Quotes about final (2657 quotes, page 4)

“There is but the scantiest justification for most of the outcry against the men of wealth as such; and it ought to be unnecessary to state that any appeal which directly or indirectly leads to suspicion and hatred among ourselves, which tends to limit opportunity, and therefore to shut the door of success against poor men of talent, and, finally, which entails the possibility of lawlessness and violence, is an attack upon the fundamental properties of American citizenship.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties
Context: It is probably true that the large majority of the fortunes that now exist in this country have been amassed not by injuring our people, but as an incident to the conferring of great benefits upon the community; and this, no matter what may have been the conscious purpose of those amassing them. There is but the scantiest justification for most of the outcry against the men of wealth as such; and it ought to be unnecessary to state that any appeal which directly or indirectly leads to suspicion and hatred among ourselves, which tends to limit opportunity, and therefore to shut the door of success against poor men of talent, and, finally, which entails the possibility of lawlessness and violence, is an attack upon the fundamental properties of American citizenship.

Men , Success , Wealth

“Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.”

Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman

Linda
Death of a Salesman (1949)
Context: I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.

Personality

“Universe to me is, if you’d like, the final character.”

Ridley Scott (1937) English film director and film producer

New York Times interview (2013)
Context: Universe to me is, if you’d like, the final character. Your landscape in a western is one of the most important characters the film has. The best westerns are about man against his own landscape. I think people have lost the ability to do that.

Universe

“It seems clear that the present quantum mechanics is not in its final form.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

"The Early Years of Relativity" in Albert Einstein : Historical and Cultural Perspectives : The Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem (1979) edited by Gerald James Holton and Yehuda Elkana, p. 85
Context: It seems clear that the present quantum mechanics is not in its final form. Some further changes will be needed, just about as drastic as the changes made in passing from Bohr's orbit theory to quantum mechanics. Some day a new quantum mechanics, a relativistic one, will be discovered, in which we will not have these infinities occurring at all. It might very well be that the new quantum mechanics will have determinism in the way that Einstein wanted.

“Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

Source: The Irony of American History (1952), p. 63
Context: Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Love , Forgiveness

“I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.”

Yuri Gagarin (1934–1968) Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, the first human in space

As quoted in Earth's Aura (1977) by Louise B. Young
Context: What beauty. I saw clouds and their light shadows on the distant dear earth.... The water looked like darkish, slightly gleaming spots.... When I watched the horizon, I saw the abrupt, contrasting transition from the earth's light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.

Color , Light

“Love works magic.
It is the final purpose
Of the world story,
The Amen of the universe.”

Novalis book Blüthenstaub

Die Liebe wirkt magisch.
Sie ist der Endzweck
der Weltgeschichte,
das Amen des Universums.
Variant translations:
Love is the final end of the world's history, the Amen of the universe.
As translated by W. Hastie in Thoughts on Religion, Pt. 1, "Hymns and Thoughts on Religion" (1888), edited by W. Hastie
Love is the final purpose of world history — the Amen of the universe.
Love works magically...
Love causes magic...
Blüthenstaub (1798), Unsequenced

Love , World , Universe

“In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: In mathematics we can take our inner distance from the content of our statements. In the final analysis mathematics is a mental game that we can play or not play as we choose. Religion, on the other hand, deals with ourselves, with our life and death; its promises are meant to govern our actions and thus, at least indirectly, our very existence. We cannot just look at them impassively from the outside. Moreover, our attitude to religious questions cannot be separated from our attitude to society. Even if religion arose as the spiritual structure of a particular human society, it is arguable whether it has remained the strongest social molding force through history, or whether society, once formed, develops new spiritual structures and adapts them to its particular level of knowledge. Nowadays, the individual seems to be able to choose the spiritual framework of his thoughts and actions quite freely, and this freedom reflects the fact that the boundaries between the various cultures and societies are beginning to become more fluid. But even when an individual tries to attain the greatest possible degree of independence, he will still be swayed by the existing spiritual structures — consciously or unconsciously. For he, too, must be able to speak of life and death and the human condition to other members of the society in which he's chosen to live; he must educate his children according to the norms of that society, fit into its life. Epistemological sophistries cannot possibly help him attain these ends. Here, too, the relationship between critical thought about the spiritual content of a given religion and action based on the deliberate acceptance of that content is complementary. And such acceptance, if consciously arrived at, fills the individual with strength of purpose, helps him to overcome doubts and, if he has to suffer, provides him with the kind of solace that only a sense of being sheltered under an all-embracing roof can grant. In that sense, religion helps to make social life more harmonious; its most important task is to remind us, in the language of pictures and parables, of the wider framework within which our life is set.

