Half Measures Quotes

If you have felt that way," said Juliet, "how can you despise her?"

"I still don't understand why you have suddenly decided that we don't all deserve death and suffering," said Runajo. "How recently did you tell me that we lived in a charnel house?"

Through the bond, she felt something like a flinch from Juliet. Then there was silence, and the sense of a wall between them.

After several moments, Juliet said quietly, "I do not - perhaps - wish to see you dead."

"That's boring and inconstant," said Runajo. "If we deserve death, then wish us dead. Don't indulge in half measures and wish us alive to keep on killing. ~ Rosamund Hodge

The beautiful dream of young love that ventures only on half-measures, that desires and dares not ask, promises and does not give.

He was homeless in the noble sense of those who, like the Vikings and pirates of beauty, have collected in their intellectual raids all that is most precious in many great cities. He was close to all the arts in the manner of a dilettante, but stronger than his love for them was his sublime disdain to serve them.

Destiny does not always need the powerful prelude of a sudden violent blow to shake a heart beyond recovery.

Memory is always a bond and every loving memory is a bond twice over. ~ Stefan Zweig

Now they both smiled. The sweet, light fragrance of a first youthful, half-unspoken love, with all its intoxicating tenderness, had awoken in them like a dream on which you reflect ironically when you wake, although you really wish for nothing more than to dream it again, to live in the dream. The beautiful dream of young love that ventures only on half-measures, that desires and dares not ask, promises and does not give. They ~ Stefan Zweig

If one intended to pamper oneself, she had long believed, half measures weren't worth the trouble. ~ Jeff Mariotte

You have to understand me. There are no half measures here. I am your girl. I will be your woman. But I will never be your victim. If you ever try to turn me into that, I will sing your dying dirge." Her ~ Alex Bledsoe

People don't have to do things by half measures because they aren't getting paid for it. In fact, that's all the more reason to throw every ounce of passion you have behind it. ~ Anna Kendrick

No half measures, he muttered several times. It was his personal motto; he intended to have it latinised and put on a crest. ~ Larry McMurtry

Christ says, Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good ... Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked
the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours. ~ C.S. Lewis

It was not the blatant evil that broke the soul. No, in the face of utter darkness, the human spirit often rose to soaring heights. It was the shades of gray, the nuances and subtleties that wore people down. It was dealing with sellouts and side deals, small injustices and petty grievances that turned heroes into stoop-shouldered, weary old men. That was how they crumbled, idealists like this young man. They tripped on the garbage heap of miserly greed and fearful half-measures. ~ Rivera Sun

I am not one for half measures or half-hearted efforts. ~ Jay Inslee

we are left with a stark choice: allow climate disruption to change everything about our world, or change pretty much everything about our economy to avoid that fate. But we need to be very clear: because of our decades of collective denial, no gradual, incremental options are now available to us. "(…)
That's tough for a lot of people in important positions to accept, since it challenges something that might be even more powerful than capitalism, and that is the fetish of centrism - of reasonableness, seriousness, splitting the difference, and generally not getting overly excited about anything. This is the habit of thought that truly rules our era, far more among the liberals who concern themselves with matters of climate policy than among conservatives, many of whom simply deny the existence of the crisis. Climate change presents a profound challenge to this cautious centrism because half measures won't cut it. (…)
The challenge, then, is not simply that we need to spend a lot of money and change a lot of policies; it's that we need to think differently, radically differently, for those changes to be remotely possible. Right now, the triumph of market logic, with its ethos of domination and fierce competition, is paralyzing almost all serious efforts to respond to climate change. (…)
It seems to me that our problem has a lot less to do with the mechanics of solar power than the politics of human power - specifically whether there can be a shift in who wields ~ Naomi Klein

I can at once refute the statement that the people of the West object to conservation of oil resources. They know that there is a limit to oil supplies and that the time will come when they and the Nation will need this oil much more than it is needed now. There are no half measures in conservation of oil. ~ Herbert Hoover

I wanted a perfect man like the one in my imagination and a perfect love and I wasn't going to abandon either of these goals, however long it meant I had to be alone. 'All or nothing' was my abiding principle and I'd never accept half measures. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

There is an admirable fact about the psychology of France: she knows no half measures, loathsome or sublime, she forges the thought and the beauty of a world or of a dung heap; her destiny is never to be mediocre. ~ Josephin Peladan

The American people are not remarkable for moderation. They despise halfness. They will go with him who goes farthest and stay with him who stays longest. What the country thinks of half-men and half-measures is seen by the last election. We repudiate all such men and all such measures. ~ Frederick Douglass

Give me all of you!!! I don't want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. I don't want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self
in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart. ~ C.S. Lewis

