Quotes about few
page 2

“Gordon put his hand against the swing door. He even pushed it open a few inches. The warm fog of smoke and beer slipped through the crack. A familiar, reviving smell; nevertheless as he smelled it his nerve failed him. No! Impossible to go in. He turned away. He couldn't go shoving into that saloon bar with only fourpence halfpenny in his pocket. Never let other people buy your drinks for you! The first commandment of the moneyless. He made off down the dark pavement.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 4

People, Drink, Beer

“David Frost: What would you like people to think about you when you've gone?
Muhammad Ali: I'd like for them to say:
He took a few cups of love.
He took one tablespoon of patience,
One teaspoon of generosity,
One pint of kindness.
He took one quart of laughter,
One pinch of concern.
And then, he mixed willingness with happiness.
He added lots of faith,
And he stirred it up well.
Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime,
And he served it to each and every deserving person he met.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

"Recipe of life" video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7iPACdA1HQ Interview with David Frost (1974)

Love, Happiness, People, Faith

“Chandiri I stormed in 934 A. H. (1528 A. D.) and, by God's pleasure, took it in a few hours; in it was Rana Sanga's great and trusted man Midni Rao, we made general massacre of the Pagans in it and, as will be narrated, converted what for many years had been a mansion of hostility, into a mansion of Islam.”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

Baburnama https://archive.org/stream/baburnama017152mbp#page/n551/mode/2up, translated by Annette Beveridge

God, Hostility, Pleasure

“You know, a landscape painter's day is delightful. You get up early, at three o'clock in the morning, before sunrise; you go and sit under a tree; you watch and wait. At first there is nothing much to be seen. Nature looks like a whitish canvas with a few broad outlines faintly sketched in; all is misty, everything quivers in the cool dawn breeze. The sky lights up. The sun has not yet burst through the gauze veil that hides the meadow, the little valley, the hill on the horizon... Ah, a first ray of sunshine!”

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875) French landscape painter and printmaker in etching

Corot's description of the beginning of a day in Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963
1850s

Nature, Tree, Light, Waiting

“Often he was a joy, and you know, he was one of the few people I ever learned anything from.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Herzog on Herzog (2002), On Klaus Kinski

People, Learning, Joy

“For every struggle that Joe survived,
For every dispute he endured, to rise,
Joe will go down in history
as a model for champions to come. While Frazier was a man of few words, Ali was a world of mouth, but he found his place in history. Now his heart can express him well. Joe Frazier was a silent warrior, whom Ali silently admired. One could not rise without the other.”

Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly

"The Silent Warrior", p. 114
The Soul of a Butterfly (2004)

World, History, Heart

“Few men are controlled by reason, and few are pleased by a right purpose. The mob, rather, is led to what was plainly invented for oblivion of its cares. For it supposes that whatever serves its pleasure must also be linked to the happiness of the age. Therefore, let us grant the expenses, and not be forever giving from rational considerations. Sometimes it is useful to play the fool, and so control the joys the people long for.”

Cassiodorus Variae

Bk. 3, no. 51; pp. 70-71.
Variae

Men, Happiness, People, Pleasure

“Divine incarnations do not come to bring a new or exclusive religion, but to restore the One Religion of God-realization.
Many are the churches and temples founded in his name, often prosperous and powerful, but where is the communion that he stressed — actual contact with God? Jesus wants temples to be established in human souls, first and foremost; then established outwardly in physical places of worship. Instead, there are countless huge edifices with vast congregations being indoctrinated in churchianity, but few souls who are really in touch with Christ through deep prayer and meditation.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, (2004) by Yogananda

God, Religion, Soul, Christ

“…he had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his "Zen" method of navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 4

Cars, Success

“My career is one of the few that started at the absolute top and then worked its way down. That was lonely.”

Björn Andrésen (1955) actor, musician

Quoted in Matt Seaton, "I feel used," The Guardian, 16 October 2003

Way

“How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history — greater than the fall of empires — I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

On the Heights of Despair (1934)

World, Feeling, History, Thinking

“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity…of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that —- young as I am — I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or disgruntled.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (4 April 1787), from The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas by Andrew Steptoe [Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-198-16221-9], p. 84.