Life , Death , Religion , Game

“In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator

Ch III : The Tool
Variant translation of: <span id="perfection"></span>Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n'y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n'y a plus rien à retrancher.
Ch. III: L'Avion 
It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.
Terre des Hommes (1939)
Context: Have you looked at a modern airplane? Have you followed from year to year the evolution of its lines? Have you ever thought, not only about the airplane but about whatever man builds, that all of man's industrial efforts, all his computations and calculations, all the nights spent over working draughts and blueprints, invariably culminate in the production of a thing whose sole and guiding principle is the ultimate principle of simplicity?
It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship's keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elementary purity of the curve of a human breast or shoulder, there must be the experimentation of several generations of craftsmen. In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

Perfection

“The final frontier is perhaps the most difficult, but it's also the most important — and that's the frontier of the human spirit. For too long, people have allowed differences on the surface — differences of color, ethnicity, and gender — to tear apart the common bonds they share. And the human spirit suffers as a result.
Imagine a world in which we saw beyond the lines that divide us, and celebrated our differences, instead of hiding from them. Imagine a world in which we finally recognized that, fundamentally, we are all the same. And imagine if we allowed that new understanding to build relations between people and between nations.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

Twenty Year Vision for America (2004)
Context: As with science and technology, there could be a dark side of globalization, in which progress for some means poverty for others, as jobs and opportunities ebb and flow, securities and currencies fluctuate in value, and the tension between private profit and public good persists. But surely these are risks that we can manage in a world with an America more attuned to its larger purpose and responsibilities.
The final frontier is perhaps the most difficult, but it's also the most important — and that's the frontier of the human spirit. For too long, people have allowed differences on the surface — differences of color, ethnicity, and gender — to tear apart the common bonds they share. And the human spirit suffers as a result.
Imagine a world in which we saw beyond the lines that divide us, and celebrated our differences, instead of hiding from them. Imagine a world in which we finally recognized that, fundamentally, we are all the same. And imagine if we allowed that new understanding to build relations between people and between nations.
Our goal for the next twenty years should be to finally recognize that our differences are our greatest strength. That's true not only here in America, but in all parts of the world, where we've allowed historic rifts to poison the well of opportunity. They've arisen from the natural prides and passion of humanity. Only when we recognize that — when we respect the human spirit — will we be a great nation and a great world. These are the steps we must take in the next twenty years, as we reach out for the newest frontiers.

People , World , Color , Imagination

“I dream of helping liberate my homeland from this transient medieval system of clerical rule. It is the Iranian people whose dream and decision will determine the final form of our future constitution and government. Having said that, and in view of my homelands culture and history, I am confident that a modern constitutional monarchy, similar to that of Japan, Spain, UK and Sweden, will be perfectly capable in institutionalizing democracy and help usher in modernity, progress and development.”

Reza Pahlavi (1960) Last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

As quoted by Ahmad Zakaria, Al-Watan Daily: Interview With Reza Pahlavi Of Iran http://www.rezapahlavi.org/details_article.php?article=197&page=4, Al-Watan Daily (Kuwait), Nov 27, 2007.
Interviews, 2007

People , Dreams , Democracy , Confidence

“Like I've said many times before, I'm always more likely to remember goals for their importance rather than if they're beautiful or not. Goals scored in finals, for example.”

