“The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers.”
“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”
pg 8
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part One: Lightness and Weight
Source: Tropic of Cancer
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Source: The Hunger Games
"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962)
Perhaps the adjective "elderly" requires definition. In physics, mathematics, and astronautics it means over thirty; in the other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are, of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory!
"Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination" in Profiles of the Future (1962; as revised in 1973)
On Clarke's Laws
Source: Magic Strikes
Source: The Darkangel
“Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.”
Source: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
“God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge.”
Variant: God is full of mercy for everyone, as He has been towards you. He is a father before He is a judge.
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo
“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.”
“Nothing … will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.”
Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 6
“If I ever leave this place-
I'll make sure I'm better HERE first.”
Source: I Am the Messenger
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.”
Quoted on the web sans source. Not in the complete Poems. A 2006 self-help book attributes it verbatim to Dave Sim (see below) sans source. A 2009 reprint of Poems: Second Series mentions it in the introduction sans source (thus probably taking it from the unsourced web quote). No earlier attributions found.
Compare to a quote sourced to Dave Sim: "Anything done for the first time unleashes a demon." (Cerebus #65, 1984)
Misattributed
“My first vision of earth was water veiled.”
Source: House of Incest (1936)
Context: My first vision of earth was water veiled. I am of the race of men and women who see all things through this curtain of sea and my eyes are the color of water. I looked with chameleon eyes upon the changing face of the world, looked with anonymous vision upon my uncompleted self. I remember my first birth in water.
Source: The Dharma Bums (1958)
Context: "Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea," said Japhy. "Remember that book I told you about; the first sip is joy, the second is gladness, the third is serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy."
“Treat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.”
Source: Just One Wish
“I want to fly! I want to touch the sun!"
"Finish your eggs first.”
Source: A Raisin in the Sun
The Analects, The Great Learning
Context: The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.
From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.
“First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”
Variant: First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.
Civil Disobedience (1849)
Source: Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
Context: Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Context: To speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
“If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.”
“From our first babblings to our last word,
we make but one statement, and that is our life.”
Source: The Letter
“Is it sad that my first thought happened to be: Thank God I'm off the treadmill.”
Source: Alice in Zombieland
“Life has taught me that to fly, you must first accept the possibility of falling.”
Source: The Walk
“Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?”
Source: Night Road
Source: Magic Slays
“The book thief has struck for the first time – the beginning of an illustrious career.”
Source: The Book Thief
Source: The Forever War
“The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.”
Source: Clockwork Prince
“You're my best friend, my first and only love, and the most beautiful girl I've ever seen”
Source: Fang
Source: Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
Source: Song of Myself
“Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge - it is as immortal as the heart of man.”
Source: The Secret Life of Bees
1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)
Context: I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, "I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable." It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass." And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?".
Source: The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, Volume Two
“To love others you must first love yourself.”
Source: Love
Source: Clockwork Prince
Source: Water Bound
“The good die first, and they whose hearts are dry as summer dust, burn to the socket.”
War with Honour http://books.google.com/books?id=QmQDAAAAMAAJ&q="I+wrote+somewhere+once+that+the+third+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking+with+the+majority+the+second+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+with+the+minority+and+a+first+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking", Macmillan War Pamphlets, Issue 2 (1940).
