Popular quotes about Almost! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 2
...in spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power-almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving. Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige, and that love, which "only" profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend energy on?
Erich FrommAnd I could always set Coach Hedge on fire,โ Leo volunteered. โThen he can be fire.โ The thought of a blazing satyr screaming, โDie, scumbag!โ as he attacked Gaea was almost enough to make Piper laughโ almost.
Rick Riordanbut as he plodded along a vague and almost hallucinatory pall hazed over his mind; he found himself at one point, with no notion of how it could be, a step from an almost certain fatal cliffside fallโfalling humiliatingly and helplessly, he thought; on and on, with no one even to witness it. Here there existed no one to record his or anyone else's degradation, and any courage or pride which might manifest itself here at the end would go unmarked: the dead stones, the dust-stricken weeds dry and dying, perceived nothing, recollected nothing, about him or themselves.
Philip K. DickFor years, I'd say yes to almost everything, trying to be nice and generous. Feeling obliged to be of service to the world. Maybe also a fear of being forgotten if I don't. But I paid the ultimate price in doing that, because for all those years, I got almost no work done! Some famous authors have written about this: that if they said yes to every request, then they'd never have time to write another book again.
Derek SiversUnlike modern military codes, ancient texts are almost never purposely misleading, purposely scrambled. ... indeed, literacy was so uncommon until classical times that the very writing of a message sufficed to keep it from almost everybody.
E. J. W. BarberIt makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing.... A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It's the best possible time of being alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.
Tom StoppardSometimes you write and you find yourself almost wondering how it will turn out. I don't think every writer sort of almost admits that at some stage his books can take on their own kind of life it selves and simply lead away into directions that they're not kind of prepared for.
J. P. DonleavyPeople would come and threaten them. And they would respond by putting the book in the window. Behind that, the publishers, many of whom were menaced and receiving anonymous phone calls of the very menacing kind and so, almost everybody - not everybody, but almost everybody held the line.
Salman RushdieTen years ago U.S. defence investment represented almost half of all defence expenditure in the whole alliance. Today it is 75%. This increasing economic gap may also lead to an increasing technology gap which will almost hamper the inter-operability between our forces.
Anders Fogh RasmussenThe truth is that an intellectual life is available to almost anyone, almost anywhere, if they work hard enough and are given some kind of access point.
Jess RowIt was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.
Madeline MillerI think the black man in America wants to be recognized as a human being; and it's almost impossible for one who has enslaved another to bring himself to accept the person who used to pull his plow, who used to be an animal, subhuman, who used to be considered as such by him-it's almost impossible for that person in his right mind to accept that person as his equal.
Malcolm XIf you have had your attention directed to the novelties in thought in your own lifetime, you will have observed that almost all really new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced, and almost any idea which jogs you out of your current abstractions may be better than nothing.
Alfred North WhiteheadMake-up? What happened? You look almost female." "Thanks. You look almost straight.
Susan Elizabeth PhillipsIt 's amazing how Allah made the mind to the point where we almost alike me and you, we almost see the same. But we got different aspects of things. Certain things are what they call common sense. Allah made it like that meaning there's only one mind, be we all occupy it. Some of us dig into it a little deeper. Some of us are lazy on it. There's only one right and one wrong.
RakimI was in Mexico City. It's a very pleasant city in many ways. It's vibrant, lively, pretty exciting society, but also depressing in other ways, and sometimes almost hopeless, you know. So it's a combination of vibrancy and, I wouldn't say despair, but hopelessness, you know. Doesn't have to be, but it is. I mean, there is almost no economy.
Noam ChomskyEarlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/post/santorum-says-he-almost-threw-up-after-reading-jfk-speech-on-separation-of-church-and-state/2012/02/26/gIQA91hubR_blog.html)
Michael C. BurgessYou look at the Koran or the Bible, they all tell the same stories. You see them as the stories of the Middle East. The stories reflect who these people were in the Middle East, and this is where Western culture came from. All our literature is basically influenced by these great myths. So I'm fascinated by it. You could almost say I'm obsessed with it. But if you're asking about the effect of religion on my life - almost everything I do is opposed to the practice of religion.
