Quotes about short (2157 quotes, page 22)

“But a leading nation, a nation upon which all depend not only in this country but around the world, cannot afford to be satisfied, to look back or to pause. On our strength and growth depend the strength of others, the spread of free world trade and unity, and continued confidence in our leadership and our currency. The underdeveloped countries are dependent upon us for the sale of their primary commodities and for aid to their struggling economies. In short, a prosperous and growing America is important not only to Americans--it is, as the spokesman for 20 Western nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as he stressed this week, of vital importance to the entire Western World.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Confidence , Dependency , Country , Self-confidence

“Now, one of the great facts which underlie the whole possibility of a Path of Human Perfecting, that I must take for granted throughout the lectures — for to deal with it as a matter for argument would lead us far away from our subject — one of the fundamental facts in Nature, is the fact of reincarnation. That means the gradual growth of man through many lives, through many experiences of the physical world, of the intermediate world, and also of the world called heaven. Evolution would be too short to enable a man to grow from imperfection to perfection, unless he had many opportunities, a long, long road to lead him upward.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Perfection , World , Nature

“In the United States, such collusion with the destroyers of human life on Planet Earth is written all over their actions. It’s beyond evident in the appointment of former oil and gas lobbyists and fellow travelers to positions of power... We are, of course, talking about nothing short of the ultimate crime, but on any given day of our lives, you’d hardly notice that it was underway. Even for an old man like me, it’s a terrifying thing to watch humanity make a decision, however inchoate, to essentially commit suicide. In effect, there is now a suicide watch on Planet Earth. Let’s hope the kids can make a difference.”

Tom Engelhardt (1944) American writer

Suicide Watch on Planet Earth, CounterPunch, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/suicide-watch-on-planet-earth/(26 April 2019)

Life , Hope , Decision , Travel

“Life's short span forbids us to enter on far reaching hopes.”

Horace book Odes

Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.
Book I, ode iv, line 15
Odes (c. 23 BC and 13 BC)

Life , Hope

“Slavery is disheartening; but Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself of every last wrong. But the spasms of nature are centuries and ages and will tax the faith of short-lived men. Slowly, slowly the Avenger comes, but comes surely. The proverbs of the nations affirm these delays, but affirm the arrival. They say, "God may consent, but not forever."”

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

The delay of the Divine Justice — this was the meaning and soul of the Greek Tragedy, — this was the soul of their religion.
"The Fugitive Slave Law", a lecture in New York City (7 March 1854), The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1904), p. 238

God , Faith , Nature , Age

“At some point, the Mod look had a short-lived Country Life moment, when the gorgeous mohair sheen of the three-button suit gave way to matte autumnal earth tones. Give it a name: fucking brown.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Source: I Wanna Be Yours (2020), p. 114.

Way , Life , Autumn , Country

“I'm a short-term nostalgic; things were great ten minutes ago. If only I could go back there. At my time of life I suffer from déjà vu and amnesia at the same time; I can't remember what happens next.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - In the O-Zone Zone (16 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

Life , Time , Suffering

“I think the greatest compliment that I could ever receive is when people say to me I forgot you were short and that’s what it’s all about.”

Patty Maloney (1936) American actress

Joan Quinn Profiles: Patty Maloney and Boze Hadleigh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lKrzpO9FqQ (March 24, 1994)

Thinking , People

“I'd like to get a lot done in a short period of time. ... Your head coach won’t be real patient. Trying to keep it in perspective? Yes. Real patient? No.”

Tom Crean (basketball coach) (1966) American college basketball coach

As quoted in "Crean on : rebuilding the tradition of Indiana basketball" by David Burkart in IUplanet Newsletter (7 October 2007) http://iuplanet.com/forum/indiana-basketball-news/20261-crean-rebuilding-tradition-indiana-basketball.html

Time

“High pressure salesmen focus on the short term incentives to outweigh the long term cons”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

“Hate is baggage. Life's too short to be pissed off all the time. It's just not worth it.”

movie American History X

Life , Time , Hate

“The Communists say that there are the only two means of establishing communism. The first is violence. Nothing short of it will suffice to break up the existing system. The other is dictatorship of the proletariat. Nothing short of it will suffice to continue the new system.”