Lionel Messi (1987) Argentine association football player

Beauty , Time

“In this derivation Bohr had relied on the old idea of classical radiation theory, that the frequencies of spectral lines should agree with the frequency of the electron’s orbital motion, but he had assumed this only for the largest orbits, with large n. The light frequencies he calculated for transitions between lower states, such as n=2 → n=1, did not at all agree with the orbital frequency of the initial or final state. So Bohr’s work represented another large step away from classical physics.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 1: Historical Introduction

Light , Idea

“The last thirty years of Einstein's life were largely devoted to a search for a so-called unified field theory that would unify James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism with the general theory of relativity, Einstein's theory of gravitation. Einstein's attempt was not successful, and with hindsight we can now see that it was misconceived. Not only did Einstein reject quantum mechanics; the scope of his effort was too narrow. … Nevertheless Einstein's struggle is our struggle today. It is the search for a final theory.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

page 18, 2nd edition https://books.google.com/books?id=Qd0MEtsBr7oC&pg=PA18
Dreams of a Final Theory (1992; 2nd edition 1994)

Effort , Life , Success , Search

“It is with Isaac Newton that the modern dream of a final theory really begins.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

page 11, 2nd edition https://books.google.com/books?id=Qd0MEtsBr7oC&pg=PA11
Dreams of a Final Theory (1992; 2nd edition 1994)

Dreams

“In a war, to win a victory or suffer a defeat are common things. The essential is that we must win final victory. We must help all officers and men and the people to bear that firmly in mind so that they will not be self-complacent when winning and disappointed when losing, but instead will always make utmost efforts to overcome difficulties and hardships and advance towards final victory.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

Instructions Given at the Conference (Fall 1950)
1950's

War , Victory , Help , Suffering

“Up to now the victories of justice over injustice and of equality over inequality have been won by instinct and the simple force of things, but the final triumph of our social nature will be due to our reason, or else we shall fall back into feudal chaos. Either this is reserved for our intelligence, or this depth of poverty for our indignity.”

Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist

What is Property? (1840)

Intelligence , Justice , Victory , Nature

“I believe that maturity is not an outgrowing, but a growing up: that an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived. I believe that all the best faculties of a mature human being exist in the child, and that if these faculties are encouraged in youth they will act well and wisely in the adult, but that if they are repressed and denied in the child they will stunt and cripple the adult personality. And finally, I believe that one of the most deeply human, and humane, of these faculties is the power of imagination: so that it is our pleasant duty … to encourage that faculty of imagination in our children, to encourage it to grow freely, to flourish like the green bay tree, by giving it the best, absolutely the best and purest, nourishment that it can absorb.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Language of the Night

And never under any circumstances, to squelch it, or sneer at it, or imply that it is childish, or unmanly, or untrue.
"Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?" https://books.google.com/books?id=ksOjjuy3issC&pg=PA44, in The Language of the Night (1979), p. 44

Tree , Imagination , Dead , Personality

“The old palaces of the Tsars and the nobility have now become museums and rest-houses and sanatoria for the people… I suppose the old palaces now serve the purpose of children and young people. Children and the young are the favoured persons in Soviet land today, and they get the best of everything, even though others might suffer lack. It is for them that the present generation labours, for it is they who will inherit the socialised and scientific State, if that finally comes into existence in their time.”

Jawaharlal Nehru book Glimpses of World History

Glimpses of World History (1949)

Time , Housing , Personality , Children

“A century after the Communist Manifesto was written and thirty years after the Russian Revolution, the revolutionary movement, which has witnessed great victories and suffered profound defeats, seems somehow to have disappeared. Like a river approaching the sea, it has broken up into rivulets, run into swamps and marshes, and finally dried up on the sands.”

Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) Greek-French philosopher

Socialism or Barbarism

Sea , Victory , Suffering

“A critic never made or killed a book or a play. The people themselves are the final judges. It is their opinion that counts. After all, the final test is truth. But the trouble is that most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession and therefore are most economical in its use.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Said to portrait painter Samuel Johnson Woolf, cited in Here am I (1941), Samuel Johnson Woolf; this has often been abbreviated: Most writers regard truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

Truth , Books , People

“A collectivist-totalitarian economic system, which in the final analysis serves only to glorify and increase the power of the state, can achieve great success in the easily controllable field of the basic industries but it will always remain incapable of serving man, in other words of providing the rich abundance of goods which gives the individual consumer a free choice and which enriches and beautifies his life.”

Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) German politician

The Economics of Success (D. van Nostrand & Co., 1963), p. 281

Life , Success

“Everything is evil. I mean, everything that is, is wicked; every existing thing is an evil; everything exists for a wicked end. Existence is a wickedness and is ordained for wickedness. Evil is the end, the final purpose, of the universe…The only good is nonbeing; the only really good thing is the thing that is not, things that are not things; all things are bad.”

Giacomo Leopardi book Zibaldone

19th April 1826.
Zibaldone (1898)

Universe , Bad luck , Evil

“It seems as though death were the essential aim of all things. That which has no existence cannot die; yet all that exists has proceeded from nothing. The final cause of existence is not happiness, for nothing is happy. It is true, living creatures seek this end in all their works, but none obtain it; and during all their life, ever deceiving, tormenting, and exerting themselves, they suffer indeed for no other purpose than to die.”

Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) Italian poet, philosopher and writer

Essays and Dialogues (1882), The Song of the Wild Cock

Life , Death , Suffering , Happiness

“Through art then, one finally establishes contact with reality: that is the great discovery. Here all is play and invention; there is no solid foothold from which to launch the projectiles which will pierce the miasma of folly, ignorance and greed. The world has not to be put in order: the world is order incarnate. It is for us to put ourselves in unison with this order, to know what is the world order in contradistinction to the wishful-thinking orders which we seek to impose on one another. The power which we long to possess, in order to establish the good, the true and the beautiful, would prove to be, if we could have it, but the means of destroying one another. It is fortunate that we are powerless.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Miller, H. (1969). “Creation,” The Henry Miller Reader. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation. p.33.

Beauty , Art , Thinking , Reality

“Napoleon, far more Italian than French, Italian by race, by instinct, imagination, and souvenir, considers in his plan the future of Italy, and, on casting up the final accounts of his reign, we find that the net profit is for Italy and the net loss is for France. Since Theodoric and the Lombard kings, the Pope, in preserving his temporal sovereignty and spiritual omnipotence, has maintained the sub-divisions of Italy; let this obstacle be removed and Italy will once more become a nation. Napoleon prepares the way, and constitutes it beforehand by restoring the Pope to his primitive condition, by withdrawing from him his temporal sovereignty and limiting his spiritual omnipotence, by reducing him to the position of managing director of Catholic consciences and head minister of the principal cult authorized in the empire.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Hippolyte Taine in Napoleon's views on religion.
About, Other
Source: Archive https://archive.org/stream/jstor-25102177/25102177_djvu.txt

Way , Loss , Imagination , Future

“I came to philosophy finally phrased as "0.8 is enough."”

Donald Ervin Knuth (1938) American computer scientist

… If I had a way to rate happiness, I think it's a good design to have an organism that's happy about 80% of the time. If it was 100% of the time, it would be like everybody's on drugs and everything collapses and nothing works because everybody is just too happy. … There are times when I am down and I know that I've actually been programmed to be depressed a certain amount of time.
AI Podcast, December 30, 2019, Algorithms, Complexity, Life, and The Art of Computer Programming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8,

“Oh, you, who are clutching the sickle, give the tree of superstition its final stroke. Do not be content with hacking off the branches. Tear outby its roots a plant with such noxious effects.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Tree , Tear

“The most noble kind of beauty is that which does not carry us away suddenly, whose attacks are not violent or intoxicating (this kind easily awakens disgust), but rather the kind of beauty which infiltrates slowly, which we carry along with us almost unnoticed, and meet up with again in dreams; finally, after it has for a long time lain modestly in our heart, it takes complete possession of us, filling our eyes with tears, our hearts with longing.”

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

“We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation, one nation. And I promise you this. As the Bible says, “weep, ye may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.””

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

We will get through this together. Together. Look, folks, all my colleagues that I served with in the house and the senate up here, we all understand, the world is watching, watching all of us today. So here′s my message to those beyond our borders.<p>America has been tested, and we′ve come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Not to meet yesterday′s challenges, but today′s and tomorrow′s challenges.<p>And we′ll lead not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. We′ll be a strong and trusted partner for peace, progress, and security.
2021, January, Presidential Inaugural Address (2021)

Joy , Night

“The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

Life , Wisdom

“The final encounter with God, or an encounter with God that would take you beyond doubt, wouldn't have the character of a metaphysical proof.”

