Quotes about most
page 35

“Even the most powerful woman needs a place to unwind.”

Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933) British author

Source: Being Elizabeth

“Though there are things beyond our understanding, for the most part we are the architects of our own unhappiness.”

Yasmina Khadra book What the Day Owes the Night

Source: Ce que le jour doit à la nuit

Understanding, Parting

“He was a nice guy, middle-aged, a little tired, like most doctors usually seemed to be, but he just nodded and said,
"Let me take a look at him. Shane?"
"I'm not dropping my pants," Shane said. "I just thought I'd say that up front.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Age, Guy

“Names are the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“If you always make the right decision, the safe decision,
the one most people make, you will be the same as everyone else.”

Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer

People, Decision

“Saying good night to the mountains, the sun throws his most beautiful rays to them, that they may not forget him till the morning.”

Johanna Spyri book Heidi

Source: Heidi

Beauty, Mountain, Sun, Night

“People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

People, Dreams, Feeling

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

“This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Variant: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.
Context: Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in art, in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for it is the one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

World, Freedom, Fight

“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Time

“I'm the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of the people I've never even met.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

People, Personality

“It is man's intelligence that makes him so often behave more stupidly than the beasts. … Man is impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 270
Context: It is man's intelligence that makes him so often behave more stupidly than the beasts. … Man is impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic. Thus, no animal is clever enough, when there is a drought, to imagine that the rain is being withheld by evil spirits, or as punishment for its transgressions. Therefore you never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. No horse, for example would kill one of its foals to make the wind change direction. Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies. Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat's meat, to wheedle the feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough.

World, Intelligence

“Love is the most selfish of all the passions.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Three Musketeers

Source: The Three Musketeers

Love, Passion, Selfishness

“This massive ascendancy of corporate power over democratic process is probably the most ominous development since the end of World War II, and for the most part "the free world" seems to be regarding it as merely normal.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food

War, World, Parting

“Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved; the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend; love that has grown cold can kindle.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Love, Hope, Personality

“Forget the noose. Forget the Iron Maiden. Forget the electric chair or the guillotine. The mind was mankind's most painful torture chamber, the blessed liberty to cogitate offering either doom or salvation, depending on one's disposition.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Pain, Dependency, Forgetting

“If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

People, Hope

“Anybody can be charming if they don't mind faking it, saying all the stupid, obvious, nauseating things that a conscience keeps most people from saying. Happily, I don't have a conscience. I say them.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

People, Stupidity

“Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world.”

“Then you’ve made the only choice. But there’s a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It’s loneliness.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Source: Gone With the Wind

Money, World, Penalty, Loneliness

“And maybe you should stop pitying yourself,” he said. “Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love, Life, People

“It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our truest friends.”

Cynthia Rylant (1954) American author of children's books and librarian

Source: Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

“Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity...”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Quoted in Amnesty International's essay "From Prisoner to President – A Tribute"

Life, Hope, Birth, Sense

“.. that terrible feeling that you're not good enough to be loved by the people you love most, and eventually by anyone else.”

Danielle Steel Big Girl

Source: Big Girl

Love, People, Feeling

“The thing I’m most afraid of is me. Of not knowing what I’m going to do. Of not knowing what I’m doing right now”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame,
If you have forgotten my kisses
And I have forgotten your name.”

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic

An Interlude.
Undated

Kiss

“You are ugly now, on the inside, where it matters most, and if you ever lost your good looks, i bet you wouldn't be smart enough to get them back. Kyle Kingsbury, you are beastly.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

“Waiting for your
answer is one of the most painful things I have ever been through. At
least let me know whether or not I hurt you.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Pain, Waiting, Hurt

“and a fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

World

“Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: These Strange Ashes

Faith

“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.”

James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director

“It's a fact that people are afraid of what they don't understand. And most are too lazy or ignorant to find out more.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

People, Understanding

“You don't have to be a person of influence to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Life, People, Personality

“There were many terrible things in my life and most of them never happened.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Life

“Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.”

Hendrik Willem van Loon (1882–1944) Dutch-American historian, journalist and author

“The healing power of even the most microscopic exchange with someone who knows in a flash precisely what you're talking about because she experienced that thing too cannot be overestimated.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“What? You’d dare drink right after getting out of jail for intoxication?”
That’s when you need a drink the most.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Source: Factotum

Drink

“In a relationship the details are everything because they remind you - just when you need to be reminded the most - why you fell in love with someone in the first place.”

Mike Gayle (1970) British author

Source: His 'N' Hers

Love

“Like most modern people, I don't believe in prophecy or magic and then spend half my time practicing it.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

People, Time

“The truth is more magical - in the best and most exciting sense of the word - than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic of reality.”

Richard Dawkins book The Magic of Reality

Duke University, 01/03/2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYcOoqxuroI&t=54m51s <br class="br">The Magic Of Reality (2012) <br class="br">Source: The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True <br class="br">Context: Don’t ever be lazy enough, defeatist enough, cowardly enough to say “I don't understand it so it must be a miracle - it must be supernatural - God did it”. Say instead, that it’s a puzzle, it’s strange, it’s a challenge that we should rise to. Whether we rise to the challenge by questioning the truth of the observation, or by expanding our science in new and exciting directions - the proper and brave response to any such challenge is to tackle it head-on. And until we've found a proper answer to the mystery, it's perfectly ok simply to say “this is something we don't yet understand - but we're working on it”. It's the only honest thing to do. Miracles, magic and myths, they can be fun. Everybody likes a good story. Myths are fun, as long as you don't confuse them with the truth. The real truth has a magic of its own. The truth is more magical, in the best and most exciting sense of the word, than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic - the magic of reality.