Death, God, Happiness, Lie

“Destination and paths. Many people are obstinate about the path once it is taken, few people about the destination.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 494
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation

People

“I eagerly await tomorrow's mail to have news of Russia and Poland. For now, I have to content myself with a few vague rumors which float around. I have heard about new, bloody skirmishes in Poland between the people and troops; I was told that, even in Russia, there was a conspiracy against the czar and the whole royal family.
I am equally passionate about the struggle between the North and the Southern American states. Of course, my heart goes out to the North. But alas! It is the South who acted with the most force, wisdom, and solidarity, which makes them worthy of the triumph they have received in every encounter so far. It is true that the South has been preparing for war for three years now, while the North has been forced to improvise. The surprising success of the ventures of the American people, for the most part happy; the banality of the material well being, where the heart is absent; and the national vanity, altogether infantile and sustained with very little cost; all seem to have helped deprave these people, and perhaps this stubborn struggle will be beneficial to them in so much as it helps the nation regain its lost soul. This is my first impression; but it could very well be that I will change my mind upon seeing things up close. The only thing is, I will not have enough time to examine really closely.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Letter http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/letters/toherzenandogareff.html to Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and Ogareff from San Francisco (3 October 1861); published in Correspondance de Michel Bakounine (1896) edited by Michel Dragmanov

Wisdom, War, Happiness, People

“In the pursuit of truth we must beware of being misled by terms which we do not rightly understand. That is the chief point. Almost all philosophers utter the caution; few observe it.”

George Berkeley book De Motu

Paragraph 1.
De Motu (1721)

Truth, Understanding

“[T]here is something wrong with a regime that requires a pyramid of corpses every few years.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Letter to Humphry House, (11 April 1940). p. 532 http://books.google.com/books?id=0j2qODEJkdoC&pg=PA532#v=onepage&q&f=false, The Collected Essays, Journalism, & Letters, George Orwell: An age like this, 1920–1940, Editors: Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus

“The design of this Memoir is to deduce strictly from a few principles, obtained chiefly by experiment, the rationale of those electrical phenomena which are produced by the mutual contact of two or more bodies, and which have been termed galvanic; its aim is attained if by means of it the variety of facts be presented as unity to the mind.”

Georg Ohm (1789–1854) German physicist and mathematician

Introductory sentence of [Georg Simon Ohm, The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically, translated by William Francis, D. Van Nostrand Co, 1891, 11]

“I don't want to create a revolution — I just want to create a few more films.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

In response to journalist for comments on United States Attorney-General's announcement to revoke his re-entry visa, Cherbourg, England, as quoted in "Mr. Chaplin's Defense", The Guardian (23 September 1952)
Context: I am not a political man and I have no political convictions. I am an individual and a believer in liberty. That is all the politics I have. On the other hand I am not a super-patriot. Super-patriotism leads to Hitlerism — and we've had our lesson there. I don't want to create a revolution — I just want to create a few more films.

“In the France of the Third Republic all but a very few of the newspapers could notoriously be bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"The Lion and the Unicorn" (1941)
Context: Is the English press honest or dishonest? At normal times it is deeply dishonest. All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news. Yet I do not suppose there is one paper in England that can be straightforwardly bribed with hard cash. In the France of the Third Republic all but a very few of the newspapers could notoriously be bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese.

“Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simply duty”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

Address to the National Prayer Breakfast (3 February 1994) http://www.ewtn.com/New_library/breakfast.htm. Unsourced variant or paraphrase: I think it is very good when people suffer. To me, that is like the kiss of Jesus. 1990s Context: Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simply duty, for you and for me, because Jesus has very clearly stated, "Be ye holy as my father in heaven is holy." So let us pray for each other that we grow in love for each other, and through this love become holy as Jesus wants us to be for he died out of love for us. One day I met a lady who was dying of cancer in a most terrible condition. And I told her, I say, "You know, this terrible pain is only the kiss of Jesus — a sign that you have come so close to Jesus on the cross that he can kiss you." And she joined her hands together and said, "Mother Teresa, please tell Jesus to stop kissing me".