David Bentley Hart (1965) American theologian

David Bentley Hart - Can metaphysics discern God?
16 December 2017
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw_epidqEgI
YouTube

God

“We finally had time to sit at home and reflect on how our society functions and whether or not it's functioning well for all of us. The overwhelming consensus was that it is not, it is insufficient – in fact, it's been unsustainable for decades, if not generations.”

Opal Tometi (1984) Nigerian–American writer, strategist and community organizer

Black Lives Matter Was Always Designed to Be a Global Movement, Vice] (7 July 2020)

Home , Time

“Our first and final task will be to meditate upon the truest name of God.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“The world changes around us
but we still linger,
through wars and seasons we run
but we still linger,
it's so tempting
to climb that fence,
to see if you'd finally relent.”

Marian Renta

Music lyrics, Great Deep (2021) —"Linger"

War , Season , World , Change

“Ah, Kurosaki, I see you've finally realized the importance of a cape.
~Uryu Ishida”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

“As they grew sloppier and less alert, the twins argued too loudly about whether Tiger Lily was ugly or beautiful, and finally agreed that she was "ugly beautiful".
Tiger Lily pretended she hadn't heard, but her heart slowed to absorb the blow.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Beauty , Heart

“No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood. If you didn't, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“Have you finally grown so jealous of my impeccable fashion sense that you've decided to have me disposed of?”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Fashion , Sense

“Tibby cried into her soup when it finally came. "I'm scared…," she told it. The carrots and peas made no reply, but she felt better for having told them.”

Ann Brashares book Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

“This is what happens when nice people are pushed too far. We give too many chances, and so when we've finally had enough, we are well and truly done. When a nice person shuts a door on you, it's shut for good.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: He's Gone

People , Chance , Personality

“For, in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”

John F. Kennedy book Profiles in Courage

1963, American University speech
Variant: For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.
Source: Profiles in Courage
Context: In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours — and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest. So, let us not be blind to our differences — but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Children , Future

“Underneath me, Sam Grest - who'd been my friend and saved my life - lay perfectly still and slipped further and further into the final sleep of an unfair and horrible death.”

Darren Shan book The Vampire's Assistant

Source: The Vampire's Assistant

Life , Death , Sleep

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XX: The Minister in a Maze

“Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?

Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.”

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

Question

“I thought I'd finally get to relax with Dimitri.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

“It isn't easy, it doesn't count if it's easy, it's the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet.”

Tony Kushner (1956) American playwright and screenwriter

Source: Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches

Love , Justice , Forgiveness

“It was finally becoming clear to her that love wasn't about finding someone perfect to marry. Love was about seeing through to the truth of a person, and accepting all their shades of light and dark. Love was an ability.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Tempt Me at Twilight

Love , Truth , Light , Personality

“I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Love

“Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Home

“I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn’t a final destination. You don’t one day get there and get to stay.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Forgiveness , Happiness

“For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Fear , Silence , Waiting

“Just me and the future, finally together. Now there was a happy ending I could believe in.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Future , Happiness

“He gave my hand a final shake. “Okay, Kemp,” he said with a grin. “Thanks a lot – you came through like a champ.” “Hell,” I said, starting the engine. “We’re all champs when we’re drunk.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: The Rum Diary

Hell

“All those months of taking it for granted that Peeta thought I was wonderful are over. Finally, he can see me for who I really am. Violent. Distrustful. Manipulative. Deadly.
And I hate him for it.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (p. 232)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

Hate

“It's harder that in looks," I told him when I finally got back in the car.
"Most things are”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Cars

“The realization wasn't crushing. It was gentle, like a final tendril of smoke from a dying candle.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

Variant: The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the spirit.

