Quotes about few (4560 quotes, page 7) | Quotes of famous people

“No state, no government exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Give Me Liberty (1936)
Context: The picture of the economic revolution as the final step to freedom was false as soon as I asked myself that question. For, in actual fact, The State, The Government, cannot exist. They are abstract concepts, useful enough in their place, as the theory of minus numbers is useful in mathematics. In actual living experience, however, it is impossible to subtract anything from nothing; when a purse is empty, it is empty, it cannot contain a minus ten dollars. On this same plane of actuality, no State, no Government, exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men.

Men

“Isn't it strange how upset people get about a few dozen baseball players taking growth hormones, when we're doing what were doing to our food animals and feeding them to our children?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Children , People , Food , Animals

“If a life can be ruined in a single moment, a moment of betrayal, or violence, or ill luck, then why can a life not also be saved, be worth living, be made, by just a few pure moments of perfection?”

Marcus Sedgwick (1968) British writer and illustrator

Source: Midwinterblood

Life , Betrayal , Perfection

“Genius is not a possession of the limited few, but exists in some degree in everyone. Where there is natural growth, a full and free play of faculties, genius will manifest itself.”

Robert Henri (1865–1929) American painter

Nature

“So few people did good in their lives. It was depressing.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

People

“As Hazel marched down the hill, she cursed in Latin. Percy didn’t understand all of it, but he got,, and a few choice suggestions about where Octavian could stick his knife.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Understanding

“Do you ever make silly mistakes? It is one of my very few creative activities.”

Len Deighton (1929) English writer

“Goodness can endure a few moments; holiness is life-defining.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Life

“There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Fear

“Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckily they always remained thoughts. Only a few were irrational assumptions; but, unfortunately, they were the ones which most frequently grew into deeds”

Thomas Hardy book Far from the Madding Crowd

Source: Far from the Madding Crowd

Perfection

“Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.”

Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804) Founding Father of the United States

“[Will]'d barely been asleep a few minutes when Halt's voice woke him.
'Will? Are you asleep?'…
'I was,' he said, a little indignantly. 'I'm not now.'
'Good,' Halt replied, a trifle smugly. 'Serves you right.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

“One day, maybe not in the next few weeks, but certainly in the conceivable future, someone will be able to refer to me without using the word 'arse' somewhere in the sentence.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Future

“Some people standby you in your darkest hour while others walk away; only a select few march towards you and become even closer friends.”

Jeffrey Archer book Only Time Will Tell

Source: Only Time Will Tell

People

“Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: 1890s, The Mountains of California (1894), chapter 5: The Passes 
Context: Accidents in the mountains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers of civilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand.

World , Fear , Home , Mountain

“To my wonderful readers. Sorry about that apology for that last cliffhanger. I’ll try to avoid cliffhangers in this book. Well, except for maybe a few small ones… because I love you guys.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Love , Books , Guy

“I let it ring. I wanted to breathe for a few minutes, and I could think of nothing that couldn't wait. Besides, I had paid almost $50 for an answering machine. Let it earn its keep.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Thinking , Waiting

“If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Learning

“If people persist in trespassing upon the grizzlies' territory, we must accept the fact that the grizzlies, from time to time, will harvest a few trespassers.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

People , Time

“My parabatai, he loved like few ever could love, with all and everything. I see you are like that too; it burns more brightly in you than the fire of Heaven.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love

“I just don't want to die without a few scars.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Variant: I don't want to die without any scars.
Source: Fight Club

“A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“It's just that… I just think that some things are meant to be broken. Imperfect. Chaotic. It's the universe's way of providing contrast, you know? There have to be a few holes in the road. It's how life is.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Life , Way , Thinking , Universe

“My needs are simple and few, thought Valentine. Food. Clothing. A comfortable place to sleep. And.

But of course a world with no idiots would be lonely. If she herself were even allowed there.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender in Exile

Source: Ender in Exile

World , Food , Sleep , Clothes

“The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

James Madison Federalist Papers

Federalist No. 47 (30 January 1788) Federalist (Dawson)/46 Full text at Wikisource http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The
Source: 1780s, Federalist Papers (1787–1788)
Context: One of the principal objections inculcated by the more respectable adversaries to the Constitution is its supposed violation of the political maxim, that the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary departments ought to be separate and distinct. In the structure of the Fœderal Government, no regard, it is said, seems to have been paid to this essential precaution in favor of liberty. The several departments of power are distributed and blended in such a manner, as at once to destroy all symmetry and beauty of form, and to expose some of the essential parts of the edifice to the danger of being crushed by the disproportionate weight of other parts.
No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

“They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Problem

“There are very few who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Love , Heart

“Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature's profligate generosity.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Source: My Reading Life

Books , Feeling , Literature , Parting

“At the end of a miserable day, instead of grieving my virtual nothing, I can always look at my loaded wastepaper basket and tell myself that if I failed, at least I took a few trees down with me.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

Tree

“A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age - regardless of how they look on the outside - pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives.”