I'm reluctant to get involved in science fiction, because I feel like I've done it and done it well, so unless something comes along that I feel has the potential to do something even more interesting, it seems a shame to sort of re-live something in half-measures. ~ Jamie Bamber

To venture into space we must be strong-willed and determined. We must be fully committed to its exploration and discovery; space permits no half measures and is unforgiving of mistakes. ~ Henry Joy McCracken

The ancient Greek mathematician Ptolemy was born some time at the end of the first century. Ptolemy based his version of trigonometry on the relationships between the chords of circles and the corresponding central angles of those chords. Ptolemy came up with a theorem involving four-sided figures that you can construct with the chords. In the meantime, mathematicians in India decided to use the measure of half a chord and half the angle to try to figure out these relationships. Drawing a radius from the center of a circle through the middle of a chord (halving it) forms a right angle, which is important in the definitions of the trig functions. These half-measures were the beginning of the sine function in trigonometry. In fact, the word sine actually comes from the Hindu name jiva. ~ Mary Jane Sterling

It's a sin."
"How do you know?"
"Because it feels like one," she managed to say.
He laughed quietly and pulled her hips farther toward him with a decisiveness that drew a little yelp from her.
"In that case ... I never sin by half measures. ~ Lisa Kleypas

This will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory. ~ George W. Bush

When I do something, I go full-out. Half-measures are for wusses. ~ Chris O'Guinn

The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion. ~ Carl Schmitt

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences. ~ Winston S. Churchill

The war is not going well and it is time to say why ... It has been fought with half-measures. It has been fought with an eye on the wishes of our 'coalition partners.' It has been fought to assuage the Arab 'street.' It has been fought to satisfy the diplomats rather than the generals ... why have we not loosed the B-52s and the B-2s to carpet-bomb Taliban positions? And why are we giving the Taliban sanctuary in their cities? We could drop leaflets giving civilians 48 hours to evacuate, after which the cities become legitimate military targets. ~ Charles Krauthammer

What would it be like to be caught in the emotional crosshairs of a man like Luke Almeida? To belong to him, body and soul? The prospect warmed her some. Scared her more. With Luke, she suspected there would be no half measures. ~ Kate Meader

Showers"

The child tells me, put a brick in the tank,
don't wear leather, don't eat brisket,
snapper, or farmed salmon - not tells,
orders - doesn't she know the sluice gates
are wide open and a trillion gallons
wasted just for the dare of it?

Until the staring eye shares that thrill,
witnessing: I am just iris and cornea,
blind spot where brain meets mind,
the place where the image forms itself
from a spark - image of the coming storm.

Still the child waits outside the bathroom
with the watch she got for Best Essay,
muttering, two minutes too long.

Half measures, I say. She says, action.
I: I'm one man. She: Seven billion.

If you choose, the sea goes back. ~ Dennis Nurkse

My life, in some ways, has been a half-measure. I didn't commit myself all the way to my marriage and family, because I would have given up more. And I didn't go all the way with just being completely selfish. I always wonder where my career would be if I was more selfish. ~ Alec Baldwin

The world was full of such madmen in those days. Imprisonment is not the way to deal with such people; half measures merely feed their pride. Leave 'em alone or hang 'em, in my opinion. Or better still, pack them off to the Americas, and let them starve. ~ Iain Pears

They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and makeshifts merely. They put off the day of settlement, and meanwhile the debt accumulates. ~ Henry David Thoreau

No. I want you too much to take you in stingy little servings. Maybe you'll think that's greedy of me, but I'm not the kind of guy who takes what he wants in half measures. ~ Beth Kery

We live in a primitive time - don't we, Will? - neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books. ~ Thomas Harris

The place smelled of commodes and playing cards, and before I was halfway to the end I had made a firm resolve never to begin to die. For me it would be all or nothing: no half measures, no lingering on the doorstep. ~ Alan Bradley

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity. ~ Eric Hoffer

When life wants to get our attention it doesn't bother with half measures. ~ Joe Schreiber

Loving him sneaked up on me one tentative step at a time and then a bouncing rush and I was the lucky one who got to love him.
I get to love this man every day of my life.
It's an all-consuming love filling every crevice and it's meant to be that way. I've discovered with every opened lock within me that I wasn't made for half measures, or maybe I'm just not made to be half of anything with Gray.
He makes me want to jump in the puddle of love with both my feet.
Not only that, I craved it, hungered for the love he showered me with.
Our love opened me to new feelings. Like we've built mansions on top of clouds with bells and whistles loud enough to drown out the world.
Because in the end isn't that what transcendent love does? It blocked out the world and lets you experience your heartbeats for the first time. ~ V. Theia

But Eisenhower's advice was consistent, from his days as a general, to his years in the White House, to his role as veteran counselor: don't fight unless you are in it to win. Don't waste time and lives with half measures. ~ Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy

One cannot ignore half of life for the purposes of science, and then claim that the results of science give a full and adequate picture of the meaning of life. All discussions of 'life' which begin with a description of man's place on a speck of matter in space, in an endless evolutionary scale, are bound to be half-measures, because they leave out most of the experiences which are important to use as human beings. ~ Colin Wilson

Half-ration for dinner. All I accomplished today was thinking up a plan that'll kill me, and that doesn't take much energy. ~ Andy Weir

But here Billy Chope arrived to demand what the 'ell Sam Cardew was doing with his gal. Now Sam was ever readier for a fight than Billy was; but the sum of Billy's half pints was large: wherefore the fight began. On the skirt of a hilarious ring Lizerunt, after some small outcry, triumphed aloud. Four days before, she had no bloke; and here she stood with two, and those two fighting for her! Here in the public gaze, on the Flats! For almost five minutes she was Helen of Troy. ~ Arthur Morrison

Here's what I was thinking about:1.Who the new threat was 2.The air show in Mexico City 3.How to get Total to quit milking his injury, because enough was enough 4. My mom and Half sister Ella 5.Fang 6.Fang 7.Fang ~ James Patterson

The statement that 'abortions is a women's choice over her body' is a half-truth, because there are two heart+beats, not one. ~ Teresa Squitti

Things are very different now because a lot of those little clubs don't exist. In Soho for instance, where nearly half my nightlife photographs were taken, it's rapidly changing. There isn't the same after dark frisson of excitement about the place any more. ~ Derek Ridgers

Ah! poor religion, thou hast been sorely shot at by cruel foes, but thou hast not been wounded one-half so dangerously by thy foes as by thy friends. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I might be in a bit of a Skoda garage rather than a Mercedes garage, but I am telling you some old bangers don't half polish up great. ~ Ian Holloway

Radar half raised his hand. I dutifully called on him. Yes, I was wondering if it would be possible for you to write a sestina about Margo Roth Spiegelman's breasts? Your six words are: pink, round, firmness, succulent, supple, and pillowy. ~ John Green

There are no half-hearted champions. ~ John C. Maxwell

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer. ~ William Penn

I went down by a different staircase, and i saw another "fuck you" on the wall. I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something. It wouldn't come off. It's hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "fuck you" signs in the world. ~ J.D. Salinger

The influence of the senses has, in most men, overpowered the mind to the degree that the walls of time and space have come to look real and insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these limits is, in the world, the sign of insanity. Yet, time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Oh,' she said, too bone-weary to pretend: 'I would far rather that I love you as I saw yesterday I do than that I had gone on worshiping you as I did not long since.' And she turned away hastily, and did not see that Little John would reach out to her; and half-running, went to Tuck's cottage, where she could pull on her half-dry clothes, and become a proper outlaw again. At least, she thought, fighting back tears, like this I am Cecil, with a place among friends, and a task to do. I am someone. I wonder if perhaps if I am no longer Cecil, I am no one at all. ~ Robin McKinley

Your conflicts, all the difficult things, the problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are actually yours. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. You are not going in the right direction unless there is something pricking you in the side, telling you, "Look here! This way!" That part of you loves you so much that it doesn't want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, it will make you suffer greatly if you don't listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose. ~ A.H. Almaas

When I was doing 'All in the Family,' half the time, I was looking at where the cameras were, where were the other actors in the scene, what the audience was doing. ~ Rob Reiner

An actress in a film starts every day with an hour and a half in front of a mirror, with hair and make-up and costumes. ~ Debra Winger

He'd searched the world over for his lifemate, the woman holding the other half of his soul, the light to his darkness. She didn't exist. It was that simple. She didn't exist. ~ Christine Feehan

Over half a century on and they're still complaining about it. Compare it to the fact that Garden State didn't win an Oscar and they seem a little petty if you ask me. I guess that just goes to show what kind of people they really are. ~ Zach Braff

I know a lot of people that had one cancer that are not alive today. I've had three. So my glass is much more than half full. ~ Hamilton Jordan

But if the world measures a refugee according to the worst story, we will always excuse human suffering, saying it is not yet as bad as someone else's. ~ Victoria Armour-Hileman

As many have pointed out, it has often seemed in the past half-century or so as if the institutional Church cared more for atheists, modernists, and every type of non-Catholic than for her own faithful children who want to believe what has always been believed and want to live as holy men and women have always strived to live, "in the world but not of it." One ~ Peter Kwasniewski

If you want to coach you have three rules to follow to win. One, surround yourself with people who can't live without football. I've had a lot of them. Two, be able to recognize winners. They come in all forms. And, three, have a plan for everything. A plan for practice, a plan for the game. A plan for being ahead, and a plan for being behind 20-0 at half, with your quarterback hurt and the phones dead, with it raining cats and dogs and no rain gear because the equipment man left it at home. ~ Bear Bryant

