Giving Up Easily Quotes

“It was against this backdrop that the great fortunes were made, fortunes which allowed the first families to dominate the society of that era. Theodore Parker, a crusading minister in the 1840s, wrote of the Lowells and these other great families: "This class is the controlling one in politics. It mainly enacts the laws of this state and the nation; makes them serve its turn ... It can manufacture governors, senators, judges to suit its purposes as easily as it can manufacture cotton cloth. This class owns the machinery of society ... ships, factories, shops, water privileges." They were also families which had a fine sense of protecting their own position, and they were notorious for giving large grants to Harvard College, which was their college, and just as notorious for doing very little for public education.”

— David Halberstam

“Human beings remember "firsts"- the first time something happens, or the begining of an experience- and we tend to remember "lasts" as well. So when you are about to make a critical/negative delivery , start your criticism with a positive begining, it will affect the rest of the experience. Start by giving them solid ground to stand by expressing the fact that you value them and they matter. Once they are reassured of their own worth, people will accept your comments far more easily and they'll get less defensive.”

— Olivia Fox Cabane

“But hereto is replied that the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile, and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case? But that is easily answered: their naming of men is but to make their picture the more lively, and not to build any history. Painting men, they cannot leave men nameless. We see we cannot play at chess but that we must give names to our chess-men; and yet, me thinks, he were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop.”

— Philip Sidney

“All children are curious and I wonder by what process this trait becomes developed in some and suppressed in others. I suspect again that schools and colleges help in the suppression insofar as they meet curiosity by giving the answers, rather than by some method that leads from narrower questions to broader questions. It is hard to satisfy the curiosity of a child, and even harder to satisfy the curiosity of a scientist, and methods that meet curiosity with satisfaction are thus not apt to foster the development of the child into the scientist. I don't advocate turning all children into professional scientists, although I think there would be advantages if all adults retained something of the questioning attitude, if their curiosity were less easily satisfied by dogma, of whatever variety.”

— Marston Bates

“I'm hideous"
"You could never be hideous"
"Forget it" I wanted this conversation over.
"I can't forget it," Gran said, not giving up so easily. "I don't like to hear you talk about yourself that way. Your scars do not define you, young lady. Your action do.”

— Cambria Hebert

“It is also possible to say precisely why. Truth seduces us very easily into a kind of joy of possession: I have comprehended this and that, learned it, understood it. Knowledge is power. I am therefore more than the other man who does not know this and that. I have greater possibilities and also greater temptations. Anyone who deals with truth - as we theologians certainly do - succumbs all too easily to the psychology of the possessor. But love is the opposite of the will to possess. It is self-giving. It boasteth not itself, but humbleth itself.”

— Helmut Thielicke

“I want to be, if I can, as sure of the world
the real world
around me as is possible. Now, you can only attain that to a certain degree, but I want the greatest degree of control. I've never involved myself in narcotics of any kind, I don't smoke, and I don't drink because that can easily just fuzz the edges of my rationality
fuzz the edges of my reasoning powers
and I want to be as aware as I possibly can. That means giving up a lot of fantasies that might be comforting in some ways, but I'm willing to give that up in order to live in an actually real world, or as close as I can get to it.”

— James Randi

“He was giving me enough rope to hang myself with. Apparently he didn't realize that once a noose is tied it will fit one neck as easily as another.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

“I absolutely love Vancouver! One, because the city is beautiful and very easily walkable, and two, because the city keeps giving me work!”

— Julie McNiven

“When I spoke, I was listened to; and I was at a loss to know how I had so easily acquired the art of commanding attention, and giving the tone to the conversation.”

— Adelbert Von Chamisso

“The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out-at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system which puts a brake on preparation for war, aggressive or defensive, but it is not one that conduces to the limitation of warfare or the prospects of a good peace. No political system more easily becomes out of control when passions are aroused. These defects have been multiplied in modern democracies, since their great extension of size and their vast electorate produce a much larger volume of emotional pressure.”

— B.H. Liddell Hart

“Imagine how a man's life would be if he trusted that he was loved by God. How could he interact with the poor and not show partiality, he could love his wife easily and not expect her to redeem him, he would be slow to anger because redemption was no longer at stake, he could be wise and giving with his money because money no longer represented points, he could give up on formulaic religion, knowing that checking stuff off a spiritual to-do list was a worthless pursuit, he would have confidence and the ability to laugh at himself, and he could love people without expecting anything in return. It would be quite beautiful, really.”

— Donald Miller

“Even if the whole earth and sea were turned to gold, they could hardly satisfy the avarice of a woman ... You can more easily scratch a diamond with your fingernail than you can by any human ingenuity get a woman to consent to giving any of her savings.”

— Andreas Capellanus

“If your novel seems to be dragging, one of the first places to look is at the heart of your lead character. Is he giving up too easily? Has she been taking it too long? Are there too many scenes where he's thinking and not doing? -James Scott Bell”

— Anonymous.

“Sooner or later your fingers close on that one moist-cold spud that the spade has accidentally sliced clean through, shining wetly white and giving off the most unearthly of earthly aromas. It's the smell of fresh soil in the spring, but fresh soil somehow distilled or improved upon, as if that wild, primordial scene has been refined and bottled: eau de pomme de terre. You can smell the cold inhuman earth in it, but there's the cozy kitchen to, for the smell of potatoes is, at least by now, to us, the smell of comfort itself, a smell as blankly welcoming as spud flesh, a whiteness that takes up memories and sentiments as easily as flavors. To smell a raw potato is to stand on the very threshold of the domestic and the wild. (241)”

— Michael Pollan

“Jon Hamm is such an amazing co-star. He used to set the tune of the scenes so easily, and in his free time, he didn't mind giving us cues. We picked up a lot from him.”