Douglas Coupland The Gum Thief

Source: The Gum Thief

Age , Dreams , Past

“… will you be so kind as to provide me with a few places where I might look for a murderer?"
"The mirror's a great place to start”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

“Sebastian lay a few feet away from her, on his back. There was a great blackened hole across the front of his chest. He turned his head toward her, his face taut and white with pain, and her heart contracted.
His eyes were green.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Pain , Heart

“Joy is in the ears that hear, not in the mouth that speaks. The world has few stories glad in themselves, and we must have gay ears to defy Despite”

Stephen R. Donaldson book Lord Foul's Bane

Foamfollower, Lord Foul's Bane

World , Joy

“Question: When you’re one of the few people who can do something to fix a problem, just how responsible does that make you for it? Answer: It’s how you choose to answer that question that defines you.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

People , Question , Problem

“Few things are sadder than encountering a person who knows exactly what he should do, yet cannot muster enough energy to do it. "He who desires but acts not," wrote Blake with his accustomed vigor, "Breeds pestilence.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Personality

“I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Source: The Quiet American

Motivation , Understanding

“It was one of the few things he had to believe in, the possibility of beauty when faced with the reality of so much ugliness.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Last Stand of the New York Institute

Beauty , Reality

“The bell jar hung, suspended, a few feet above my head. I was open to the circulating air.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 18

“Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt because they're as hungry as we are for fresh meat as anyone. In fact, they're among our best customers.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Please, Kate. Suspend your dislike of me for a few moments and listen to what I have to say. It makes sense."
"I don't dislike you. It's an oversimplification.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

Sense

“I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Variant: You are the loveliest thing that I have ever known.
Source: The Great Gatsby

People

“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

People , Thinking , Time

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Variant trans: Everybody sees what you seem, but few know what thou art.
Ch. 18
Variant: Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are
Source: The Prince (1513)
Context: Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.

Relationship , Appearance

“He took twelve pictures that day.
Within a few days he showed me the contact sheet. "This one has the magic," he said.
When I look at it now, I never see me. I see us.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

“I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 7, “Of Beginnings and the Names of Things” (p. 58)
Context: I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.
But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant “to know.”
I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.
I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.
You may have heard of me.

“Also, when on a campaign to convince a stranger that you aren't a few fries short of a Happy Meal, throwing around phrases like "tangentially Swedish" is not the best way to go.”

Maureen Johnson book Let It Snow

Source: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Way , Happiness

“Saying someone is religious is heard in most of America as a compliment, a reassuring affirmation that someone will be moral, ethical, and after a few glasses of wine, a freak in the bedroom.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

Source: When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism

Wine

“Love is the great test of the human. The human is tested by our ability to withstand love. Love is so difficult, it is so challenging, it demands of us that we wreck it with ourselves. It demands of us an honesty that few of us could sustain.”

Junot Díaz (1968) Dominican-American writer

Love

“Books have to be read (worse luck it takes so long a time). It is the only way of discovering what they contain. A few savage tribes eat them, but reading is the only method of assimilation revealed to the West.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Books , Way , Time , Reading

“There are three kinds of men: The ones that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

The Manly Wisdom of Will Rogers (2001)
Variant: There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

Men , Learning

“The answers were maddeningly absent—it was like trying to remember a song that you knew made you feel a certain way, without a title, artist, or even a few bars to bring it back.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Way , Feeling

“Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.”

Primo Levi book If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man (1947)
Context: Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition, which is opposed to everything infinite. Our ever-insufficient knowledge of the future opposes it: and this is called, in the one instance, hope, and and in the other, uncertainty of the following day. The certainty of death opposes it: for it places a limit on every joy, but also on every grief. The inevitable material cares oppose it: for as they poison every lasting happiness, they equally assiduously distract us from our misfortunes and make our consciousness of them intermittent and hence supportable.

