Quotes about amount
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Stephen Hawking photo

“If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

"Handicapped People and Science" http://books.google.com/books?id=9LVFAAAAYAAJ&q=%22handicapped+people+and+science%22#search_anchor by Stephen Hawking, Science Digest 92, No. 9 (September 1984): 92 (details of citation from here http://www.enotes.com/stephen-hawking-criticism/hawking-stephen/further-reading).

Honoré de Balzac photo

“Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

On porte encore moins facilement la joie excessive que la peine la plus lourde.
Part II, ch. L
Letters of Two Brides (1841-1842)

Xavier Sala-i-Martin photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, Marriage and Morals (1929)

Suzanne Curchod photo

“A certain amount of distrust is wholesome, but not so much of others as of ourselves; neither vanity nor conceit can exist in the same atmosphere with it.”

Suzanne Curchod (1737–1794) French-Swiss salonist and writer

Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 197.

Abraham Lincoln photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Basil of Caesarea photo
Hans-Hermann Hoppe photo
Newton Lee photo
Peter Ustinov photo

“We have fought two wars to end war. In 1976, the nations of this world set aside the same amount of money for its starving children as the lavished on armaments every two hours.”

Dear Me (1977)
Context: We have fought two wars to end war. In 1976, the nations of this world set aside the same amount of money for its starving children as the lavished on armaments every two hours. Can any right-minded man afford to be a pessimist? That was a luxury for easier days. <!-- p. 167

Abraham Lincoln photo

“In those days, as I understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since then, such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation, as to amount almost to prohibition.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)
Context: In those days, as I understand, masters could, at their own pleasure, emancipate their slaves; but since then, such legal restraints have been made upon emancipation, as to amount almost to prohibition. In those days, Legislatures held the unquestioned power to abolish slavery in their respective States; but now it is becoming quite fashionable for State Constitutions to withhold that power from the Legislatures. In those days, by common consent, the spread of the black man's bondage to new countries was prohibited; but now, Congress decides that it will not continue the prohibition, and the Supreme Court decides that it could not if it would. In those days, our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all, and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, and sneered at, and construed, and hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it. All the powers of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon is after him; ambition follows, and philosophy follows, and the Theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him, and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred keys, which can never be unlocked without the concurrence of every key; the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is. It is grossly incorrect to say or assume, that the public estimate of the negro is more favorable now than it was at the origin of the government.

Isaac Newton photo

“Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

As quoted in Isaac Newton: Inventor, Scientist, and Teacher (1975) by John Hudson Tiner. "Atheism is so senseless" is a statement Newton made indeed in "A short Schem of the true Religion", but no source for the rest of this statement has been located prior to 1975. Part of this statement might originate as a summation of observations by Colin Maclaurin in his An Account of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophical Discoveries (1750), Book III, Ch. 5 http://books.google.com.au/books?id=yS1PAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA307#q=%22wisdom%20of%20the%20author%22: "On the quantity of watter and density of the sun and planets" : "… the earth … those planets which are nearer the sun are found to be more dense, by which they are enabled to bear the greater heat of the sun. This is the result of our most subtle enquiries into nature, that all things are in the best situations, and disposed by perfect wisdom. If our earth was carried down into the orb of Mercury, our ocean would boil and soon be dissipated into vapour, and dry land would become uninhabitable. If the earth was carried to the orb of Saturn, the ocean would freeze at so great a distance from the sun, and the cold would soon put a period to the life of plants and animals. A much less variation of the earth's distance from the sun than this would depopulate the torrid zone if the earth came nearer the sun, and the temperate zones, if it was carried from the sun. A less heat at Jupiter's distance … might be as fatal … proves on every occasion, the wisdom of the author."
Disputed

Michael Parenti photo

“Conservative pundits have a remarkable amount of free speech.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Free Speech-At A Price, p. 83
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Isaac Newton photo

