Quotes about most
page 33

“Nonviolent action, born of the awareness of suffering and nurtured by love, is the most effective way to confront adversity.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change

Love, Way, Suffering

“Ender understood more than she said. Manipulation of gravity was one thing; deception by the officers was another; but the most important message was this: the adults are the enemy, not the other armies. They do not tell us the truth.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Truth

“In most cases, those who want power probably shouldn't have it, those who enjoy it probably do so for the wrong reasons, and those who want most to hold on to it don't understand that it's only temporary.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Source: Becoming a Person of Influence: How to Positively Impact the Lives of Others

Understanding

“Life is a series of pulls back and forth… A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match… Which side win? Love wins. Love always wins”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Love, Life

“Before a man's forty, girls cost nothing. After that you have to pay money, or tell a story. Of the two, it's the story that hurts most. Anyway I'm not forty yet.”

Ian Fleming book Diamonds Are Forever

Source: Diamonds Are Forever

Money, Girl, Hurt

“Through the lack of attaching myself to words, my thoughts remain nebulous most of the time. They sketch vague, pleasant shapes and then are swallowed up; I forget them almost immediately.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Variant: Most of the time, because of their failure to fasten on to words, my thoughts remain misty and nebulous. They assume vague, amusing shapes and are then swallowed up: I promptly forget them.
Source: Nausea

Time, Forgetting

“Poetry is not the most important thing in life… I'd much rather lie in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Life, Lie, Reading

“A friend may be nature's most magnificent creation.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Nature

“Many invest wisely in business matters, but fail to invest time and interest in their most valued possessions: their spouses and children.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Source: Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well

Children, Business, Time

“Most people were raised to believe they are just as good as the next person. I was always told I was better.”

Cecily von Ziegesar book Unforgettable

Source: Unforgettable

People, Personality

“She looked at me like I was crazy. Most of my lovers do, and that's partly why they love me, and partly why they leave”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Love, Lovers

“I try to be a careful person. Most of the time my carelessness is completely unintentional.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

Time, Personality

“Saving the world is only a hobby. Most of the time I do nothing.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

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

World, Time

“.

"Most times, when I'm having sex, I'd rather be reading."
This was, I admit, a strange thing to say on a second date.
I guess I was just giving you a warning.
"Most times when I'm reading," you said, "I'd rather be having sex".”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Sex, Time, Reading

“Truth is most beautiful undraped.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: The Art of Literature

Truth, Beauty

“But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you. I love you. With all my heart, I love you.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Love, Hope, Understanding, Kiss

“History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

History, Memory, Victory

“At the most difficult moments of my life, when it seemed that every door was closed to me, the taste of those apricots comes back to comfort me with the notion that abundance is always within reach, if only one knows how to find it.”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

Life

“Sometimes what a person needs most is to be forgiven.”

Jennifer McMahon (1968) American writer

Source: Island of Lost Girls

Personality

“Most men don't seem to get that telling a pissed-off woman to calm down is like throwing gunpowder on a fire.”

~ Liberty Jones”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Men

“Dimitri was on a first name basis with one of the most badass guardians around. Of course, Dimitri was pretty badass himself, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

“I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Source: Complete Poems

“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

In an interview with Carol Rittner and Sandra Meyers in Courage To Care - Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, NYU Press, 1986, p. 2. Also quoted by Yad Vashem http://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/about-the-program.html and Nicholas Kristoff in The Silence of the Bystanders https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/opinion/the-silence-of-bystanders.html, New York Times (March 19, 2006). <br class="br">Source: Night

Silence, Hurt, Hurtful

“Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

“Most people's problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

People, Problem, Chance

“Most deadly errors arise from obsolete assumptions.”

Frank Herbert book Children of Dune

Source: Children of Dune

Error

“We are the Edema Ruh, and the thing we value most every man possesses. You can tell us your story.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“Living with him is like being told a perpetual story: his mind is the biggest, most imaginative I have ever met. I could live in its growing countries forever.”

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

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Imagination, Country

“It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

The Chimneys of India Song, from Practicalities (1987, trans. 1990).

Love, Men

“You are human, you will make mistakes, and it’s one of the most beautiful things about being human, but you must learn from your mistakes, otherwise your life will have a lot of unnecessary pain.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Magic

Source: The Magic

Life, Pain, Beauty, Learning

“So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed.
The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths.
Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but "who is sitting in" -- and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Change, Housing

“You are the most boring teacher ever."
He grinned and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, just as a knock sounded at the door. "It all depends on what you me to teach you.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Storm Born

Kiss, Teachers, Dependency

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Part 1 : Fundamental Techniques in Handling People, p. 36.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936)
Context: Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? "I will speak ill of no man," he said, "... and speak all the good I know of everybody." Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. "A great man shows his greatness," says Carlyle, "by the way he treats little men."

Fools, Forgiveness, Understanding

“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.”

Isaac Asimov book Second Foundation

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Second Foundation (1953), Chapter 8 “Seldon’s Plan”

Stupidity

“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

World, Beauty, Beauty, Depressing

“To every problem, there is a most simple solution.”