Rabih AlameddineIn a fight almost anything goes. It almost reaches the point where you stop to apologize if a chance blow lands above the belt.
Saul AlinskyColumbus is a town in which almost anything is likely to happen, and in which almost everything has.
James ThurberIf you go to the city of Washington, and you examine the pages of the Congressional Directory, you will find that almost all of those corporation lawyers and cowardly politicians, members of Congress, and misrepresentatives of the masses - you will find that almost all of them claim, in glowing terms, that they have risen from the ranks to places of eminence and distinction. I am very glad that I cannot make that claim for myself. I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks.
Eugene V. DebsAlmost everyone I meet is successful because of doing a lot of things right, and almost everyone I meet is successful in spite of some behavior that defies common sense.
Marshall Goldsmith(The baby sneezed. Wulf jumped as fire shot out of its nostrils and almost singed his leg.) Excuse me. I almost made Dark-Hunter barbecue, which would be really sad โcause I ainโt got no barbecue sauce with me. (Simi)
Sherrilyn KenyonWhen I write this in bed, I can almost hear the echo of the wind over the sand, or the groans of wooden panels around me. I can almost smell the dustiness of the camel, taste the bitterness of saltbush. And when I dream, your warm hands cover my shoulders. Your whispers carry stories and sound like the rustle of spinifex. I still wear that ring, you know... at night, when no one is watching.
Lucy ChristopherThere are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.
Kurt VonnegutI have no use for those- regardless of their political party- who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass.
Dwight D. EisenhowerWe've always been here and we'll always be here. We are a specific arrangement of particles and this instant is infinite. Did we luck out, or didn't we? The odds against this sentence having ever being typed, much less the odds against you reading it were inconceivable. Smile, because the fact that you're able to is almost impossible to comprehend.
Jeffrey RowlandBasketball, and the people I have met through the game have far and away had the largest impact on my life. Almost every positive role model I have ever had was a coach, mentor, or teammate.
Ashley GrahamIt was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.
Joseph HellerThe best leaders... almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols.
Tom PetersI had it together on Sunday. By Monday at noon it had cracked. On Tuesday debris Was descending on me. And by Wednesday no part was intact. On Thursday I picked up some pieces. On Friday I picked up the rest. By Saturday, late, It was almost set straight. And on Sunday the world was impressed With how well I had got it together.
Judith ViorstBy citing the UN Charter I indicate that the defensive party to the conflict should use only proportionate force, try to avoid civilian casualties, and end combat operations as soon as possible. These are provisions recognized by almost all authorities on international jurisprudence.
Bhikkhu BodhiA cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
Fyodor DostoevskyThe movement of abstract art... bears within itself at almost every point the mark of the changing material and psychological conditions surrounding modern culture.
Meyer SchapiroFor me, science is just a bunch of tools - it's like playing the violin. I just enjoy calculating, and it's an instrument I know how to play. It's almost an athletic performance, in a way. I was just watching the Olympics, and that's how I feel when proving a theorem.
Freeman Dysonin Italy, almost at every step, history and poetry add to the graces of nature, sweeten the memory of the past, and seem to preserve it in eternal youth.
Madame de StaelHe was, she reflected, almost rudely like a tortoise; and she was glad her friend kept none as pets or they might have suspected mockery.
Stella GibbonsFewer and fewer people are paying larger and larger percentage of the tax burden, as you know, almost half the people pay no income taxes at all. We're going to have more people in the wagon than we got pulling the wagon before long and that's not going to work. Those jobless numbers, you know, go hand-in-hand with those tax numbers.
Fred ThompsonTelephones are a virtual necessity - not a luxury - and the revenues collected by this tax flow into the general fund. But this once temporary tax remains and costs American taxpayers, our small businesses and families almost $6 billion dollars a year.
Mike FitzpatrickTo a contrarian like me, constant advice not to do something almost always starts me quickly down the risky, unpopular path.
Michael BloombergBut you are also the biggest threat of all ...You are a gay person I like. Your threat is that you make being gay seem non-threatening. It's almost as if your happiness does not take mine away.
Stephen Colbert