religion, the surrender is submitted to as an imposition of necessity, and the sacrifice is undergone at the very best without complaint. In the religious life, on the contrary, surrender and sacrifice are positively espoused: even unnecessary givings-up are added in order that the happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and felicitous what in any case is necessary. — William James

A famous preacher had a friend who was well known for his short temper. One day, at a party, he asked this friend to help him serve some drinks. The preacher himself poured the drinks, deliberately filling several of the glasses a bit too full. He then passed the tray to his friend. As they walked into the room to distribute the drinks, he accidentally-on-purpose bumped into the friend, causing the tray to jiggle and some of the drinks to slosh over the brim and spill. "There you are, you see," said the preacher. "When you're jolted, what spills out is whatever is filling you." When you're suddenly put to the test and don't have time to think about how you're coming across, your real nature will come out. That's why character needs to go all the way through: whatever fills you will spill out. And it's up to you to do something about it. — N. T. Wright

There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage. — Barack Obama

I.Q. deficiency. There are some people who are an order of fries short of a Happy Meal, and what is often a characteristic about every one of these people is that they don't know it. They have no idea how incompetent or stupid they are. It's the exact opposite. They have the loftiest, highest self-image. — Rush Limbaugh

You can cruise the world's millions of omega-3 Web sites without encountering any reflections about where these prized fatty acids are coming from and at what social or environmental cost. For some people, what goes into their bodies has become an overriding obsession. Perhaps we are witnessing a successor to the Me Generation
namely, the Don't Care About the Rest of the World as Long as I Have a Spa and Some Omega-3 Fatty Acids Generation. Let's call it the Omega-3 Generation for short. Or is that thought just too depressing? — Charles Clover

Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious and their method too clearly defined. One exhausts what they have to say in a very short time, and then they become as tedious as one's relations. — Oscar Wilde

We are all going to fall short. We are going to have some bitter losses, very painful defeats and failures. We have to use those to come back even stronger. That's what makes it sweeter, when we can overcome those and figure out a way to win. The great teams can do that, and those are the gold medal winning teams. — Karch Kiraly

There are little wisps of jelly in a living brain. Deagle knows this well: neurons, transmitting signals - and the soul, so to speak, is somewhere in those flashes. He heard once on a science program that the spindle cell - present in humans, whales, some apes, elephants - may be at the heart of what we call our "selves."
What we recognize in the mirror - that thread we follow through time that we call "me"? It's just a diatom, a paramecium, a bit of ganglia that branches and shudders assertively. A brief brain orgasm, like lightning.
In short, it's all chemicals. You can regiment it easily enough: fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, escitalopram, citalopram - the brain can be washed clean, and you can reset yourself, Ctrl+Alt+Del. You don't have to be a prisoner of your memories and emotions. — Dan Chaon

You can, in short, lead the life of the mind, which is, despite some appalling frustrations, the happiest life on earth. And one day, in the thick of this, approaching some partial vision, you will (I swear) find yourself on the receiving end of - of all things - an "idea for a story," and you will, God save you, start thinking about writing some fiction of your own. Then you will understand, in what I fancy might be a blinding flash, that all this passionate thinking is what fiction is about, that all those other fiction writers started as you did, and are laborers in the same vineyard. — Annie Dillard

Page holds Musk up as a model he wishes others would emulate - a figure that should be replicated during a time in which the businessmen and politicians have fixated on short-term, inconsequential goals. "I don't think we're doing a good job as a society deciding what things are really important to do," Page said. "I think like we're just not educating people in this kind of general way. You should have a pretty broad engineering and scientific background. You should have some leadership training and a bit of MBA training or knowledge of how to run things, organize stuff, and raise money. I don't think most people are doing that, and it's a big problem. Engineers are usually trained in a very fixed area. When you're able to think about all of these disciplines together, you kind of think differently and can dream of much crazier things and how they might work. I think that's really an important thing for the world. That's how we make progress. — Ashlee Vance

What does somebody like you want? More power? More toys? More sex?"
"All of the above. All the time."
"Greedy bugger."
"Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshipping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, smarter, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. Not greedy, Dani. Alive. And happy about it every single fucking day. — Karen Marie Moning

Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshiping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. — Karen Marie Moning

We diversify in two ways. First, we probably trade more markets worldwide than any other money manager. Second, we don't just use a single best system. To provide balance, we use lots of different systems ranging from short to long term. Some of these systems may not be that good by themselves, but we really don't care; that is not what they are there for. — Larry Hite

In the morning this light breasts your windowpane and, having pried your eye open like a shell, runs ahead of you, strumming its lengthy rays - like a hot-footed schoolboy running his stick along the iron grate of the park or garden - along arcades, colonnades, red-brick chimneys, saints and lions. "Depict! Depict!" it cries to you, either mistaking you for some Canaletto or Carpaccio or Guardi, or because it doesn't trust your retina's ability to retain what it makes available, not to mention your brain's capacity to absorb it. Perhaps art is simply an organism's reaction against its retentive limitations. At any rate, you obey the command and grab your camera, supplementing both your brain cells and your pupil. Should this city ever be short of cash, it can go straight to Kodak for assistance - or else tax its products savagely. By the same token, as long as this place exists, as long as winter light shines upon it, Kodak shares are the best investment. — Joseph Brodsky

No, the Boss corrected, I'm not a lawyer. I know some law ... but I'm not a lawyer. That's why I can see what the law is like. It's like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks in the bed and a cold night. There ain't ever enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling and hauling, and somebody is always going to nigh catch pneumonia. Hell, the law is like the pants you bought last year for a growing boy, but it is always this year and the seams are popped and the shankbone's to the breeze. The law is always too short and too tight for growing humankind. The best you can do is do something and then make up some law to fit and by the time that law gets on the books you would have done something different. — Robert Penn Warren

Q: Why don't boys talk?
A: Boys do talk! You watch a group of them from a distance you will see that their lips are moving. They are probably making hand gestures as well. But what are they talking about?
I do my hare of talking with my guy friends, but I have no idea what we talk bout. guys have absolutely no short-term memory for conversations. This is why a girl can have a long, heart-to-heart talk with her sweetie, and the next day she makes some reference to what they talked about, and he looks at her with utter incomprehension and says, "Huh?"
The reason for this forgetfulness is that guys almost never anything in conversation that is worth remembering. — Pete Hautman

Everyone can be in a relationship. And being in a relationship doesn't means that you have to catch each other hands and walk in-front of everyone without caring anyone. Make conversations short and sweet..and to the point. Don't keep talking over the phones for hours with the things that doesn't makes sense. First priority should be parents. If wanna be in a relationship do it in a standard way. And first focus on what you should do. Do not prioritize your ambition on some one just without caring your parents.First focus on making life so that you can keep your parents and relationship happy. That when you are successful only then take a big step. — Lalit Sharma

Poems are surmountable. They have rhymes and rhythms to help you make meaning. They're short enough. . . to read and reread until you've made some sense of them. Short stories are a different ballgame. You read them and understand the words completely. You know what happens in each sentence. You follow the dialogue and action. at the end, you know exactly what's happened. And also you have no idea. — Laurie Frankel

It really is amazing how some young people feel that short stature and small minds are a sign of superiority. I wonder what ever happened to decency and courtesy? — L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Mystery is good."
He drummed his fingertips on my thigh. "Maybe.Maybe not. But I'll let it go. How about this: If I were to open the top drawer of your dresser, what would I find?"
"Are we back to discussing my underwear again?"
"Only in graphic detail ... " He flicked my sore knee, but not where the bruise was. "I keep loose change and my oldest comic books in mine. Some people have journals or photographs or awards ... "
"Okay,okay." I sighed. "Underwear," I said. "Two ancient swimsuits, and a magazine file."
"Of ... ?"
"Pictures I've pulled out of magazines."
"Yes,thank you. I gathered that. What's in it?"
I squirmed a little and contemplated lying. Travel pix, shoes, hints on getting glue off of Ultrasuede ... "Mostly pictures of models with short hair," I confessed finally. "It's sort of a goal of mine."
Alex reached up and wrapped a strand around his finger. "I like your hair," he said quietly, "but I think you'd look great whatever you did with it. — Melissa Jensen