“If the child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system.”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

Children from the Laboratory (May 1973), An Interview in Prism Magazine
Context: Watson: Our society just hasn't faced up to this problem. In a primitive society, if you saw that a baby was deformed, you would abandon it on a hillside. Today this isn't permissible, and with our medicine getting better and better in the sense of being able to keep sick people alive longer, we are going to produce more people living wretched lives. I don't know how you get a society to change on such a basic issue; infanticide isn't regarded lightly by anyone. Fortunately, now through such techniques as amniocentesis, parents can often learn in advance whether their child will be normal and healthy or hopelessly deformed. They then can choose either to have the child or opt for a therapeutic abortion. But the cruel fact remains that because of the present limits of such detection methods, most birth defects are not discovered until birth. If the child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice that only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so chose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.

Birth, Parent

“All that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of God.
We build slowly and destroy swiftly. Our Ancient Brethren who built the Temples at Jerusalem, with many myriad blows felled, hewed, and squared the cedars, and quarried the stones, and car»ed the intricate ornaments, which were to be the Temples. Stone after stone, by the combined effort and long toil of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master, the walls arose; slowly the roof was framed and fashioned; and many years elapsed, before, at length, the Houses stood finished, all fit and ready for the Worship of God, gorgeous in the sunny splendors of the atmosphere of Palestine. So they were built. A single motion of the arm of a rude, barbarous Assyrian Spearman, or drunken Roman or Gothic Legionary of Titus, moved by a senseless impulse of the brutal will, flung in the blazing brand; and, with no further human agency, a few short hours sufficed to consume and melt each Temple to a smoking mass of black unsightly ruin.
Be patient, therefore, my Brother, and wait!
The issues are with God: To do,
Of right belongs to us.
Therefore faint not, nor be weary in well-doing! Be not discouraged at men's apathy, nor disgusted with their follies, nor tired of their indifference! Care not for returns and results; but see only what there is to do, and do it, leaving the results to God! Soldier of the Cross! Sworn Knight of Justice, Truth, and Toleration! Good Knight and True! be patient and work!”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XIX : Grand Pontiff, p. 321

Men, God, Truth, Justice

“If one harbours anywhere in one's mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible. Here are just a few examples. I list below five types of nationalist, and against each I append a fact which it is impossible for that type of nationalist to accept, even in his secret thoughts:
: BRITISH TORY. Britain will come out of this war with reduced power and prestige.
: COMMUNIST. If she had not been aided by Britain and America, Russia would have been defeated by Germany.
: IRISH NATIONALIST. Eire can only remain independent because of British protection.
: TROTSKYIST. The Stalin regime is accepted by the Russian masses.
: PACIFIST. Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.
All of these facts are grossly obvious if one's emotions do not happen to be involved: but to the kind of person named in each case they are also intolerable, and so they have to be denied, and false theories constructed upon their denial. I come back to the astonishing failure of military prediction in the present war. It is, I think, true to say that the intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Notes on Nationalism (1945)

War, People, Secret, Fools

“Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A world of optimism and hope. A 'you can do it' when things are tough. ”

Richard M. DeVos (1926–2018) American businessman

World, Smile, Hope, Optimism

“I concluded that women are flawed. There is something mentally wrong with the way their brains are wired, as if they haven’t evolved from animal-like thinking. They are incapable of reason or thinking rationally. They are like animals, completely controlled by their primal, depraved emotions and impulses. That is why they are attracted to barbaric, wild, beast-like men. They are beasts themselves. Beasts should not be able to have any rights in a civilized society. If their wickedness is not contained, the whole of humanity will be held back from advancement to a more civilized state. Women should not have the right to choose who to mate with. That choice should be made for them by civilized men of intelligence. If women had the freedom to choose which men to mate with, like they do today, they would breed with stupid, degenerate men, which would only produce stupid, degenerate offspring. This in turn would hinder the advancement of humanity. Not only hinder it, but devolve humanity completely. Women are like a plague that must be quarantined. When I came to this brilliant, pefect revelation, I felt like everything was now clear to me, in a bitter, twisted way. I am one of the few people on this world who has the intelligence to see this. I am like a god, and my purpose is to exact ultimate Retribution on all of the impurities I see in the world.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Women, Men, God, People

“The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief. A man who saw clearly and with open eyes and was then living could see how this miracle took place and how the whole of a society could, in a single day, be transformed. In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 22

Life, Men, People, Jealousy

“The pursuit of success is marked by numerous characteristics; including, perseverance, commitment, education, and wisdom, to name a few. The road to failure can also be described with countless personality traits, including, unreliable, indolence, ignorance, and ineptitude.
However, during my thirty years as an administrator I have witnessed the most significant rationale for failure that cannot be described in a single word. It is a characteristic some people possess, often referred to by psychologists as the, need-to-be-liked-syndrome. Unfortunately, for some, their existence is predicated upon pleasing others, and seeking approval and recognition. They have become an inmate or prisoner to the thoughts and opinions of others.
In other words, they lack self-value, and therefore must receive it from others. When you do not value yourself, then it will be difficult to obtain joy and contentment in one’s life. Remember; you have worth and value.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1997

Life, Wisdom, People, Education

“In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: “Bookshop Memories” in Fortnightly (November 1936)

Money, Time

“All know the way; few actually walk it.”

