Quotes about shorts (2157 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“This is how, without the consent of the two lovers, of its two main characters, of the only ones who were originally worth anything in this short story, the narrator decided to incorporate two more words into the plot: “doubt” and “uncertainty.””

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Lovers

“Help me find a way to pass the time Everybody tellin' me life's short, but I wanna die Help me find a way to make you mine Everybody tellin' me not to, but I'm gonna try Now I'm gettin' high again, tonight”

Lil Peep (1996–2017) American rapper

Song The Brightside, Album: Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 1

Life , Way , Time , Help

“Love is so short and forgetting is so long.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Es tan corto el amor y tan largo el olvido.
"Tonight I Can Write" (Puedo Escribir), XX, p. 51.
Variant: Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

love , Cute , Romantic , For Her

“A good speech should be like a woman's skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.”

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

“Life is short, but the years are long.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Methuselah's Children

Part of the secret "call and response" codewords by which members of the long-lived Howard Families can identify others:
: Life is short.
But the years are long.
Not while the evil days come not.
Methuselah's Children (1958)

Mother's Day , Life

“If freedom is short of weapons, we must compensate with willpower.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

Freedom

“One day I went alone to the river to enjoy myself as usual. When I was a short distance from the masonry, however, I was horrified to observe that the water had risen and was carrying me along swiftly.… The pressure against my chest was great and I was barely able to keep my head above the surface.… Slowly and gradually I became exhausted and unable to withstand the strain longer. Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic principle that the pressure of a fluid in motion is proportionate to the area exposed and automatically I turned on my left side. As if by magic, the pressure was reduced.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Light , Water

“The Italian command was, for the most part, not equal to the task of carrying on war in the desert, where the requirement was lightning decision followed by immediate action. The training of the Italian infantryman fell far short of the standard required by modern warfare. … Particularly harmful was the all pervading differentiation between officer and man.”

Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II

Source: The Rommel Papers (1953), Ch. XI : The Initiative Passes, p. 262.[[Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.]]
Context: The Italian command was, for the most part, not equal to the task of carrying on war in the desert, where the requirement was lightning decision followed by immediate action. The training of the Italian infantryman fell far short of the standard required by modern warfare. … Particularly harmful was the all pervading differentiation between officer and man. While the men had to make shift without field-kitchens, the officers, or many of them, refused adamantly to forgo their several course meals. Many officers, again, considered it unnecessary to put in an appearance during battle and thus set the men an example. All in all, therefore, it was small wonder that the Italian soldier, who incidentally was extraordinarily modest in his needs, developed a feeling of inferiority which accounted for his occasional failure and moments of crisis. There was no foreseeable hope of a change for the better in any of these matters, although many of the bigger men among the Italian officers were making sincere efforts in that direction.

War , Decision , Parting , Training

“Who wants to be a hundred? What's the point of it? A short life and a merry one is far better than a long one sustained by fear, caution, and perpetual medical surveillance.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Life , Fear

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Attributed without citation in Ken Robinson, The Element (2009), p. 260. Widely attributed to Michelangelo since the late 1990s, this adage has not been found before 1980 when it appeared without attribution in E. C. McKenzie, Mac's giant book of quips & quotes.
Disputed
Variant: The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

“In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Way

“You're short on ears and long on mouth.”

John Wayne (1907–1979) American film actor

“Life is too short to read a bad book.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Life , Books , Reading

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

People , World , Religion , Travel

“Inside the united and indivisible universal Wholeness, every thought and action we make concerning the part, creates the reaction of the whole towards us. In short, whatever we are doing and in whichever way we are doing it, has a multiple effect on us, from every “corner” of the universal unity. The meaning of universal, indivisible unity creates a new social and ecological awareness, since the social and the nature are structural parts of the whole and every action we take against it, results in a reaction of the whole cosmic creation against us.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos

Nature , Universe , Way , Making love

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

For Friend

“Our total reality and total existence are beautiful and meaningful…. We should judge reality by the little which we truly know of it. Since that part which conceptually we know fully turns out to be so beautiful, the real world of which we know so little should also be beautiful. Life may be miserable for seventy years and happy for a million years: the short period of misery may even be necessary for the whole.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics

Life , World , Beauty , Reality

“Life is too short to learn German”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life , Learning

“Theres no short cut. It’s hard work being a Body builder. If you’re not willing to do the hard work, then it’s the wrong sport for you. You’ve got to love it. If you love it, you will get to where you want to be.”