“This was the first step made in the Christian religion towards the veneration of the Martyrs: and tho it did not yet amount to an unlawful worship; yet it disposed the Christians towards such a further veneration of the dead, as in a short time ended in the invocation of Saints.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 14: Of the Mahuzzims, honoured by the King who doth according to his will
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: Gregory Nyssen tells us, that after the persecution of the Emperor Decius, Gregory Bishop of Neocæsarea in Pontus, instituted among all people, as an addition or corollary of devotion towards God, that festival days and assemblies should be celebrated to them who had contended for the faith, that is, to the Martyrs. And he adds this reason for the institution: When he observed, saith Nyssen, that the simple and unskilful multitude, by reason of corporeal delights, remained in the error of idols; that the principal thing might be corrected among them, namely, that instead of their vain worship they might turn their eyes upon God; he permitted that at the memories of the holy Martyrs they might make merry and delight themselves, and be dissolved into joy. The heathens were delighted with the festivals of their Gods, and unwilling to part with those delights; and therefore Gregory, to facilitate their conversion, instituted annual festivals to the Saints and Martyrs. Hence it came to pass, that for exploding the festivals of the heathens, the principal festivals of the Christians succeeded in their room: as the keeping of Christmas with ivy and feasting, and playing and sports, in the room of the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia; the celebrating of May-day with flowers, in the room of the Floralia; and the keeping of festivals to the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and divers of the Apostles, in the room of the solemnities at the entrance of the Sun into the signs of the Zodiac in the old Julian Calendar. In the same persecution of Decius, Cyprian ordered the passions of the Martyrs in Africa to be registered, in order to celebrate their memories annually with oblations and sacrifices: and Felix Bishop of Rome, a little after, as Platina relates... "consulting the glory of the Martyrs, ordained that sacrifices should be celebrated annually in their name." By the pleasures of these festivals the Christians increased much in number, and decreased as much in virtue, until they were purged and made white by the persecution of Dioclesian. This was the first step made in the Christian religion towards the veneration of the Martyrs: and tho it did not yet amount to an unlawful worship; yet it disposed the Christians towards such a further veneration of the dead, as in a short time ended in the invocation of Saints.

Philip Larkin photo

“I came to the conclusion that an enormous amount of research was needed to form an opinion on anything, & therefore I abandoned politics altogether as a topic of conversation.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Letter from Belfast ( 5 August 1953) http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.com/2010/10/many-letters-of-philip-larkin.html to Monica Jones
Context: You know I don’t care at all for politics, intelligently. I found that at school when we argued all we did was repeat the stuff we had, respectively, learnt from the Worker, the Herald, Peace News, the Right Book Club (that was me, incidentally: I knew these dictators, Marching Spain, I can remember them now) and as they all contradicted each other all we did was get annoyed. I came to the conclusion that an enormous amount of research was needed to form an opinion on anything, & therefore I abandoned politics altogether as a topic of conversation. It’s true that the writers I grew up to admire were either non-political or Left-wing, & that I couldn’t find any Right-wing writer worthy of respect, but of course most of the ones I admired were awful fools or somewhat fakey, so I don’t know if my prejudice for the Left takes its origin there or not. But if you annoy me by speaking your mind in the other interest, it’s not because I feel sacred things are being mocked but because I can’t reply, not (as usual) knowing enough. … By the way, of course I’m terribly conventional, by necessity! Anyone afraid to say boo to a goose is conventional.

Abraham Lincoln photo

“If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in The Life and Public Service of Abraham Lincoln (1865) by Henry J. Raymond
Posthumous attributions
Context: If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Rabindranath Tagore photo

“We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916)
Context: We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity. The first question and the last which it has to answer is, Whether and how far it recognises man more as a spirit than a machine? Whenever some ancient civilisation fell into decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own love of freedom and fair-play. Civilisation can never sustain itself upon cannibalism of any form. For that by which alone man is true can only be nourished by love and justice.

Greta Thunberg photo
Douglas Murray photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“While I have not, as yet, actually effected a transmission of a considerable amount of energy, such as would be of industrial importance, to a great distance by this new method, I have operated several model plants under exactly the same conditions which will exist in a large plant of this kind, and the practicability of the system is thoroughly demonstrated. The experiments have shown conclusively that, with two terminals maintained at an elevation of not more than thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand feet above sea-level, and with an electrical pressure of fifteen to twenty million volts, the energy of thousands of horse-power can be transmitted over distances which may be hundreds and, if necessary, thousands of miles. I am hopeful, however, that I may be able to reduce very considerably the elevation of the terminals now required, and with this object I am following up an idea which promises such a realization. There is, of course, a popular prejudice against using an electrical pressure of millions of volts, which may cause sparks to fly at distances of hundreds of feet, but, paradoxical as it may seem, the system, as I have described it in a technical publication, offers greater personal safety than most of the ordinary distribution circuits now used in the cities. This is, in a measure, borne out by the fact that, although I have carried on such experiments for a number of years, no injury has been sustained either by me or any of my assistants.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Nikola Tesla photo