Bodhidharma (483–540) Chinese philosopher and Buddhist Monk

Way

“My body is my work. You have to be patient. Maybe you don’t see the difference after a few months, but after a few years you will see why you can play longer and stay on a higher level longer.”

Robert Lewandowski (1988) Polish association football player

"Robert Lewandowski, a force for Bayern Munich, faces an uphill climb with underdog Poland" https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/06/16/robert-lewandowski-poland-euro-2020/ (June 16, 2021)

“Patriots are few and far between when tyranny is strong. As the tyrant falls, patriots abound. But their patriotism is suspect. Accept no revolutionary leader who has not paid his dues with longevity, determination, sacrifice, defiance, dedication to unvarnished truth and love of his people.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Revolution by Number

Love, People, Truth, Strong

“Good and few opportunities come openly, better and more opportunities accompany challenges while the best and most opportunities come in the form of challenges.”

- Goa

“In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau book The Social Contract

Source: The Social Contract

“In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.”

Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States

Love, People, Silence, Night

“For a few seconds they looked silently into each other's eyes, and the distant and impossible suddenly became near, possible, and inevitable.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Distant

“For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Way, Thinking

“But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.”

Karl Marx book The Communist Manifesto

Source: The Communist Manifesto

“Few things are hidden from a quiet child with good eyesight.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen. Few in pursuit of the goal.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“I was born when he kissed me, I died when he left me, I lived a few weeks while he loved me”

Dorothy B. Hughes book In a Lonely Place

Variant: I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.
Source: In a Lonely Place

Love, Kiss

“Paul and I know each other on a lot of different levels that very few people know about.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

People

“A few fly bites cannot stop a spirited horse.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Horse, Flying

“I am afeard there are few die well that die in battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument?”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: Henry V

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Source: As quoted in "My Philosophy of Industry" an interview of Ford by Fay Leone Faurote, The Forum, Vol. 79, No. 4 (April 1928), p. 481;

also in "Thinking Is Hardest Work, Therefore Few Engage in It", San Francisco Chronicle (13 April 1928), p. 25;

both articles are cited as the primary sources of other variants which later arose, in https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/05/so-few "Thinking Is the Hardest Work There Is, which Is the Probable Reason Why So Few Engage In It" in Quote Investigator (5 April 2016)

Thinking

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured but only few should be chewed and digested thouroughly”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Books

“Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Thinking

“Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Men

“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Life, Loss

“In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's there are few.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Prologue
Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1973)
Variant: In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few
Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

“Few of us ever live in the present. We are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.”

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

People, Intelligence

“Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Friendship

“There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“If you don't make a few ememies now and then, you're a coward-or worse. Besides, it as worth it to see his reaction. Oh, he was angry!
- Angela to Eragon”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

“People who have no vices, have very few virtues.”

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

According to The Inner Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867) by F. B. Carpenter, Lincoln quoted this as having been said to him by a fellow-passenger in a stagecoach. See also "Washington during the War", Macmillan's Magazine 6:24 http://books.google.com/books?id=rB4AAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA24&dq=folks (May 1862) Posthumous attributions Variant: It's my experience that folks who have no vices have generally very few virtues.

People

“Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)

Men

“If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.”

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

As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed

Happiness, People, World, Happy

“Very few people do this any more. It's too risky. First of all, it's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

People, Hell

“Few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later--no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover or how much we learn or forget--we will return.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)

Books, World, Way, Thinking

“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Love, Money

“I make myself rich by making my wants few.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“What do you think dignity's all about?'

The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. 'It's rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,' I said. 'But I suspect it comes down to not removing one's clothing in public.”

Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day

Source: The Remains of the Day

Thinking, Clothes

“So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

“When you can have anything you want by uttering a few words, the goal matters not, only the journey to it.”