Rich Piana (1970–2017) American bodybuilder and internet personality

Love , Sport

“When I am in my painting, I am not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a short of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.”

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) American artist

In 'Possibilities', Vol. 1, no 1, winter 1947-48, p. 79; as quoted in Jackson Pollock (1983) by Elizabeth Frank, p. 68
1940's

Life , Fear , Change , Painting

“Natasha and I said more than once that one may arrive at such a physical condition that it would be better to cut short one's own life or, more correctly, the too slow process of dying … But whatever may be the circumstances of my death I shall die with unshaken faith in the communist future. This faith in man and in his future gives me even now such power of resistance as cannot be given by any religion.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Trotsky's Testament (1940)

Life , Death , Faith , Religion

“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

Smedley D. Butler (1881–1940) United States Marine Corps General, 2 time Medal of Honor recipient and activist

From a speech (1933)

Business , Time , Country

“I just wanted to see how the shorts felt again.”

Rafael Nadal (1986) Spanish tennis player

After changing his famous "piratas" trousers for a more traditional look at the Madrid Masters http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/quotes_of_week/4371108.stm

“The virtuosos look to the students of the world to do their share in the education of the great musical public. Do not waste your time with music that is trite or ignoble. Life is too short to spend it wandering in the barren Saharas of musical trash.”

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor

Extract from an interview by James Francis Cooke, as given in the 1999 edition of Great Pianists on Piano Playing (Mineola: Dover Publications, 1999) p. 217.

Life , World , Education , Music

“Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to individual writers who, as literary guides of Germany, had written much and often concerning the place of freedom in modern life; but they, too, were mute.Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.”

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

Attributed in “The Conflict Between Church And State In The Third Reich”, by S. Parkes Cadman, La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press (28 October 1934), viewable online on p. 9 of the issue here http://newspaperarchive.com/us/wisconsin/la-crosse/la-crosse-tribune-and-leader-press/1934/10-28/ (double-click the page to zoom). The quote is preceded by “In this connection it is worth quoting in free translation a statement made by Professor Einstein last year to one of my colleagues who has been prominently identified with the Protestant church in its contacts with Germany.” [Emphasis added.] While based on something that Einstein said, Einstein himself stated that the quote was not an accurate record of his words or opinion. After the quote appeared in Time magazine (23 December 1940), p. 38 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765103,00.html, a minister in Harbor Springs, Michigan wrote to Einstein to check if the quote was real. Einstein wrote back “It is true that I made a statement which corresponds approximately with the text you quoted. I made this statement during the first years of the Nazi-Regime — much earlier than 1940 — and my expressions were a little more moderate.” (March 1943) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200706A19.html
In a later letter to Rev. Cornelius Greenway of Brooklyn, who asked if Einstein would write out the statement in his own hand, Einstein was more vehement in his repudiation of the statement (14 November 1950) http://books.google.com/books?id=T5R7JsRRtoIC&pg=PA94: <blockquote><p>The wording of the statement you have quoted is not my own. Shortly after Hitler came to power in Germany I had an oral conversation with a newspaper man about these matters. Since then my remarks have been elaborated and exaggerated nearly beyond recognition. I cannot in good conscience write down the statement you sent me as my own.</p><p> The matter is all the more embarrassing to me because I, like yourself, I am predominantly critical concerning the activities, and especially the political activities, through history of the official clergy. Thus, my former statement, even if reduced to my actual words (which I do not remember in detail) gives a wrong impression of my general attitude.</p></blockquote>
: In his original statement Einstein was probably referring to the actions of the Emergency Covenant of Pastors organized by Martin Niemöller, and the Confessing Church which he and other prominent churchmen such as Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer established in opposition to Nazi policies.
: Einstein also made some scathingly negative comments about the behavior of the Church under the Nazi regime (and its behavior towards Jews throughout history) in a 1943 conversation with William Hermanns recorded in Hermanns' book Einstein and the Poet (1983). On p. 63 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA63#v=onepage&q&f=false Hermanns records him saying "Never in history has violence been so widespread as in Nazi Germany. The concentration camps make the actions of Ghengis Khan look like child's play. But what makes me shudder is that the Church is silent. One doesn't need to be a prophet to say, 'The Catholic Church will pay for this silence.' Dr. Hermanns, you will live to see that there is moral law in the universe. . . .There are cosmic laws, Dr. Hermanns. They cannot be bribed by prayers or incense. What an insult to the principles of creation. But remember, that for God a thousand years is a day. This power maneuver of the Church, these Concordats through the centuries with worldly powers . . . the Church has to pay for it. We live now in a scientific age and in a psychological age. You are a sociologist, aren't you? You know what the Herdenmenschen (men of herd mentality) can do when they are organized and have a leader, especially if he is a spokesmen for the Church. I do not say that the unspeakable crimes of the Church for 2000 years had always the blessings of the Vatican, but it vaccinated its believers with the idea: We have the true God, and the Jews have crucified Him. The Church sowed hate instead of love, though the Ten Commandments state: Thou shalt not kill." And then on p. 64 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q&f=false: "I'm not a Communist but I can well understand why they destroyed the Church in Russia. All the wrongs come home, as the proverb says. The Church will pay for its dealings with Hitler, and Germany, too." And on p. 65 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false: "I don't like to implant in youth the Church's doctrine of a personal God, because that Church has behaved so inhumanely in the past 2000 years. The fear of punishment makes the people march. Consider the hate the Church manifested against the Jews and then against the Muslims, the Crusades with their crimes, the burning stakes of the Inquisition, the tacit consent of Hitler's actions while the Jews and the Poles dug their own graves and were slaughtered. And Hitler is said to have been an alter boy! The truly religious man has no fear of life and no fear of death—and certainly no blind faith; his faith must be in his conscience. . . . I am therefore against all organized religion. Too often in history, men have followed the cry of battle rather than the cry of truth." When Hermanns asked him "Isn't it only human to move along the line of least resistance?", Einstein responded "Yes. It is indeed human, as proved by Cardinal Pacelli, who was behind the Concordat with Hitler. Since when can one make a pact with Christ and Satan at the same time? And he is now the Pope! The moment I hear the word 'religion', my hair stands on end. The Church has always sold itself to those in power, and agreed to any bargain in return for immunity. It would have been fine if the spirit of religion had guided the Church; instead, the Church determined the spirit of religion. Churchmen through the ages have fought political and institutional corruption very little, so long as their own sanctity and church property were preserved."
Misattributed