Agatha Christie book The Clocks

Source: The Clocks

Problem

“Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Question

“You picked the right road, even though it is the most difficult. That is the essence of heroism. (p. 326)”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: A World Without Heroes

“Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy.”

Robert Anthony (1982) professional wrestler

Happiness, People

“Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau

Love, Life

“… how false the most profound book turns out to be when applied to life.”

William Faulkner book Light in August

Source: Light in August

Life, Books, Falseness

“…the death of my mother was the thing that made me believe the most deeply in my safety: nothing bad could happen to me, I thought. The worst thing already had.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Death

“Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”

Milton Friedman book Free to Choose

Source: Free to Choose (1980), Ch. 1 "The Power of the Market", page 13
Context: The key insight of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is misleadingly simple: if an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

“A person's relationship with food is one of their most important relationships.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Food, Personality

“as females in a patriarchal culture, we were not slaves of love; most of us were and are slaves of longing-- yearning for a master who will set us free and claim us because we cannot claim ourselves”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Love

“Do you know what most people have from their grandmother? A tea set. Or a quilt.” Curran smiled. “If your family had a quilt, it would be made out of chimera skin and stuffed with feathers from dead angels.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

People, Family, Smile, Angels

“Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Books, Feeling, Idea

“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Alexander Donald (7 February 1788)
1780s
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Books, World, Family

“Christopher discovered that you dealt with obnoxious masters and most older boys the way you dealt with governesses: you quite politely told them the truth in the way they wanted to hear it, so that they thought they had won and left you in peace.”

Diana Wynne Jones book The Lives of Christopher Chant

Source: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Truth, Peace, Way, Boy

“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

New York Times (2 June 1969)

World

“Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.”

T.S. Eliot book Four Quartets

Source: Four Quartets

Love

“It never failed to amaze me how the most ordinary day could be catapulted into the extraordinary in the blink of an eye.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

“Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

People, Heart

“I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life.”

Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) American explorer

Life, Happiness, Departure

“In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Peace

“Most of the upper management of I. S. were undead. I always thought it was because the job was easier if you didn't have a soul.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Dead Witch Walking

Soul

“Most bad," the host concluded. "If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine, games, the company of lovely women, and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Love, Women, Men, People

“Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the most desperate, admirable and noble kind of love.”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

Source: Last and Lost Poems

Love, Courage

“i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes”

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

65 - This poem was used by Eric Whitacre for an a capella SATB chorus titled "i thank you God".
XAIPE (1950)

God, Dreams, Nature, Tree

“I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

Jonathan Swift book Les Voyages de Gulliver

Voyage to Brobdingnag, Ch. 6
Source: Gulliver's Travels (1726)

Nature, Suffering

“Our hearts connect with lots of folks in a lifetime but most of us will go to our graves with no experience of true love.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Love, Heart

“Love--the most wonderful and most terrible thing in the world.”

Jorge Amado (1912–2001) Brazilian writer

Source: Gabriela, Clavo y Canela

Love, World

“The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, Jazz music, and Baseball. These are the 3 most beautiful things this culture's ever created.”

Gerald Early (1952) American poet

Beauty, Music, Study

“I was born singing. Most babies cry, I sang an aria.”

Gail Carson Levine Fairest

Source: Fairest

Singing, Baby, Cry

“We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Variant: The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.
Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Nostalgia

“Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.”

Marcus Buckingham (1966) British writer

Source: First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

Time

“Most women are starving to receive something from a man that they need to give to themselves”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Women

“Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

Source: Spiritual Perspectives And Human Facts

God, Nature, Thinking, Forgetting

“Here is a list of fearful things:
The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings,
The rabid bite of the dog's of war,
The voice of one who went before.
But most of all the mirror's gaze,
which counts us out our numbered days.”

Clive Barker Days of Magic, Nights of War

Abarat, Book One
Source: Days of Magic, Nights of War

War, Fear, Dogs

“Make the most of yourself…. for that is all there is of you.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Motivational, Powerful, Graduation, New Year

“Most important and most vulnerable of human emotions; Love.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Love

“The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

Norman Vincent Peale book The Power of Positive Thinking

Variant: The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism
Source: The Power of Positive Thinking

“You know, most psychologists agree that hostility is really just sublimated sexual attraction.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

"Ah, that might explain why I so often run into people who seem to dislike me."
Clary and Jace, pg. 331
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Hostility

“Barrons had just given me the most carnal, sexually charged hungry look I'd ever seen in my life, and I was pretty sure he didn't even know he had done it.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Life

“If it is true that cowardice is the most grave vice, then the dog, at least, is not guilty of it.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Book Two in 'Time to Go! Time to Go!', B/O, here Woland is speaking to the Master about Pontius Pilate
Source: The Master and Margarita (1967)
Context: They have read your novel... and they said only one thing, that, unfortunately, it is not finished. So I wanted to show you your hero. He has been sitting here for about two thousand years, sleeping, but, when the moon is full, he is tormented, as you see, by insomnia. And it torments not only him, but his faithful guardian, the dog. If it is true that cowardice is the most grave vice, then the dog, at least, is not guilty of it. The only thing that brave creature ever feared was thunderstorms. But what can be done, the one who loves must share the fate of the one who is loved.

Dogs