Christopher Paolini book Eldest

Rhunon
Source: Eldest (2005)

“If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Thinking

“Few in this world are ever simply nasty; those who hurt us are themselves in pain. The appropriate response is hence never cynicism nor aggression but, at the rare moments one can manage it, always love.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Course of Love

Love, Pain, World, Hurt

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Actually from State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin, paraphrasing Marx in The Civil War in France.
Misattributed

“My father always said I would do something big one day. he’d tell me, after he’d had a few beers. And he was right, my old man.

I was in prison before my eighteenth birthday.”

Ozzy Osbourne book I Am Ozzy

Source: I Am Ozzy

Birthday, Beer

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

“His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few.”

Terry Pratchett book Maskerade

Source: Maskerade

Life, Sense

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Women, Age, World, Religion

“There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
Someone had stolen a book.”

Terry Pratchett book Guards! Guards!

Source: Guards! Guards!

Books, Soul

“Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.”

Alice Munro book Runaway

Source: Runaway (2004)
Context: This is what happens. You put it away for a little while, and now and again you look in the closet for something else and you remember, and you think, soon. Then it becomes something that is just there, in the closet, and other things get crowded in front of it and on top of it and finally you don't think about it at all.
The thing that was your bright treasure. You don't think about it. A loss you could not contemplate at one time, and now it becomes something you can barely remember.
This is what happens.
Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you.

People

“What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.”

Louis Sachar (1954) American writer of children's books

Books, Feeling

“Houses are like books: so many of them around you, yet you only look at a few and visit or reside in fewer still.”

Milorad Pavić (1929–2009) Serbian writer

Books, Housing

“In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places.”

Alice Munro book Too Much Happiness

Source: "Too Much Happiness", in Too Much Happiness (2009)

Life

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Death, People, Fools

“Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

Wisdom

“The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Human, All Too Human

II.137
Human, All Too Human (1878)

“I went to collect the few personal belongings which… I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Travel, Cats, Solitude, Personality

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few,”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to Bushrod Washington http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushrod_Washington (15 January 1783) 1780s Context: Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

“Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.”

Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

Life, Books, Game, Learning

“Money doesn't buy happiness, Gytha."
"I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks!”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Money, Happiness

“The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

“There are old swordsmen and bold swordsmen. But few old, bold swordsmen.”

Jim Butcher book Academ's Fury

Source: Academ's Fury

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

The New Quotable Einstein
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

People

“I forgot my purse of laughter when I dressed this mornin'," she told me. "Have you not bought anythin' the last few days? Prices have gone up. Pay or starve, it's all one to me.”

Tamora Pierce book Bloodhound

Source: Bloodhound

Laughter

“Some people—and I am one of them—hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pnin

Source: Pnin

Hate, Happiness, People, Feeling

“The guy I'd felt such an immediate and deep connection to I'd thought that just maybe there really were such things as soul mates, and had considered, at least for a few brief moments, that he might be mine.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

Guy, Soul

“The sky is already purple; the first few stars have appeared, suddenly, as if someone had thrown a handful of silver across the edge of the world.”

Alice Hoffman book Here on Earth

Source: Here on Earth

World, Star, Appearance

“We few. We happy few.
We band of brothers, for he today
That sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: Henry V

Happiness

“All men desire peace, but very few desire those things that make for peace.”

Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ

Source: The Imitation of Christ

Men, Peace

“The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

(1993), Epilogue, p. 155
The First Three Minutes (1977; second edition 1993)

Life, Understanding, Effort, Universe

“You deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

People, World

“Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects."”

Mark Twain book A Horse's Tale

Acknowledgements
Twain does not quote Herodotus here, he only sums up what he believes to have been Herodotus' approach to the writing of history. Nevertheless, this apocryphal statement is now often quoted as being the very words of Herodotus.
A Horse's Tale (1907)

Time

“THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU, Death continued. THEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL IN MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES. FASCINATING.”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

Death, World

“There are some few people I respect and admire, but I don't think much of the species.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

People, Thinking

“She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do.
And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find
herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

Death, Dance

“Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 164
Context: Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it. A strength which becomes clearer and stronger through its experience of such obstacles is the only strength that can conquer them. Resistance is only a waste of strength.

People, Way

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Quotes about few
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