Gold Stars Quotes

The kingdom belongs to people who aren't trying to look good or impress anybody, even themselves. They are not plotting how they can call attention to themselves, worrying about how their actions will be interpreted or wondering if they will get gold stars for their behavior. ~ Brennan Manning

Some who support [more] coercive strategies assume that children will run wild if they are not controlled. However, the children for whom this is true typically turn out to be those accustomed to being controlled - those who are not trusted, given explanations, encouraged to think for themselves, helped to develop and internalize good values, and so on. Control breeds the need for more control, which is used to justify the use of control. ~ Alfie Kohn

I sat parked for a while in the parent pickup lot, watching a bunch of little kids run relays up and down the field. To be nine years old. To have life simply about family and friends and who was mad at who and which games you wanted to play at recess, and getting gold stars on spelling tests, an feeling that first crush.
Laurel, you had everything back then, and you didn't even know it. ~ Jennifer Castle

For some reason, we stopped getting gold stars at some age. It's time to bring them back. ~ Ze Frank

You know ... a lot of kids at school hate their parents. Some of them got hit. And some of them got caught in the middle of wrong lives. Some of them were trophies for their parents to show the neighbors like ribbons or gold stars. And some of them just wanted to drink in peace. ~ Stephen Chbosky

For an extensive and fascinating discussion of the use and pitfalls of rewards, see Edward Deci, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation (New York: Penguin, 1996); Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999); Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead, 2009). ~ Gretchen Rubin

When I'm teaching, I'm not really doing my job if the student who's always comfortable doing wacko stuff all over the page keeps getting gold stars from me for doing wacko stuff all over the page. A riskier assignment for that student, who might be used to hiding behind a lot of formal armor, would be to try to do something straightforward, traditionally, in which they are much more directly laid bare for the reader. ~ John D'Agata

As an aside, Hop got gold stars because he had buttermilk available for pancakes. These stars started shining when he told me pancakes weren't worth making without buttermilk and, since this was the God's honest truth, I took it as happy indication that Hopper Kincaid and I might just be soul mates. ~ Kristen Ashley

He sat at his desk – last seat, last row – and looked at the chart on the wall next to him. Of course there was no gold star next to his name. He had already done three things wrong: First, he had knocked over a girl and made her cry. Second, he was late getting back to class. And third and worst of all, his name was Bradley Chalkers. As long as his name was Bradley Chalker's, he'd never get a gold star. They don't give gold stars to monsters. ~ Louis Sachar

The only gold stars the CIA gives out are for death in the field, and then only to actual employees, not contracted assets. You get my appreciation." She smiled. "You'll get a gold star in a forgotten file when you die. It will have to wait for now, but I doubt it will wait for too long." "With friends like you." "All your friends fucked you over, Court. Face it, you are better off with a straight shooter like me managing you. ~ Mark Greaney

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers - a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars - and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable. ~ Peter M. Senge

I wanted to tell her how that praise had made me feel, how starved I'd felt for any kind of attention, that I'd begun to think of my teacher Mrs. Terrance like she was my friend, like she was my mother, like she would take me home with her one day to her big house that would be warm and smell of fresh bread, and there would be gold stars all over the floors and ceilings, and she would look down at me as we walked through the door and tell me that this was my home too, that I would get to stay with her forever because she loved me too. But I couldn't. I couldn't say that to my mother. Even then, I knew the power words had. To heal. To hurt.
So I held my mother while she cried, and eventually the tears subsided, and she began to hiccup softly, and this made me giggle, and she almost looked like she was going to smile at me, and I forgot about the house filled with gold stars because one smile from my mother was worth a billion gold stars and a billion Mrs. Terrances and a billion houses that smelled like fresh bread. ~ T.J. Klune

I'm proud of them, in a way. My little gold stars for surviving. For thriving. They aren't just mistakes. ~ A.R. Kahler

Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes BY ALFIE KOHN ~ Daniel H. Pink

I think there's something really poetic about using nuclear power to propel us to the stars, because the stars are giant fusion reactors. They're giant nuclear cauldrons in the sky. ~ Taylor Wilson