I don't think I'm an exceptionally bad reader. I suspect that many people, maybe even most, are like me. We read and read and read,
and we forget and forget and forget. So why do we bother? Michel de Montaigne expressed the dilemma of extensive reading in the
sixteenth century: "I leaf through books, I do not study them," he wrote. "What I retain of them is something I no longer recognize as anyone else's.
It is only the material from which my judgment has profited, and the thoughts and ideas with which it has become imbued;
the author, the place, the words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget." He goes on to explain how "to compensate a
little for the treachery and weakness of my memory," he adopted the habit of writing in the back of every book a short critical
judgment, so as to have at least some general idea of what the tome was about and what he thought of it. — Joshua Foer

Sometimes men present a swagger that suggests a prowess, whether it's sexual or financial. L.A. seems to be a place where trying too hard is almost a given. Some people are unapologetic about how blatantly they represent who they are through what they wear or drive. Subtlety is in short supply. — Michael C. Hall

The main function of System 1 is to maintain and update a model of your personal world, which represents what is normal in it. The model is constructed by associations that link ideas of circumstances, events, actions, and outcomes that co-occur with some regularity, either at the same time or within a relatively short interval. As these links are formed and strengthened, the pattern of associated ideas comes to represent the structure of events in your life, and it determines your interpretation of the present as well as your expectations of the future. — Daniel Kahneman

Life is not a beauty contest, some [ugly people] are great. What I hate is nasty, ugly people ... the worst is ugly, short men. Women can be short, but for men it is impossible. It is something that they will not forgive in life ... they are mean and they want to kill you. — Karl Lagerfeld

Everything that I think that I need to do, is all in order to propel me to some place, that when I get there I think I will be happier. So, everything that I am doing, no matter what it is, all of my lists of rights and wrongs, are all about me getting to a manifestation, that I believe I will then be happier ... So why don't I just take the short cut and just be happy? — Esther Hicks

Reth reached out and took my fingers in his own, his touch light but comforting. "I've found that sacrifice is called that for a reason. We have all lost much of what we were or could have been because of the mistakes of my people. We'll yet lose some things to set it right. But when you join eternity, you will not feel the sting of this life with such intensity."
"You mean I wouldn't feel at all?"
"I feel, my love. Simply not in the same way you do. And thank heavens for that, because you are quite an embarrassment at times. Your inconsistent and flailing passions will no longer be a concern."
Leave it to Reth to go from comforting me to insulting me in the course of one short conversation. — Kiersten White

We go outside.
We rake the leaves.
We pile them way up high.
We jump on top.
We toss them up and watch the colors fly.
What can we do with all these leaves?
I know. I have a plan.
We run inside and find old clothes.
We'll make a pumpkin man.
We button all the buttons.
We tie up legs and sleeves.
We fill and stuff the body with lots of crunchy leaves.
We give him gloves.
We give him boots.
We're having so much fun.
It's time to pick a pumpkin head.
We'll find the nicest one.
Some are short and some are tall.
Some are bumpy.
Some are small.
We look around the pumpkin patch.
We find the best of all!
We cut the top to get inside.
We scoop out all the seeds.
We draw a face and cut it out.
A light is all it needs.
We go outside at sunset, put the pumpkin head in place.
Our pumpkin man smiles back at us with a happy, glowing face. — Judith Moffatt

I wanted to avoid what some modern tellers have done, quite legitimately, to make fairy tales more like novels and short stories, to characterize the heroes and the heroines much more than they are characterized in Grimm. I like the psychological flatness of them, the fact that they're more like masks than individuals. — Philip Pullman

There is, in short, nothing wrong and everything right with inside trading. If anything, inside traders should be hailed as heroes of the free market instead of being apprehended in chains. But, you say, it is "unfair" for some men to know more than others, and actually to profit by that knowledge. But what kind of a world-view dubs it "unfair" for some men to know more than others? It is the world-view of the egalitarian, who believes that any kind of superiority of one person over another - in ability, or knowledge, or income, or wealth - is somehow "unfair." But men are not ants or bees or robots; each individual is unique and different from others, and ability, talent, and wealth will therefore differ. — Anonymous