God , Music , Soul

“The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Source: Opus Posthumous: Poems, Plays, Prose

Truth

“Why was man created before woman? Because you always need a rough draft before the final copy.” – Chloe Traeger”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Head Over Heels

“Forgiveness means it finally becomes unimportant that you hit back. You're done. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to have lunch with the person. If you keep hitting back, you stay trapped in the nightmare…”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Forgiveness , Personality

“Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: B is for Burglar

People

“Katniss: I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off.
Peeta: Yes, frosting. The final defence of the dying. (252)”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“And for one second, it was like I could feel the timing clicking together, finally pieces falling into place.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Feeling , Time

“The waitress had the appearance of a very old hooker who had finally found her place in life”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Life , Appearance

“Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Life , Beauty , Help , Parting

“Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom… is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain”

Anthony Bourdain (1956–2018) Chef and food writer

No Reservations - Machu Picchu
Context: It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that's enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.

Wisdom

“There's no use going to school unless your final destination is the library.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

School

“You're my sister," he said finally. "My sister, my blood, my family. I should want to protect you"- he laughed soundlessly and without any humor- "to protect you from the sort of boys who want to do with you exactly what I want to do.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Family , Boy , Sister

“Hey girl," he said, wiggling his eyebrows. "You must be the riptide, 'cause you sweep me off my feet."
He'd be practicing that pickup line for years. He was glad he finally got yo use it.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Girl

“A sad smile crossed her face, and I knew right then what she was trying to tell me. Her eyes never left mine as she finally said the words that numbed my soul.
I'm dying, Landon.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Sadness , Smile , Soul

“Our own Sleeping Beauty. Who finally kissed you awake?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Beauty , Kiss , Sleep

“There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

Truth

“Man is born to live, to suffer, and to die, and what befalls him is a tragic lot. There is no denying this in the final end. But we must deny it all along the way.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

Way , Suffering

“When you were too young and naïve to see the risks, I incurred your wrath to protect you. Scream at me for it if you must. Thank me for it when you finally grow up.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

“Fletcher was always going to be your ex-boyfriend, from the moment you met him. He's just finally caught up with where he's supposed to be.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.”

Stephen Crane book The Red Badge of Courage

Source: The Red Badge of Courage

Men

“So if you think this is going to save you… If you think anything is going to save you… Please consider this your final warning.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Thinking

“Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter Seven
Context: We must now try to sum up, to draw together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly.

“And Finally I put down the last and the best advice I knew, on growing older. 'Stand up straight and try not to get fat.”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

“I felt a queasy mixture of relief and horror: when you finally stop an itch and realize it’s because you’ve ripped a hole in your skin.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“The stems stood tall and straight, one series arranged in a single line, the other in a crudely shaped heart, the final one in the shape of the letter U. I love you.”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Don't Die, My Love

Love , Heart

“And apologies, once postponed, become harder and harder to make, and finally impossible.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Source: Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939

Truth , Lie , Feeling , Courage

“Blooming under a cold moon, we are like fireworks…
Rising, shining, and finally scattering and fading.
So until that moment comes when we vanish like fireworks…
Lets us sparkle brightly,
Always…”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

“Do you think it's possible to finally decide that you really, truly love someone but not end up marrying him?”

Robin Jones Gunn (1955) American writer

Source: As You Wish

Love , Thinking

“Her eyes burned, her muscles ached, but in some strange and secret place, she was happy to finally be doing something that wasn't just protecting herself, but protecting other people, too.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

People , Secret , Happiness

“Well, you've finally got a license to kill. It's about time.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Variant: So they finally gave you the license to kill, about time.
Source: Spirit Bound

Time

“i wish i could freeze this moment, somehow delay my final decision, and just hang here in the balance between two places, two worlds, two loves.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

Love , World , Decision

“Most men go through life unchallenged, except at the final moment.”

Frank Herbert book God Emperor of Dune

Source: God Emperor of Dune

Life , Men

“When finally she finished and stood herself up, he put his arm around her, best-buddy style, and they walked on. There was no request for a kiss. Nothing like that. You can love Rudy for that, if you like.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Love , Kiss

“Now," Graves finally said, "anyone else want to piss me off? Anyone else think this is a goddamn?”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Betrayals

Thinking

“I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, pp. 373-374 (closing words)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games (2008)
Context: "One more time? For the audience?" he says. His voice wasn't angry. It's hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.
I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I finally have to let go.