Mama called us her fallen stars - we are not falling bombs. ~ Marguerite Bennett

Kali is the goddess of destruction, the Clawed Hands, the Blood Drinker ... And that's one side of her, as it is for any god. If you knew her for thousands of years you'd know she could be all colors. The sky is black at night, but if your eyes were good enough, they could see the different lights of a million stars. Death is part of her because death is part of life. ~ Martin Cruz Smith

I've always had the idea that multi-millionaire rock stars should work harder than anyone because they have the ability to do it. Look at an artist like Andy Warhol. He never stopped working, even after he didn't need to work again. ~ Buzz Osborne

The word 'influenza' actually means a malign influence from the stars. ~ Jostein Gaarder

The point at which we worked with some of these actors, they weren't really stars yet. Nicolas Cage was not a big star when we did Raising Arizona. A lot of these people were also virtually unknown, too, when we worked with them first. ~ Joel Coen

He watched the scene unfolding at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The President was administering the oath of office to the charismatic woman. She was dressed in her usual off-white cotton saree, trimmed with a pale gold border, and wore no jewellery except for a pair of simple solitaire diamond earrings. She quite ~ Ashwin Sanghi

You can't expect two stars to drop in the same field in one lifetime ~ P.L. Travers

Consider the fact that no matter how many planets and stars are reflected in a lake, these reflections are encompassed within the water itself; that no matter how many universes there are, they are encompassed within a single space; and that no matter how vast and how numerous the sensory appearances of samsara and nirvana may be, they are encompassed within the single nature of mind (sem-nyid). ~ Dudjom Lingpa

Gold is a great thing to sew into your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939, but I think civilized people don't buy gold, they invest in productive businesses. ~ Charlie Munger

Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind, But it is very difficult to treat because it cannot even be defined, Because everything is not gold that glisters and everything is not a tear that glistens, And one man's remorse is another man's reminiscence ~ Ogden Nash

I love to shop. Clothes, electronics, and I love jewelry, especially yellow gold. ~ Apolo Ohno

When we look out into space, we are looking into our own origins, because we are truly children of the stars. ~ Brian Cox

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
It matters that you don't just give up. ~ Stephen Hawking

The Big Dipper wheels on its bowl. In years hence it will have stopped looking like a saucepan and will resemble a sugar scoop as the earth continues to wobble and the dipper's seven stars speed in different directions. ~ Ann Zwinger

Then overwhelmed by the sense of that unknown infinity, like one bewildered by a strange persecution, confronting the shadows of night, in the presence of that impenetrable darkness, in the midst of the murmur of the waves, the swell, the foam, the breeze, under the clouds, under that vast diffusion of force, under that mysterious firmament of wings, of stars, of gulfs, having around him and beneath him the ocean above him the constellations, under the great unfathomable deep, he sank, gave up the struggle, lay down upon the rock, his face towards the stars, humble, and uplifting his joined hands towards the terrible depths, he cried aloud, Have mercy. ~ Victor Hugo

Like every other destruction of optimism, whether in a whole civilisation or in a single individual, these must have been unspeakable catastrophes for those who had dared to expect progress. But we should feel more than sympathy for those people. We should take it personally. For if any of those earlier experiments in optimism had succeeded, our species would be exploring the stars by now, and you and I would be immortal. ~ David Deutsch

That is true. But nevertheless, you are like the prisoners in the cave, your legs and necks shackled by your maps and your walls so that all you can see is the shadows thrown by the fire on the wall of the cave. You think they are the truth, but they are only a shadow of the truth, which lies - " He gestured to the sky and the plain and the distant spiral curl that was the growing city of Sarai. " - out here, under the gaze of the sun and the moon and the stars. ~ Kate Elliott

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment ... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Futurity is impregnable to mortal ken: no prayer pierces through heaven's adamantine walls. Whether the birds fly right or left, whatever be the aspect of the stars, the book of nature is a maze, dreams are a lie, and every sign a falsehood. ~ Friedrich Schiller

To be continually subject to the breath of slander, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the brightness of the finest gold; but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

I tilted my head back, breathing deeply. It was a clear, moonless night, and after those long months underground, the sight of all that sky was dizzying. And so many stars - a glittering, tangled mass that seemed close enough to touch. I let their light fall over me like a balm, grateful for the air in my lungs, the night all around me. ~ Leigh Bardugo

He can't take his eyes off the stars, but I can't take mine off his face. ~ Amie Kaufman

The stars are pretty but the space between them is infinite and black with promise. ~ Mark Lawrence

All the systems which explain so precisely why the world is as it is and why it can never be otherwise, have always called forth in me the same kind of uneasiness one has when face to face with the regulations displayed under the glaring lights of a prison cell. Even if one had been born in prison and had never seen the stars or seas or woods, one would instinctively know of timeless freedom in unlimited space.