Love , Life , Truth , Feeling

“If there was anything her short life had taught her, it was that a person must be tough. Otherwise, you were had.”

Katherine Paterson book The Great Gilly Hopkins

Gilly Hopkins
The Great Gilly Hopkins (1978)

Life , Personality

“Wasting time is one of the worst faults of the world. Life is so short, every moment is so precious and yet, we live as if life will never end.”

Franz Liszt (1811–1886) Hungarian romantic composer and virtuoso pianist

As quoted in Alan Walker, Franz Liszt : The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847 (1987) Page 117.

Time , World , Life

“The present is short lived. Difficult to define it without disturbing the past and the future events.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Past , Future

“A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.”

Stephen King book Skeleton Crew

Source: Skeleton Crew

Kiss

“Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Secret , Books , Knowledge , Time

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.”

Alan Turing Computing Machinery and Intelligence

Source: Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950), p. 460.
Source: Computing machinery and intelligence

“Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short.”

George Orwell book Animal Farm

Source: Animal Farm

“It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is often brought on by short people. They are so much more energetic and uncompromising than the big fellows.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)

People , World

“Reflect as if you have all of time, even when time is short.”

Tamora Pierce book First Test

Source: First Test

Time

“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry… no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

Life , Death , Men , War

“Life's too short. Start with Dessert!”

Barbra Streisand (1942) American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and director

Life

“As soon as something stops being fun, I think it’s time to move on. Life is too short to be unhappy. Waking up stressed and miserable is not a good way to live.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

Source: Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons In Life

Powerful , Life , Way , Thinking

“Life is short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It is a very short walk. Make those twenty-five steps. Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever after.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Life , Cars

“Life is too short to be in a hurry." If we are always on the go, we are reacting to the exigencies of day-to-day life rather than allowing ourselves the space to create a happy life.”