Live every moment - no matter where you are and what you're doing - as if it were truly important... you must strive to be in a good place - a place of purpose and integrity... Life is short under any circumstance and in some cases it can be plucked away at a moment's notice. — David Elliot Cohen

We're only here for a short while. And I think it's such a lucky accident, having been born, that we're almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are - as far as we know - the only part of the universe that's self-conscious. We could even be the universe's form of consciousness. We might have come along so that the universe could look at itself. I don't know that, but we're made of the same stuff that stars are made of, or that floats around in space. But we're combined in such a way that we can describe what it's like to be alive, to be witnesses. Most of our experience is that of being a witness. We see and hear and smell other things. I think being alive is responding. — Mark Strand

a world of known risk, in short, risk (Figure 2-3, center). I use this term for a world where all alternatives, consequences, and probabilities are known. Lotteries and games of chance are examples. Most of the time, however, we live in a changing world where some of these are unknown: where we face unknown risks, or uncertainty (Figure 2-3, right). The world of uncertainty is huge compared to that of risk. Whom to marry? Whom to trust? What to do with the rest of one's life? In an uncertain world, it is impossible to determine the optimal course of action by calculating the exact risks. We have to deal with "unknown unknowns." Surprises happen. Even when calculation does not provide a clear answer, however, we have to make decisions. — Gerd Gigerenzer

And before you say this is all far-fetched, just think how far the human race has come in the past ten years. If someone had told your parents, for example, that they would be able to carry their entire music library in their pocket, would they have believed it? Now we have phones that have more computing power than was used to send some of the first rockets into space. We have electron microscopes that can see individual atoms. We routinely cure diseases that only fifty years ago was fatal. and the rate of change is increasing. Today we are able to do what your parents would of dismissed as impossible and your grandparents nothing short of magical. — Nicolas Flamel

I hear what many of you are saying: We don't have the time, we are busy. Well Nobody Has Time, Everyone Is Busy. In the time it took you to read this post, your life just got a minute shorter. That is precisely why we read (and why some of us write): because life is short and finite, we want more, and literature is the distillation of all those lives we will not lead. — Jessica Zafra

That's the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn't really matter if it's short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that means having a good laugh at the bits of it that wobble independently, occasionally, that's all right. It might take you a while to believe me on this one, lots of people don't because they seem to suffer from self-hatred that precludes them from imagining that a big woman could ever love herself because they don't. But I do. I know what I've got is a bit strange and difficult to love but those are the very aspects that I love the most! It's a bit like people. I've never been particularly attracted to the uniform of conventional beauty. I'm always a bit suspicious of people who feel compelled to conform. I personally like the adventure of difference. And what's beauty, anyway? — Dawn French

Good," she replied. "That's why you show promise. Not only are you able to recognize your shortcomings, you have an undeniable hunger to change for the better and evolve. What's truly amazing is what you've become in so short a time. Most humans would have imploded after a fraction of what you've lived through." "Guess it comes from being stuck in a moment for so long, treading water and losing ground no matter how hard I swam. It's almost as if the current has shifted and now I'm swimming at blazing speeds like some human version of the Nautilus that has slipped into the Gulf Stream. — J.D. Estrada

There are some who would vow that life isn't fair. They believe the worst is yet to come, that evil will always conquer good, and that we have no control over our fate. It's true, there are storms that shake our foundations and monsters that threaten to tear us limb from limb. We will make terrible mistakes. We will fall short of our expectations. No one is exempt from pain and fear. But life, and what comes after, is a beautiful mixture of darkness and light, sacrifice and salvation. There is no fine line between the two, for both are needed. Where there is grief, there will be joy. Where there is heartbreak, love will follow. — Rebecca Harris

In the beginning we start with roses. The king's flower right? Only they wilt in less than a day, especially when exposed to the elements. But Carnations? Oh, what a beautiful flower. They come in every color. True, some are painted, but that doesn't mean they are less beautiful, and they never wilt. — Ruth McLeod-Kearns

Few minds are spacious; few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point. Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up. What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them! A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts. And in order to do this, these thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so that they are capable, finally, of maintaining a natural flexibility.
All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others; they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar. Night minds, minds of darkness. — Joseph Joubert