My evil star, however, had fated me to be born in times when only the sharply demarcated and precisely calculable where in fashion.... "Of course, I am on the Right, on the Left, in the Centre; I descend from the monkey; I believe only what I see; the universe is going to explode at this or that speed" - we hear such remarks after the first words we exchange, from people whom we would not have expected to introduce themselves as idiots. If one is unfortunate enough to meet them again in five years, everything is different except their authoritative and mostly brutal assuredness. Now they wear a different badge in their buttonhole; and the universe now shrinks at such a speed that your hair stands on end. ~ Ernst Junger

When I sleepwalk into your room tonight
and when I gently pick you up
and when I hold you high up
into the moonlight
cling to me
Cling to me as hard as you possibly can
Cling to me as if clinging could save us
Cling to me as if you believed clinging to me could keep me from dying
Because I think
That you believe
That I will never die
I think I've blinded you to the finality of life
To the reality
That I am not immortal
That I cannot stay here with you forever
Whether it is smoke or even the stars
Eventually everything goes away
Everything dies
Even as my broken arms heal themselves while wrapped around your body
I am slowly leaving
But please
Tonight
Cling to me
Cling to me as if you believed clinging to me could keep me from dying ~ Jose N Harris

She looked directly up into the northern lights and she wondered if those cold-burning spectres might not draw her breath, her very soul, out of her chest and into the stars. ~ Eowyn Ivey

Walk ten meters, you will find the lust; walk thousand miles, you may find the love! Soil is everywhere; but gold is somewhere! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I'll tell them," she said. "I'll tell them it was my fault."
He looked at her, gold eyes incredulous. "You can't lie to them."
"I'm not. I brought you back," she said. "You were dead, and I brought you back. I upset the balance, not you. I opened the door for Lilith and her stupid ritual. I could have asked for anything, and I asked for you." She tightened her grip on his shirt, her fingers white with cold and pressure. "And I would do it again. I love you, Jace Wayland - Herondale - Lightwood - whatever you want to call yourself. I don't care. I love you and I wil always love you, and pretending it could be any other way is just a waste of time. ~ Cassandra Clare

The Aristocrat

The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay
At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away).
They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new,
And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do;
He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate,
Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait;
He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky,
And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery
The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf;
But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself.

O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away,
And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay
At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever;
The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever;
There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain,
There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain;
There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door,
Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more,
Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark,
And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark:
And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird;
For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word. ~ G.K. Chesterton

You're nothing but a cold heart covered in gold, that's why i'm leaving you. ~ Yonas.

There's something odd about the primary's flare pattern."
"Wouldn't be surprised," Dairine said. "I chucked a black hole into it."
Roshaun put his eyebrows up. "Stars in your neighborhood seem to have a rough time of it."
"If ours acts weird, talk to Nita," Dairine said, rather annoyed. "First time it went out was on her watch. ~ Diane Duane

The meteor flag of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return. ~ Thomas Campbell

I am the gorilla who feels his wings growing, a giddy gorilla in the centre of a satin-like emptiness; the night too grows like an electrical plant, shooting white-hot buds into velvet black space. I am the black space of the night in which the buds break with anguish, a starfish swimming on the frozen dew of the moon. I am the germ of a new insanity, a freak dressed in intelligible language, a sob that is buried like a splinter in the quick of the soul. I am dancing the very sane and lovely dance of the angelic gorilla. These are my brothers and sisters who are insane and unangelic. We are dancing in the hollow of the cup of nothingness. We are of one flesh, but separated like stars. ~ Henry Miller

And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars.
A million suns.
Any of them could hold a planet. Any of them could hold a home.
But all of them are out of reach. [p.218] ~ Beth Revis