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956) Father of republic India, champion of human rights, father of India's Constitution, polymath, revolutionary…

On Communism, Thoughts of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar https://books.google.com/books?id=6nolAQAAIAAJ, p. 107

Communication

“The bitter, yet merciful, lesson which death teaches us is to distinguish the gold from the tinsel, the true values from the worthless chaff.
The terrible events of life are great eye-openers. They force us to learn that which it is wholesome for us to know, but which habitually we try to ignore — namely, that really we have no claim on a long life ; that we are each of us liable to be called off at any moment, and that the main point is not how long we live, but with what meaning we fill the short allotted span — for short it is at best.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Life and Destiny (1913)

Life , Death , Learning

“In the short term, natural selection favors self-propagating systems that pursue their own short-term advantage with little or no regard for long-term consequences.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Source: Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2015), p. 44

Self-confidence , Nature

“Every physician knows the numerous sources of error which may lead an able advocate to wrong conclusions. The difficult art of statistics, which is no simple arrangement of numbers, but often requires very elaborate calculations, may lend itself to error; the neglect of some facts, or the undue prominence of others, the comparison of dissimilar conditions, or observations made on too short a scale or for too short a period—all these various conditions must be considered as sources of possible error.”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

p. 754 https://books.google.com/books?id=85o2AAAAMAAJ&pg=754
Medicine and Morality (1881)

Error , Art

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Time , Knowledge , Wisdom

“Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Friendship , Love

“Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth.”

Unknown author

Smile , Life , Funny , Cute

“A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And woe my nights are so long”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

You Can Call Me Al
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)

Night

“Well, it was healthy to miss once in a while. It kept self-confidence balanced at a point safely short of arrogance.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: Empire novels (1950–1952), The Stars, Like Dust (1951), Chapter 20 “Where?” (p. 166)

Confidence , Self-confidence

“Could you imagine if I said that "I short circuited?"”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

They would be calling for my execution, — electric chair. They'd bring back the electric chair. It would be a whole different ball game if I said it, believe me.
2016, August 2016, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

Imagination

“Focusing on a short-term strategy makes you invisible. Focusing on a long-term strategy is a winning formula.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

“You will thus understand that what you fear is either insignificant or short-lived.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XXIV: On despising death

Understanding , Fear

“A life cut tragically short, but with more colour perhaps than one may find in her work.”

Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) Hungarian Indian artist

Life

“Everything can tend toward diminishing returns and unsustainability, […] even in the short term.”

James Howard Kunstler book The Long Emergency

Source: The Long Emergency (2005), Chapter 7, p. 240.

“I have gone through ups and downs in my relatively short career. And one thing I’ve learned is a bit of a cliché, but everything does happen for a reason.”

Chloé Zhao (1982) Chinese film director, screenwriter, and film producer

Learning

“The fight that we are doing right now for equal pay does not mean that we will achieve it in the short term. We are not going to get the equal pay right away, but it may be done by the time my daughter plays soccer and she will not suffer what we suffered.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"Alex Morgan says she is fighting for equal pay for her daughter" https://en.as.com/en/2021/05/10/soccer/1620674328_417702.html (May 10, 2021)

Daughters , Suffering , Time , Fight

“In short, you are all equal in everything except in ideas!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Idea

“My God can neither be imagined nor described. He is infinite. Tall or short, fat or thin, old or young, black or white. These are the human attributes that we try to apply to God into our limited minds.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God , Imagination

“Really life is a short trip. We are all passengers, there is no rest even after death.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life , Death

“I spend a lot of time with my family. Because I think it's part of my life. I think the time...long or short is not the most important. I think the most important is the quality time...quality time with family.”

Jet Li (1963) Chinese martial artist and actor

As quoted in Jet Li Interview Transcript https://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/01/29/talkasia.li.script/ in CNN (January 29, 2003)

Family , Time , Thinking , Life

“The Dark Ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of Science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Post-war years (1945–1955)
Source: The Sinews of Peace https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1946/s460305a_e.htm speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946.

Age , Science , Time

“When I fall Short of Words, My existence becomes speechless, searches for words passing here and there, in the hope that they may be found. When I ask someone to know about my words, it tells me the place of their mind, maybe some people are angry with me, who often do not mention me even once in their words.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Search , People , Hope

“What is happiness? It depends on two assets, which fortunately I have. They are good health and a short memory.”

Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden

Source: The Real and the Unreal (1961) by Bill Davidson, p. 174

Dependency , Happiness , Health , Memory

“A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Journey to Ixtlan" (Chapter 8)

Learning , World

“A warrior knows that he is only a man. His only regret is that his life is so short that he can't grab onto all the things that he would like to. But for him, this is not an issue; it's only a pity. Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)

Light , Life , Feeling

“Never were there more gross absurdities, nor half so many in so short a time, committed in any public meeting; and for a National Assembly never did the Church of Christ see the like.”

William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury

Source: Letter to the Marquis of Hamilton (3 December 1638), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume VI—Part II. Letters—Notes on Bellarmine (1857), p. 547

Time , Christ

“All religions fall far short of their own ideals.”

Ernest Becker book The Denial of Death

Source: The Denial of Death (1973), The Present Outcome of Psychoanalysis, p. 204

Religion

“In short, man, when he acts ideally, treats these beings at all times as associates, not as slaves or machines, as his best friends and most faithful and valuable allies.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Silent Martyrs of Civilization, p. 65

Faith , Time

“Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered: and all this in a nook of this part of the world; and not even here do all agree, no, not any one with himself: and the whole earth too is a point.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book VIII, 21

World , Parting

“Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations (c. AD 121–180), Book III, 10

Past , Life

“Everything may exist for a short while—even justice. But the true state of the universe is anarchy. It is the mortal’s tragedy that he can never accept this.”

Michael Moorcock book The Knight of the Swords

Source: Book 3, Chapter 6 “The God Feasters” (p. 139), Corum, The Knight of the Swords (1971)

Justice , Universe

“The irony in medicine is that millions of patients are kept alive at exorbitant costs,
yet a small virus can wipe out, as many, in as short a period as a few months!
Boghos L. Artinian MD”

boghos

“Life is short, be grateful, be kind, be happy. Forgive and forget ... Love and peace.”

Wu Chun (1979) Bruneian actor and singer

Source: Wu Chun (2021) cited in " Singer-actor Wu Chun apologises after old photo of him and his wife sparks criticism, allegations https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/singer-actor-wu-chun-apologises-after-old-photo-of-him-and-his-wife-sparks" on The Straits Times, 9 March 2020.

Forgiveness , Peace , Forgetting , Happiness

“I’ve always been very interested in the short story. Compared to the often exhausting world of the novel, the short story offers a quicker reward, and there’s something appealing about its greater spontaneity…”

Reinaldo Arenas (1943–1990) Cuban poet/novelist/playwright

Source: On his preference for short stories over novels in “The Literature of Uprootedness: An Interview with Reinaldo Arenas” https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-literature-of-uprootedness-an-interview-with-reinaldo-arenas in The New Yorker (2013 Dec 5)

World

“Fifteen years can be a long or a short time, depending upon whether one is immortal or not.”

Jane Yolen (1939) American speculative fiction and children's writer

Source: Short fiction, Dragonfield and Other Stories (1985), The Thirteenth Fey (p. 39)

Time , Dependency

“The great disease of mankind is ignorance.
With knowledge you can grasp tight a belief: that you can be better, that the world can be better. With that, you can claim hope.
Hope is the eternal tool in the survival kit for mankind. We hope for a little luck, we hope for a better tomorrow, we hope — although it is an impossible hope — to somehow get out of this world alive.
And if we can't and don't, then it is enough to rejoice in our short time here and to remember how much we loved the view.”

Sidney Poitier (1927) American-born Bahamian actor, film director, author, and diplomat

Source: Life Beyond Measure (2008), twenty-third letter — The World I Leave You, p. 273

World , Disease , Time , Hope

“The sound of shutters going up around her mind, armored against anything short of a nuke, was very nearly audible in the room.”

John Brunner book The Jagged Orbit

Source: The Jagged Orbit (1969), Chapter 47, “Plea of Insanity” (p. 146)

“[A Hindu] may be a theist, pantheist, atheist, communist and believe whatever he likes, but what makes him into a Hindu are the ritual practices he performs and the rules to which he adheres, in short, what he does.”

Frits Staal (1930–2012) Dutch indologist

Ritual and Mantras: Rules without Meaning, quoted in An Introduction to Hinduism https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Introduction_to_Hinduism/KpIWhKnYmF0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA12 by Gavin D. Flood, p. 12.