“For every person who perishes from the effects of a stimulant, at least a thousand die from the consequences of drinking impure water. This precious fluid, which daily infuses new life into us, is likewise the chief vehicle through which disease and death enter our bodies. The germs of destruction it conveys are enemies all the more terrible as they perform their fatal work unperceived. They seal our doom while we live and enjoy. The majority of people are so ignorant or careless in drinking water, and the consequences of this are so disastrous, that a philanthropist can scarcely use his efforts better than by endeavoring to enlighten those who are thus injuring themselves. By systematic purification and sterilization of the drinking water the human mass would be very considerably increased. It should be made a rigid rule which might be enforced by law to boil or to sterilize otherwise the drinking water in every household and public place. The mere filtering does not afford sufficient security against infection. All ice for internal uses should be artificially prepared from water thoroughly sterilized. The importance of eliminating germs of disease from the city water is generally recognized, but little is being done to improve the existing conditions, as no satisfactory method of sterilizing great quantities of water has yet been brought forward. By improved electrical appliances we are now enabled to produce ozone cheaply and in large amounts, and this ideal disinfectant seems to offer a happy solution of the important question.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Louis Farrakhan photo
Philip Kotler photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Alex Morgan photo

“When you have 12 teams in an Olympics in comparison to a World Cup where you have double that amount of teams, I think every single team is going to be difficult.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"‘Soccer Mom’ Alex Morgan Back And Looking For Gold In Tokyo" https://www.teamusa.org/News/2021/July/08/Soccer-Mom-Alex-Morgan-Back-And-Looking-For-Gold-In-Tokyo (July 8, 2021)

This quote waiting for review.
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, West India Emancipation (1857)
Context: Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. [... ] Men might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

Roald Dahl photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.”

Variant: I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth--then shut up.
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Dan Rather photo
Stephen King photo
William James photo
David Sedaris photo
Hanif Kureishi photo

“No amount of promises can guarantee love”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Love In A Blue Time

Albert Einstein photo
Robert Benchley photo

“Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

Quoted in The Algonquin Wits, (1968) by R E Drennan, p. 5

Haruki Murakami photo

“The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.”

Variant: Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to
wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.
Source: The Spectator Bird

D.H. Lawrence photo
Jeannette Walls photo
Joyce Meyer photo
Terry Goodkind photo
Cecelia Ahern photo
Meg Cabot photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Jonathan Safran Foer photo

“It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.”

Variant: While it is always possible to wake a person who's sleeping, no amount of noise will wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
Source: Eating Animals

Joss Whedon photo
Milan Kundera photo
Helen Keller photo
Ben Carson photo

“If we would spend on education half the amount of money that we currently lavish on sports and entertainment, we could provide complete and free education for every student in this country.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Confucius photo

“It is when those who are not strong enough have made some moderate amount of progress that they fail and give up…”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Wisdom Of Confucius

F. Scott Fitzgerald photo

“I want leisure to read—an immense amount.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Neal Stephenson photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Jim Morrison photo
Tom Perrotta photo
James Gleick photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
Jenny Offill photo
Nora Ephron photo

“…the amount of maintenance involving hair is genuinely overwhelming. Sometimes I think that not having to worry about your hair anymore is the secret upside of death.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: I Feel Bad about My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

“What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

Dorothy Parker photo

“If I didn't care for fun and such,
I'd probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

16 August 1925
Source: Enough Rope (1926)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Ian McEwan photo
David Sedaris photo
Philip Plait photo

“They say that even the brightest star won't shine forever. But in fact, the brightest star would live the shortest amount of time. Feel free to extract whatever life lesson you want from that.”

Philip Plait (1964) astronomer, skeptic

Source: Death from the Skies! (2008), p. 75-76
Source: Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End...

Ilya Prigogine photo

“We grow in direct proportion to the amount of chaos we can sustain and dissipate”

Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003) physical chemist

Source: Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature

Terry McMillan photo
Knut Hamsun photo
Max Brooks photo
Jeannette Walls photo
Cheryl Strayed photo
A.A. Milne photo
Gabrielle Zevin photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Dorothy Canfield Fisher photo
Margaret Thatcher photo
Tess Gerritsen photo
Edward Hopper photo