Quotes about most
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“Most men are a little better than their circumstances give them a chance to be.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known… then went crazy as a loon."

Lisa Simpson”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

World, Beauty, Solitude, Hurt

“The bravest are the most tender; the loving are the daring.”

Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) United States poet, novelist and travel writer

Love

“What lingered after them was not life, which always overcomes natural death, but the most trivial list of mundane facts: a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Life, Death, Nature, Thinking

“elliptical, adj.
The kiss I like the most is one of the slow ones. It’s as much breath as touch, as much no as yes. You lean in from the side, and I have to turn a little to make it happen.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Kiss

“People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.”

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) English writer and printer

People, Understanding, Question, Sense

“The most precious gift you can bring to your lover is your suffering.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Lovers, Suffering

“When the times are a crucible, when the air is full of crisis, those who are the most themselves are the victims.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Time

“Most everything you think you know about me is nothing more than memories.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase

Thinking, Memory

“Most people have a rope that ties them to someone, and that rope can be short or it can be long. (Be long. Belong. Get it?) You don't know how long, though. It's not your choice.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

People

“I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“When you think about it, most of the good ideas came along to make sin a whole lot easier.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

Idea, Thinking

“The most telling and profound way of describing the evolution of the universe would undoubtedly be to trace the evolution of love.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

Love, Way, Universe

“I love you much
most beautiful darling
more than anyone on the earth
and I like you better
than everything in the sky.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Love, Beauty, Relationship, Anniversary

“Fortunately, he'd found that most people were easy to locate at five thirty in the morning.”

Patricia Briggs book Cry Wolf

Source: Cry Wolf

People

“I’m not crazy,” I whispered.
“I know.”
Believe it or not, that’s the most romantic thing Zachary Goode ever told me.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

“Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Source: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away

World

“Everything a baby does strikes a parent as the most magical thing he/she has ever seen.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

Parent, Baby

“Aside from velcro, time is the most mysterious substance in the universe. You can't see it or touch it, yet a plumber can charge you upwards of seventy-five dollars per hour for it, without necessarily fixing anything.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Universe, Time

“It is, at the most basic level, a bundle of contradictions: a desire for power that strips you of all power. A gesture of strength that divests you of all strength.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

“sarcasm and jokes were often the bottle in which clinical depressives sent out their most plangent screams for someone to care and help them.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Help

“I'm not bossy - I just happen to be more capable than most everyone else.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Source: The Actor and the Housewife

“It's not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it's what you whisper to yourself that has the most power!”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Life, Motivational, Inspirational, Positive

“This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: 'At the time, no one knew what was coming.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Variant: This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: At the time, no one knew what was coming.
Source: 1Q84

History, Time

“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. 1, ch. 2
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Life, Women, Dreams, Music

“Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

People, Effort

“… if a child waited to speak until all the grown-ups settled down and gave her some room to say her piece, the most important things would never get said.”

Katherine Hannigan Ida B.

Source: Ida B.

Waiting

“The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Hate, Learning, Envy

“He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

People

“Trust what moves you most deeply.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

“Every single answer starts with the phrase 'I don't know.' But most of the time she does know, if I give her the time and the space in which to answer.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Time

“People always ask me where they should go to work, and I always tell them to go to work for whom they admire the most.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

People

“Most people in America think Art is a man's name.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

People, Art, Thinking

“He had been my almost. My might-have-been.

I was afraid of what I wanted most - His kiss.

Still, I collected kiss stories.

-Susie Salmon”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Kiss

“Striving for social justice is the most valuable thing to do in life.”

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

Misattributed Source: This appears to originate in April 2014 with an unsourced entry in picturequotes: http://www.picturequotes.com/striving-quotes Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Albert Einstein / Misattributed

Life, Justice

“Of all the weapons she had commanded, Elizabeth knew the least of love; and of all the weapons in the world, love was the most dangerous.”

Seth Grahame-Smith book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Source: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Love, World

“It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them aren't even young and beautiful now.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Beauty, Angels, Thinking

“… sitting and waiting is one of the most miserable occupations known to man - not that it usually is known to men; women do it much more often.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Women, Men, Waiting

“I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.”

Bob Newhart (1929) American stand-up comedian and actor

“Thinking only begins at the point where we have come to know that Reason, glorified for centuries, is the most obstinate adversary of thinking.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Thinking

“She's pretty." (It's amazing how girls can say this and make it the most withering insult.)”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Girl

“All women love Colin Firth: Mr. Darcy, Mark Darcy, George VI—at this point he could play the Craigslist Killer and people would be like, 'Oh my God, the Craigslist Killer has the most boyish smile!”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Love, Women, God, People

“Most men judge your importance in their lives by how much you can hurt them.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: My Story

Men, Hurt, Hurtful

“I think that enduring, committed love between a married couple, along with raising children, is the most noble act anyone can aspire to. It is not written about very much.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Love, Children, Thinking

“Admire as much as you can. Most people do not admire enough.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

1870s
Variant: Find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

People

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Speech to the Second National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights – Chicago (25 March 1966), as quoted in Dan Munro, "America's Forgotten Civil Right - Healthcare" http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2013/08/28/americas-forgotten-civil-right-healthcare/, Forbes (28 August 2013). See also: Amanda Moore, "Tracking Down Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Words on Health Care", Huffington Post (18 August 2013) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amanda-moore/martin-luther-king-health-care_b_2506393.html 1960s