Things change," said the former Sunlord, "as we see." And once again he looked at Dairine. "You arrive for your people's first sight of you as Sunlord, and what do they also see, standing at your side? An alien, garbed in raiment much like that of Wellakhit royalty, wearing some other world's life-color, gemmed like a Guarantor. The rumors are flying already. Does another world have designs on the rule of ours? Either by straightforward conquest, or more intimate means?" Dairine's eyes went wide as what he meant sank in. "You mean they think that we - that I - You tell those people that they are completely nuts! Even if I were old enough to think about stuff like this, which I seriously am not, I have zero interest in being anybody's queen! Especially not his - " And then Dairine stopped short as she saw the peculiar look that had appeared on both Roshaun's and Nelaid's faces. "Uh," she said then, and blushed again. "Maybe there was a less tactful way I could have put that . . ." That — Diane Duane

What I tell young couples that are getting married is: you're going to have quarrels, and on some things, you're just going to have to agree to disagree. And when you go to bed at night, kiss each other and tell each other that you love each other. Don't go to bed mad. Life is too short. Keep it simple. — Si Robertson

No," the Boss (Willie) corrected, "I'm not a lawyer. I know some law. In fact, I know a lot of law. And I made me some money out of law. That's why I can see what the law is like. It's like a single-bed blanket on a double bed and three folks in the bed and a cold night. There ain't ever enough blanket to cover the case, no matter how much pulling and hauling, and somebody is always going to nigh catch pneumonia. Hell, the law is like the pants you bought last year for a growing boy, but it is always this year and the seams are popped and the shankbone's to the breeze. The law is too short and too tight for growing humankind. The best you can do is do something and then make up some law to fit and by the time that law gets onto the books you would have done something different ... " Willie Stark; All the King's Men — Robert Penn Warren

A religious belief ... is not a statement about Reality, but a hint, a clue about something that is a mystery, beyond the grasp of human thought. In short, a religious belief is only a finger pointing to the moon. Some religious people never get beyond the study of the finger. Others are engaged in sucking it. Others yet use the finger to gouge their eyes out. These are the bigots whom religion has made blind. Rare indeed is the religionist who is sufficiently detached from the finger to see what it is indicating - these are those who, having gone beyond belief, are taken for blasphemers. — Anthony De Mello

But even more than her diary, Shimamura was surprised at her statement that she had carefully cataloged every novel and short story she had read since she was fifteen or sixteen. The record already filled ten notebooks.
"You write down your criticisms, do you?"
"I could never do anything like that. I just write down the author and the characters and how they are related to each other. That is about all."
"But what good does it do?"
"None at all."
"A waste of effort."
"A complete waste of effort," she answered brightly, as though the admission meant little to her. She gazed solemnly at Shimamura, however.
A complete waste of effort. For some reason Shimamura wanted to stress the point. But, drawn to her at that moment, he felt a quiet like the voice of the rain flow over him. He knew well enough that for her it was in fact no waste of effort, but somehow the final determination that it had the effect of distilling and purifying the woman's existence. — Yasunari Kawabata

It doesn't matter whether someone thinks I'm
short or tall, but it matters if I stand tall in my own
eyes - because I know my disciplines, I know what
I'm doing, I know whether I'm doing it or not doing it.
It doesn't have to be published in some local paper,
as long as I know that I'm paying the price and that I
deserve the applause and I deserve the prize. That's
what's exciting. That's why this goal setting is so
important. It challenges you to grow. It challenges
you to become more than you are, to move up to the
next level. And that's key. — Jim Rohn

Familiarity provides us with a sense of security. We repeat the same old patterns because we know what the outcome will be. The same cannot be said with new patterns, as the results we get may be more unpredictable and fill us with uncertainty. The problem here is that the old patterns are just enough for you and that trying something new can have some short-term costs and growth pains that you are not willing to go through. Yet if you want to change something, you have to be willing to pay those costs. This means that you should embrace — Charles Duncan

Peppermint Patty's team is short a glove, so I'm walking over to lend them mine."
"You're kidding! Don't you think they're taking advantage of you?"
"No, I'm doing it because I want to do it."
"What are you, some kind of mystic?! — Charles M. Schulz