Tal Ben-Shahar (1970) American psychologist

Source: Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

Life , Happiness

“We each exist for but a short time, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Universe , Time , Parting

“You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fat”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

As quoted in his letter to Jan Bialoblocki, written in Zelazowa Wola and dated back to December 24th 1826[citation needed]

“I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: "O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!" God granted it.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

J'ai toujours fait une prière à Dieu, qui est fort courte. La voici: Mon Dieu, rendez nos ennemis bien ridicules! Dieu m'a exaucé.
Letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville (16 May 1767)
Citas

God

“What is our life? A play of passion;
our mirth: the music of division;
our mother's wombs: the tiring houses be
where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is
that sits and marks still who doth act amiss.
Our graves that hide us from the searching sun
are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
only we die in earnest, that's no jest.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

"On the Life of Man" (1612)
Attributed

Life , Music , Search , Passion

“Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book The Gulag Archipelago

The Gulag Archipelago (1973).

Imagination

“Now who art thou, that on the bench wouldst sit
In judgment at a thousand miles away,
With the short vision of a single span?”

Dante Alighieri book Paradiso

Canto XIX, lines 79–81 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Art

“One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to [attain] certain unlimited dexterity… A well formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary a beautiful sound quality.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

As quoted in Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils.
Source: Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils (1986) by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Roy Howat, Naomi Shohet, and Krysia Osostowicz, p. 16

Beauty , Study

“I note that once again there is serious talk of trying to attract tourists to this country after the war… [b]ut it is quite safe to prophesy that the attempt will be a failure. Apart from the many other difficulties, our licensing laws and the artificial price of drink are quite enough to keep foreigners away…. But even these prices are less dismaying to foreigners than the lunatic laws which permit you to buy a glass of beer at half past ten while forbidding you to buy it at twenty-ﬁve past, and which have done their best to turn the pubs into mere boozing shops by excluding children from them.
How downtrodden we are in comparison with most other peoples is shown by the fact that even people who are far from being ""temperance"" don't seriously imagine that our licensing laws could be altered. Whenever I suggest that pubs might be allowed to open in the afternoon, or to stay open till midnight, I always get the same answer: ""The ﬁrst people to object would be the publicans. They don't want to have to stay open twelve hours a day."" People assume, you see, that opening hours, whether long or short, must be regulated by the law, even for one-man businesses. In France, and in various other countries, a café proprietor opens or shuts just as it suits him. He can keep open the whole twenty-four hours if he wants to; and, on the other hand, if he feels like shutting his cafe and going away for a week, he can do that too. In England we have had no such liberty for about a hundred years, and people are hardly able to imagine it.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

As I Please column in The Tribune (18 August 1944), http://alexpeak.com/twr/dwall/
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

War , Children , People , Law

“Understanding human history in the millennia following the Agricultural Revolution boils down to a single question: how did humans organise themselves in mass-cooperation networks, when they lacked the biological instincts necessary to sustain such networks? The short answer is that humans created imagined orders and devised scripts. These two inventions filled the gaps left by our biological inheritance.”

Yuval Noah Harari book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Imagination , History , Understanding , Question

“Never trade a secret, you'll always get the short end of the bargain.”

John le Carré book The Mission Song

The Mission Song (2006)

Secret

“A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”

Mark Twain book The Mysterious Stranger

The Mysterious Stranger (1916)

Life , God , Children , People

“Ah, the poverty, the shortness the disappointment of human joy! For in reality car en realite, what is the duration of the supreme moment of love? It is nothing, an instant, a second perhaps. A second of ecstasy, and after that- dust, ashes, nothingness.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 2, Charlie

Love , Disappointment , Cars , Reality

“[Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a grudging way, have said to people "I offer you a good time," Hitler has said to them "I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

From a review of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, New English Weekly (21 March 1940)

Life , Death , Pain , War

“No one says in the morning: A day is soon past, let us wait for the night. On the contrary, in the evening we consider what we shall do the next day. We should be very sorry to spend even one day at the mercy of time and bores. … Who can be certain of spending an hour without being bored, if he takes no care to fill even that short period according to his pleasure. Yet what we cannot be certain of for an hour, we sometimes feel assured of for life, and say: “If death is the end of everything, why give ourselves so much trouble? We are extremely foolish to make such a pother about the future”—that is to say, we are extremely foolish not to entrust our destinies to chance, and to provide for the interval which lies between us and death.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 173.

Life , Death , Pleasure , Feeling

“From Jewish terrorism against Arabs it is a short step to Jewish terrorism against Jews.”

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) Israeli politician, Zionist leader, prime minister of Israel

"On three fronts" (3 August 1938) as quoted in * Rebirth and Destiny of Israel
1954
91
Philosophical Library
New York.