Life , Perfection , Happiness

“Jamie, I had found out by accident a few days previously, had never mastered the art of winking one eye. Instead, he blinked solemnly, like a large red owl.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Variant: That's not precisely what I had in mind."
Jamie, I had found out by accident a few days previously, had never mastered the art of winking one eye. Instead, he blinked solemnly, like a large red owl.
Source: Outlander

Art

“Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 12

“Failure is just a few seconds away from success.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Battle for Skandia

Failure , Success

“In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: Letters of Sigmund Freud, 1873-1939

Men , Help , Heart

“I looked like a ghost.
And I should know. I’ve seen a few.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Betrayals

“They took a baseball bat
and whacked open his head.
Mummy Boy fell to the ground;
he finally was dead.
Inside of his head
were no candy or prizes,
just a few stray beetles
of various sizes.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

Boy , Dead

“The truth is, some relationships are supposed to last forever, and some are only supposed to last a few days. That’s the way life is.”

Sophie Kinsella book Can You Keep a Secret?

Source: Can You Keep a Secret?

Life , Truth , Way

“Beckendorf, whose legs were now working fine (nothing like being chased by a huge monster to get your body back in order) shook his head and gasped for breath. “You shouldn’t have turned it on! It’s unstable! After a few years, automatons go wild!”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Files

Source: The Demigod Files

“Life is a theatre set in which there are but few practicable entrances.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life

“Few activities are as delightful as learning new vocabulary.”

Tim Gunn (1953) American actor and fashion consultant

Source: Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style

Learning

“They’re not dead,” I told the goat. “They both have pulses.” “Oh.” The goat sighed. “Well, give them a few more hours and they’ll probably be dead.” “What is wrong with you?” “Everything,” said the goat.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Dead

“I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

People , Feeling , Tear

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Fall 1943
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Journals Of Anais Nin Volume 3

Truth , Success

“When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government - and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Source: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

“A few said they'd be horses. Most said they'd be some sort of cat. My friend said she'd like to come back as a porcupine. I don't like crowds, she said.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Cats , Horse

“All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.”

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

“We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity.”

Upamanyu Chatterjee (1959) Indian writer

Source: English, August: An Indian Story

Men , People , Peace , Understanding

“I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

People

“The basic fact is that no, this isnt ideal. Very few things are. Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push, so to speak.
-Heidi”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Fate , History

“Let's face it - with a few exceptions, nobody likes anybody.”

David Lubar book Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie

Source: Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie

“It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, Goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Age , Forgetting

“There are few phrases that annoy me more than I won't bite. The only line that pisses me off faster is when some drunk, ham-faced dude in a bar sees me trying to get past him and barks: Smile, it can't be that bad! Yeah, actually, it can, jackwad.”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

Smile , Past

“It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Life , Personality

“I don't know what I expected from my first meeting with Peeta after the announcement. A few hugs and kisses. A little comfort maybe. Not this. I turn to Haymitch. "Don't worry, I'll get you more liquor.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Kiss

“Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Valley of Fear

Source: The Valley of Fear

Hope , Feeling , Lying

“What can happen in a few minutes changes you forever.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Change

“As Rilke observed, love requires a progressive shortening of the senses: I can see you for miles; I can hear you for blocks, I can smell you, maybe, for a few feet, but I can only touch on contact, taste as I devour”

William H. Gass (1924–2017) Fiction writer, critic, philosophy professor

Love , Sense

“Annoyed?” said Sophie. “Why should I be annoyed? Someone only filled the castle with rotten aspic, and deafened everyone in Porthaven, and scared Calcifer to a cinder, and broke a few hundred hearts. Why should that annoy me?”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Heart

“We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Letter to John Adams (1774)

“What seems tragic now won't even be an issue in a few years time.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Time

“As hard as it was, as terrible and unfair as the way things turned out, i wouldn't have traded the few days i spent with him for anything”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

Way

“The study of truth requires a considerable effort - which is why few are willing to undertake it out of love of knowledge - despite the fact that God has implanted a natural appetite for such knowledge in the minds of men.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Source: Summa Contra Gentiles

Love , Men , God , Truth

“For to speak the truth, there are but few that care thus to spend their time, but choose rather to be speaking of things to no profit.”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Source: The Pilgrim's Progress

Truth , Time

“Why can’t the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesn’t care, I finally answer, and I know I’m right. It’s like I’ve been chosen. But chosen for what? I ask.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

World , Time

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

Francis Bacon book Essays

Essays (1625)
Context: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

Of Studies

Books

“I thought I'd pay you a visit, my dear. Since you're so interesting."

My mouth shifted into high gear, leaving my brain behind. "You know, you're the second guy in a few days to call me that. You should be more creative.”

Lilith Saintcrow book Strange Angels

Source: Strange Angels

Guy