— Madhur Mittal

“Many churches are measuring the wrong things. We measure things like attendance and giving, but we should be looking at more fundamental things like anger, contempt, honesty, and the degree to which people are under the thumb of their lusts. Those things can be counted, but not as easily as offerings.”

— Dallas Willard

“Say you want to stop snacking at work. Is the reward you're seeking to satisfy your hunger? Or is it to interrupt boredom? If you snack for a brief release, you can easily find another routine-such as taking a quick walk, or giving yourself three minutes on the Internet-that provides the same interruption without adding to your waistline.”

— Charles Duhigg

“How does she do it? She makes it sound like she is so cut up to be giving them this information, and it's all just bumph out of her head. She never told them ANYTHING. I don't think she's given them the right name of any airfield in Britain except Mainsend and Buscot, which of course were where she was stationed. They could have easily checked. It's all so close to truth, and so glib
her aircraft identification is rather good considering what a fuss she makes about it. It makes me think of the first day I met her, giving those directions in German. So cool and crisp, such authority
suddenly she really was a radio operator, a German radio operator, she was so good at faking it. Or when I told her to be Jamie, how she just suddenly turned into Jamie.
This confession of hers is rotten with error ...”

— Elizabeth Wein

“Now [after doing Pilates], I have muscles of steel and could easily deal with giving birth.”

— Hugh Grant

“Honestly, I do not believe in a drunk Byron writing beautiful verses. Inspiration can pass through the soul just as easily in the midst of an orgy as in the silence of the woods, but when it is a question of giving form to your thoughts, whether you are secluded in your study or performing on the planks of a stage, you must be in total possession of yourself.”

— George Sand

“Miss Finch, it's not wise for officers to quarter in the same house with an unmarried gentlewoman. Have a care for your reputation, if your father does not."
"Have a care for my reputation?" She had to laugh. Then she lowered her voice. "This, from the man who flattened me in the road and kissed me without leave?"
"Precisely." His eyes darkened.
His meaning washed over her in a wave of hot, sensual awareness. Surely he wasn't implying ...
No. He wasn't implying at all. Those hard jade eyes were giving her a straightforward message, and he underscored it with a slight flex of his massive arms: I am every bit as dangerous as you suppose. If not more so.
"Take your kind invitation and run home with it. When soldiers and maids live under the same roof, things happen. And if you happened to find yourself under me again ... " His hungry gaze raked her body. "You wouldn't escape so easily."
She gasped. "You are a beast."
"Just a man, Miss Finch. Just a man.”

— Tessa Dare

“It is a wonderful truth that things we want most in life-a sense of purpose, happiness and hope-are most easily attained by giving them to others.”

— Isabel Allende

“I lacked some essential skill for attracting people, for giving and receiving love easily. It meant too much to me. I seemed to be driving away the people I most wanted. Finally I had realized that getting someone to love you was like trying to coax a bird to perch on your finger ... it wouldn't happen unless you stopped trying so hard.”

— Lisa Kleypas

“So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death, and dying to redeem,
So dearly to redeem what hellish hate
So easily destroy'd, and still destroys,
In those who, when they may, accept not grace.”

— John Milton

“When giving, praying, and fasting are practiced together in the life of a believer, it creates a type of threefold cord that is not easily broken.”

— Jentezen Franklin

“I am blessed beyond the realms of blessedness, and easily the greatest pleasure is giving it away”

— Joanna Lumley

“By pumping up hyper-partisanship, our country (America) is playing with forces that can easily get out of control. We are giving purpose and cover - and sometimes a sense of purpose - to the crazy among us. We are encouraging a culture of extremism”

— John Avlon

“About three years went by and I had become exhausted - really at the end of my rope almost - and I thought I couldn't last much longer ... and at the very end, when I thought of giving it all up, suddenly I thought it was good. I knew that I now understood something about it and I painted it as easily as you can imagine.”

— Milton Resnick

“These days I think people give up too easily. Everyone says it's about compromise, which it is. Love, compromise, promises, presents help. But ultimately it's about not giving up. People are led to believe that if it's not perfect then just ditch it and change it, these days. That's a mistake.”

— Simon Le Bon

“As we explore the nature of our gift, our goal is to move toward this kind of giving: cheerful giving that flows gently and easily, kingly giving that flows surely from who we are. As we encounter the questions-Who are we ? What do we love ?-the gift we bring will be easy, because our gift naturally emerges from who we are. The offering we bring is ourselves, just as we are. Our gift is our true nature. There can be no greater gift than this.”

— Wayne Muller

“Lots of people limit their possibilities by giving up easily. Never tell yourself this is too much for me. It's no use. I can't go on. If you do you're licked, and by your own thinking too. Keep believing and keep on keeping on.”

— Norman Vincent Peale

“I do my work easily and joyously. I feel beauty all around me and I see beauty in everyone I meet, for I see God in everything. I recognize my part in the Life Pattern and I find harmony through gladly and joyously living it. I recognize my oneness with all mankind and my oneness with God. My happiness overflows in loving and giving toward everyone and everything.”

— Peace Pilgrim