“Madam, the commonest weakness of our race is our ability to rationalize our most selfish purposes.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Star Beast

Source: The Star Beast (1954), Chapter 14, “Destiny? Fiddlesticks!” (p. 219)

Selfishness

“Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level”

Gustave Flaubert book November

Source: November

Soul

“Shouldn't we also ask ourselves what the consequences are of scrambling to provide the "most" of everything to our children in a world of fast dwindling resources?”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Children, World

“Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Happiness, People, Music

“I never use the words HUMANIST or HUMANITARIAN, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Nature

“It's not that I like you least […] it's that I feared you most. The reginita taught me to like you. There was a strange joy to her that lifted my spirits. But you, Quintana of Charyn, you made me love you.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

Love, Fear, Joy

“Most people say about graveyards: "Oh, it's just a bunch of dead people. It's creepy." But for me, there's an energy to it that it not creepy, or dark. It has a positive sense to it.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

People, Sense, Dead

“At this point, most people would have thrown themselves down on the ground and given up hope. And by most people, I mean me.”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

People, Hope

“Of all the weapons in the world, love is the most dangerous.”

Seth Grahame-Smith book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Source: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Love, World

“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers.
The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Question

“There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Life, People, Problem, Time

“Most rats read. Our frustration is, we cannot hold a pen to write.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Reading

“What mattered most was knowing that love was mine to give, without strings or expectations.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love

“The most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.”

Yves Saint Laurent (1936–2008) fashion designer

Variant: The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.

Beauty, Passion, For women

“I suspect the most we can hope for, and it's no small hope, is that we never give up, that we never stop giving ourselves permission to try to love and receive love.”

Elizabeth Strout book Abide with Me

Source: Abide with Me

Love, Hope

“All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.”

Steve Biko (1946–1977) anti-apartheid activist in South Africa

Statement quoted in the Boston Globe (25 October 1977)
Context: Even today, we are still accused of racism. This is a mistake. We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.

“The most intimate feeling people can share is neither love nor hate, but pain.”

Tess Gerritsen book The Surgeon

Source: The Surgeon

Love, Pain, Hate, People

“We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Way, History, Freedom, Suffering

“Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Variant: No, he is not tactful, yet have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet, at the same time, beautiful?
Source: A Room with a View

People, Beauty, Time

“This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

Parent, Help, Hurt

“I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: Grace

Life, Secret, Thinking, Memory

“Your value is not determined by your valuables, and God says the most valuable things in life are not things!”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Life, God

“Most world religions denounced war as a barbaric waste of human life. We treasured the teachings of these religions so dearly that we frequently had to wage war in order to impose them on other people.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Life, War, People, World

“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

“Most prisons are of our own making. A man makes his own freedom, too.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Freedom

“Having a child is surely the most beautifully irrational act that two people in love can commit.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Source: Fatherhood

Love, People

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

People, Time, Sad, Depressing

“To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know how to be dead.”

Milan Kundera book Immortality

Source: Immortality

Dead

“every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. and, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. it really is the most poetic thing i know about physics: you are all stardust.”

Lawrence M. Krauss (1954) American physicist

"A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo#t=16m49s (16:50-17:23) Context: The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

Star

“… there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Truth, Heart

“I did not consider him to be any kind of a genius. I considered him deeply lacking in the area that mattered most in life. Star quality.”

Augusten Burroughs book Running with Scissors

Source: Running with Scissors

Life, Star

“There's something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Pleasure, Fear, Way, Problem

“Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life.”

Paul Theroux book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Source: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Life, People, Travel, Dependency

“It was like being at the bottom of an ocean, she said. There was no light and a whole ocean crushing down on you. But most people had gotten so used to it they thought it normal, they forgot even that there was a world above.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

People, World, Light

“An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop.”

Iain Banks book Excession

Source: Excession

Way, Problem

“A man who has spent most of his adult life trying out a series of patent medicines is always an optimist.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Source: The Most of P.G. Wodehouse

Life

“… people with nothing to declare carry the most.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

People

“somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence.
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you always open petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose or if it be your wish to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly
as the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries
rendering death and forever with each breathing”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

W [ViVa] (1931) LVII

Life, Death, World, Travel

“Human beings, as I know better than most, can get used to anything. Over time, even the unthinkable gradually wears a little niche for itself in your mind and becomes just something that happened.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Time

“Saying that you love is easy, but living up to those simple words is the most difficult thing you'll ever do.”

Kay Hooper (1957) American writer

Source: What Dreams May Come

Love

“He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

Fear, Hope

“I think that the most important thing a woman can have - next to talent, of course - is her hairdresser.”

Joan Crawford (1904–1977) American actress

Interview, Hollywood Reporter (1942)

Thinking

“He smiled at me… fondly. ʺAh, my daughter,ʺ
he said. ʺEighteen, and already youʹve been accused of murder, aided felons, and acquired a death count higher than most guardians
will ever see.ʺ He paused. ʺI couldnʹt be prouder.ʺ”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Variant: Ah, my daughter,ʺ he said. ʺEighteen, and already youʹve been accused of murder, aided felons, and acquired a death count higher than most guardians will ever see.ʺ He paused. ʺI couldnʹt be prouder.
Source: Last Sacrifice

Death, Smile, Daughters