“All of this is so insignificant. In the grand scale of things, there have been so many before who have been in this position. I'm just another one. Life is so short. It's like we're already gone, really, in retrospect.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

On fame and celebrity, as quoted in the New York Daily News, June 26, 2000.

Life

“I [prefer] a short life with width to a narrow one with length.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

As quoted in Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Muslim Physician And Philosopher of the Eleventh Century http://books.google.com.bh/books?id=B8k3fsvGRyEC&lpg=PA85&dq=I%20prefer%20a%20short%20life%20with%20width%20to%20a%20narrow%20one%20with%20length&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q=I%20prefer%20a%20short%20life%20with%20width%20to%20a%20narrow%20one%20with%20length&f=false (2006), by Aisha Khan p. 85, which cites Genius of Arab Civilizations by M.A. Martin.

Life

“Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably … And never regret anything that made you smile.”

Ruslana Koršunova (1987–2008) fashion model

"Model's Web rants pined for love" in Daily News (New York, 29 June 2009) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/06/28/2008-06-28_models_web_rants_pined_for_love.html

Love , Life , Smile , Forgiveness

“I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people’s standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself.”

Sophia Loren (1934) Italian actress

As quoted in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979) by A. E. Hotchner, p. 76.
Context: I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people’s standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.

People , Sense

“One of the blessings of age is to learn not to part on a note of sharpness, to treasure the moments spent with those we love, and to make them whenever possible good to remember, for time is short.”

Eleanor Roosevelt My Day

5 February 1943
My Day (1935–1962)

Love , Age , Learning , Time

“What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 21 July 1882, http://www.vggallery.com/letters/245_V-T_218.pdf
1880s, 1882
Context: What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.
That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.
Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

People , Personality

“Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do.”

George Orwell book Politics and the English Language

"Politics and the English Language" (1946)
Context: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive voice where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

“All that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of God.
We build slowly and destroy swiftly. Our Ancient Brethren who built the Temples at Jerusalem, with many myriad blows felled, hewed, and squared the cedars, and quarried the stones, and car»ed the intricate ornaments, which were to be the Temples. Stone after stone, by the combined effort and long toil of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master, the walls arose; slowly the roof was framed and fashioned; and many years elapsed, before, at length, the Houses stood finished, all fit and ready for the Worship of God, gorgeous in the sunny splendors of the atmosphere of Palestine. So they were built. A single motion of the arm of a rude, barbarous Assyrian Spearman, or drunken Roman or Gothic Legionary of Titus, moved by a senseless impulse of the brutal will, flung in the blazing brand; and, with no further human agency, a few short hours sufficed to consume and melt each Temple to a smoking mass of black unsightly ruin.
Be patient, therefore, my Brother, and wait!
The issues are with God: To do,
Of right belongs to us.
Therefore faint not, nor be weary in well-doing! Be not discouraged at men's apathy, nor disgusted with their follies, nor tired of their indifference! Care not for returns and results; but see only what there is to do, and do it, leaving the results to God! Soldier of the Cross! Sworn Knight of Justice, Truth, and Toleration! Good Knight and True! be patient and work!”

Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XIX : Grand Pontiff, p. 321

Men , God , Truth , Justice

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”

Paul of Tarsus book Epistle to the Romans

Romans 3:19-31
Epistle to the Romans
Context: Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

God

“You’re not immortal, you’re not eternal and to believe otherwise is to diminish everything that you really have. Life is precious because it is short and there is nothing after it. There is no purpose and there is no destiny beyond anything you give it yourself. If you want your life to mean something try making someone else’s life meaningful.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

“Give the Devil His Due”, 1st November 2014, https://youtube.com/XbiADYVORGE

Life , Making love

“Remember this universal truth… You are a part of this universe. It can’t hurt you without hurting itself. This means it is in the universe’s best interests for you to feel good and to get what you need and want. It is on the side of your greatest good and is taking you there in ways you may not always understand. It is taking you there even if the short cut to get you there takes you straight through hell.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Hurt , Hell , Understanding , Universe

“And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path. It is curious, but till that moment I had never realised what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.”

George Orwell book A Hanging

Source: "A Hanging", in The Adelphi (August 1931)

Understanding , Food , World , Life

“The body dies, and the soul remains, I dare to think. Life is short, and it has to be lived, but hell is eternal, and it has to be avoided.”