Truth, Reality, Sense, Science

“Love is the most powerful force in the world. That love can do anything.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Variant: that love is the most powerful force in the world. That love can do anything.
Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, World

“I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

People, Jerk, Personality

“The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.”

Charles Kingsley book The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby

Source: The Water-Babies

World

“Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

“It is the good children, Madame, who make the most terrible revolutionaries. They say nothing, they do not hide under the table, they eat only one sweet at a time, but later on, they make Society pay dearly for it!”

Jean Paul Sartre Dirty Hands

Jessica, Act 3, sc. 1
Dirty Hands (1948)

Children, Time

“If letting go, if letting people and things work themselves out in the way that they needed to without your help was the most important thing, then it was also the hardest.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Six Rules of Maybe

People, Way, Help, Moving On

“It is chronic water shortage in the body that causes most diseases of the human body.

Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj”

Masaru Emoto (1943–2014) Japanese writer

Source: The Healing Power of Water

Disease, Water

“Most people don't grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Children, People, Age

“Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman, Lenore notices, all of a sudden.”

David Foster Wallace book The Broom of the System

Source: The Broom of the System

Girl

“The hardest part of living is making peace with your past. Most of all, it’s making peace with yourself.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Retribution

Peace, Past, Parting

“I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Light

“And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

People, Problem

“The most expensive part of building is the mistakes.”

Ken Follett book The Pillars of the Earth

Source: The Pillars of the Earth

Parting

“The most terrible things men do, they do in the name of love."— Madame Dorothea”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Love, Men

“The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Variant: The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what's in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.
Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

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

Art, Motivational

“I don’t mean to make a big deal out of sobriety, by the way. Of all the modes of human consciousness available to the modern consumer I consider it to be the most overrated.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys

Way

“Thankfully I’m not most women. I don’t get off on danger. I get off on a man with strong moral fiber. The closest Barrons ever gets to fiber is walking down the cereal aisle at the grocery store.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Women, Strong

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

“Lust is temporary, romance can be nice, but love is the most important thing of all. Because without Love, lust and romance will always be short-lived.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Love

“Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

As quoted in A Joke, a Quote, & the Word : Feed Your Body, Soul and Spirit (2006) by Ronald P. Keeven, p. 147

Sense, Success, Horse

“I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

People

“Most men are reasonably useful in a crisis. The difficulty lies in convincing them that the situation has reached a critical point”

Elizabeth Peters The Curse of the Pharaohs

Source: The Curse of the Pharaohs

Men

“Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

People, World

“Had she been in town, the two of them would have spent most of the day together, and she didn't want that. Then again, deep down, it was exactly what she wanted, leaving her more confused that she'd been in years.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Source: True Believer

“But they wanted you. Time is not something you give back. The very next moment may be answer to your prayer. To deny that is to deny the most important part of the future.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Time, Future, Parting

“The books that have helped me most are the ones I reacted to, not just read”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Books, Reading, Help

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

Life, Forgetting

“What, I ask, drives me to disorder? How can I diagnose myself? All I feel, most immediately, is the most anguished need for physical love and mental companionship”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

Love, Feeling

“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

Time

“Quoting: "Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.”

James Boswell (1740–1795) Scottish lawyer, diarist and author

Source: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Women, Men, Quotes, Thinking

“What if I’ve forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud?… the thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Memory

“Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships.”

Robert M. Pirsig (1928–2017) American writer and philosopher

People, Mountain

“Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.”

Jessica Mitford book Hons and Rebels

Source: Hons and Rebels

Books, Age, Way, Imagination

“You don't have time, Len. That is the most bitter and the most beautiful piece of advice I can offer. If you don't have what you want now, you don't have what you want.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Beauty, Time

“You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

People, Success

“All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probably ninety-five percent of the time, what they'll tell you will be wrong.”

Michael Crichton book The Lost World

Source: The Lost World

Life, People, Time

“But most dragons seem to have interesting personalities--besides probably having quite good reasons for what they do, if only one could understand them”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock

Understanding, Personality

“I am the son of the road, my country is a caravan and my life is the most unexpected of voyages. i belong to earth and to the god and it is to them that I will one day soon return”

Amin Maalouf (1949) Francophone Lebanese writer based in France

Life, God, Country

“Whatever you get paid attention for is never what you think is most important about yourself.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Thinking

“I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

People, Thinking, Heart, Heartbreaking

“Most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world.”

Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856–1923) American writer

Life, World, Beauty, Star

“Most people are blind to magic. They move through a blank and empty world. They’re bored with their lives, and there’s nothing they can do about it. They’re eaten alive by longing, and they’re dead before they die.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

People, World, Dead

“Forgiveness works two ways, in most instances. People have to forgive themselves too. The powerful have to forgive themselves for their behavior. That should be a sacred process.”

Sidney Poitier book The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography

Source: The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography

People, Way, Behavior, Forgiveness

“I understood finally that the thing I
should have feared most was not loss, but
never loving. The price for safety was the regret
I felt at this moment. And yet I would
have to live with it for the rest of my life”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Love, Life, Fear, Loss

“we're all freaks sometimes, Melody," he replied. "You're just… well, better at it than most.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Rithmatist

“At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole god-damned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Ham On Rye (1982)
Source: Ham on Rye
Context: The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves. I had no interests. I had no interest in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go.

God, People, Age, Way

“Never try to be better than somebody else. But most importantly, never cease trying to be the best you can be.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Variant: Never try to be better than someone else. Learn from others, and try to be the best you can be. Success is the by-product of that preparation.