Angelo Vulpini (2003) Venezuelan recording artist

Source: Posted on instagram @angelovulpini, September 2nd, 2021.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CTVVtsfrRvh/

Hell , Soul , Thinking , Life

“Being an author is not as easy as it sounds. In short, an author can create thousands of actors. Also an actor can produce several musicians.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Letter to Isaac Disraeli (September 1826), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 107

Painting , Perfection , Pain , Light

“Depression is often a misunderstood and misdiagnosed concept. Given how debilitating and life-choking depression can be, it's really essential that we truly appreciate the complexity of this condition. A one size fits all label that obscures each individual's unique circumstances is terribly short-sighted and perhaps inhumane.

Often, depression is what I call situational. In other words, outside stressors and the culture that we live may cause, contribute to or exacerbate this disorder. When dysfunction appears at epidemic rates, we need to take a deeper look at what's going on.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life , Appearance

“You look at me, you look at me closely, each time closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer each time and our eyes grow, they grow closer, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confusion, their mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting with their lips, resting their tongues lightly on their teeth, playing in their caverns where the heavy air comes and goes with the scent of an old perfume and silence. Then my hands want to hide in your hair, slowly stroke the depth of your hair while we kiss with mouths full of flowers or fish, of living movements, of dark fragrance. And if we bite each other, the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a short and terrible surge of breath, that instant death is beauty. And there is a single saliva and a single flavour of ripe fruit, and I can feel you shiver against me like a moon on the water.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Death , Pain , Beauty , Feeling

“Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Youth

“No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you: a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting, a bee humming, a raindrop falling, a snowflake wafting along the clear evening air. There is magic everywhere. If you learn how to live it, life is nothing short of a daily miracle.”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Life , Flowers , Bird , Learning

“Life's too short to pretend and play games like that. I want to spend my time hanging out with people who make me feel good about myself. People who make me happy.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Alice in Zombieland

Life , People , Feeling , Game

“We live but for a short time, we see but very little, and we know almost nothing; so, at least, let's do some dreaming. Have yourself a very good Sunday, my dear readers.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Black Book

Source: The Black Book

Dreams , Time

“A life of short duration… could be so rich in joy and love that it could contain more meaning than a life lasting eighty years.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

Love , Life , Joy

“Is not life a hundred times too short for us— to bore ourselves?”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Ist das Leben nicht hundert Mal zu kurz, sich in ihm— zu langweilen?
Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter VII, 227

Life , Time

“Look. We both know life is short, Macy. Too short to waste a single second with anyone who doesn't appreciate and value you.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Life

“Summer's lease hath all too short a date.”

William Shakespeare book Shakespeare's Sonnets

Source: Sonnets (1609), XVIII
Source: Shakespeare's Sonnets
Context: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date

Summer

“I'll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Secret

“Life's too short to care about what other people think. Besides, they should accept us for who we are”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Life , People , Thinking

“Life is too short to be lived badly.”

Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist

Source: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

Life

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Love , Marriage

“A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Romantic , Wedding , Marriage , Happiness

“Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.”

Nina Simone (1933–2003) American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist

Life , People , Feeling

“Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friends”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Life , Time , Fight

“It's up to you how you waste your time and money. I'm staying here to read: life's too short.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Life , Money , Time , Reading

“Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Sadness

“Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream.”

Hugh Hefner (1926–2017) American businessman and magazine publisher

Life , Dreams

“Life is too short to fight every idiot along your way.”

Christopher Paolini (1983) American author

Life , Way , Fight

“I would like to write a Book which would drive men mad, which would be like an open door leading them where they would never have consented to go, in short, a door that opens onto reality.”

Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French-Occitanian poet, playwright, actor and theatre director

Source: Selected Writings

Men , Books , Reality , Madness

“Life is too short to spend hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade will mask an ugly heart.”

Kevyn Aucoin (1962–2002) American make-up artist and photographer

Life , Hope , Heart

“Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in Excellent Quotations for Home and School (1888) by Julia B. Hoitt, p. 97; no attribution of this phrase to any existing Lincoln document could be located.
Posthumous attributions

Victory

“The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.”

Paris Hilton book Confessions of an Heiress

Source: Confessions of an Heiress (2004), p. 53 (included in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1212303/Paris-Hilton-feature-Oxford-Dictionary-Quotes-alongside-Confucius-Oscar-Wilde-yes-really.html)

Cute , Life