That's all you get," said Alpharius, and split him in half.
Alpharius sheathed his gladius, and dragged the sabre out of his torso. He tossed it away, and walked through the liter of bodies to where Namatjira was kneeling on the deck.
"Please! My lord primarch! Please, I beg you!" Namtjira pleaded, his hands making a desperate namaste.
Alpharius drew his boltgun.
"Why?" shrieked Namatjira. "Why are you doing this?
"For the Emperor," said Alpharius, and pulled the trigger. ~ Dan Abnett

We knew it was coming but there were some rumors of a possible 50 basis point cut (a half a percentage point) and every time that happens it sets us up for disappointments. The reality is a very large majority of people don't know how to react to this so they're taking their cue from the market. It's really indecision. ~ Charles Payne

Recently I began reading my old diaries. Back to before the war. Gradually I became very depressed. The reason for that is probably that I wrote only when there were obstacles and halts to the flow of life, seldom when everything was smooth and even ... As I read I distinctly felt what a half-truth a diary presents. ~ Kathe Kollwitz

Almost half of the people over 40 believe they look younger than they are. This says something important about older Americans. We have terrible eyesight. ~ Dave Barry

Half of life - the interesting half of life - we don't have a name for. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I'm as anxious as any viewer would be to see what Temple is going to do next. All I know is that in the second half of the season, he's going to have more sexual tension developing. And it's a great cast - they're all Broadway actors except for me. I aspire to that. ~ Sean Patrick Thomas

I don't go to any sexy places to eat where they give you half a lamb chop and one bean. I like going, 'Uhhh, I'm done' when I eat. ~ Patrice O'Neal

I had braces; I was lucky, 'cause I had some snaggle teeth. I always try and keep my retainer on me 'cause I'm paranoid about my teeth. It was run over by a car, so half of it's missing, but it still works. ~ Kreayshawn

During my jury selection process, we went through over 360 jurors. It took six months, all New York residents. Of the 360 jurors, over half of them had been mugged one time. Quite a number of them, maybe 30 40, 50, had been mugged twice. ~ Bernhard Goetz

For Ann, aged two in 1903, a year was half a lifetime. She did not expect the second winter, and then, when it came, vaguely assumed it was eternal, until spring came, and summer came, and she understood that they had come "again" and began to learn to expect. ~ A.S. Byatt

If you buy all the stocks selling at or below two times earnings, you will lose money on half of them because instead of making profits they will actually lose money, but you will only lose a dollar or so a share at most. Then others will be mediocre performers. But the remaining big winners will go up and produce fabulous results and also ensure a good overall result. ~ John Templeton

People in this town saw only what they'd all agreed to see, they believed what was on the tube or in the morning papers half of them read while they were driving to work on the freeway, and it was all their dream about being wised up, about the truth setting them free. ~ Thomas Pynchon

It's easy enough to get into power. You can make promises and try to be all things to all people. But the moment you have to make decisions, you're going to annoy at least half of them. Whatever you do, in the end you're almost certain to be brought down by your own character traits. ~ Robert Harris

What is mathematics? Ask this question of person chosen at random, and you are likely to receive the answer "Mathematics is the study of number." With a bit of prodding as to what kind of study they mean, you may be able to induce them to come up with the description "the science of numbers." But that is about as far as you will get. And with that you will have obtained a description of mathematics that ceased to be accurate some two and a half thousand years ago! ~ Keith Devlin

Now we had a stupid silence, the kind that always descends on people who are half in the bag. ~ Denis Johnson

Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights ... A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure ~ Francis Bacon

If the spread of Pakistani cuisine is the single greatest improvement in British public life over the past half-century, it is also worth noting that the bombs used for the failed London transport attacks of July 21, 2005, were made from a mix of hydrogen peroxide and chapati flour. ~ Christopher Caldwell

It is astounding to me, and achingly sad, that with eighty thousand people on the waiting list for donated hearts and livers and kidneys, with sixteen a day dying there on that list, that more then half of the people in the position H's family was in will say no, will choose to burn those organs or let them rot. We abide the surgeon's scalpel to save our own lives, out loved ones' lives, but not to save a stranger's life. H has no heart, but heartless is the last thing you'd call her. ~ Mary Roach

Let's say you dissolve and become infinite light. There is this sense of being light even though the mind is not thinking it, one feels it, which indicates that one is still there - at least half of one. ~ Frederick Lenz

What have you been doing during my absence?'
'Nothing particular; teaching Adele as usual.'
'And getting a good deal paler than you were - as I saw at first sight. What is the matter?'
'Nothing at all, sir.'
'Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?'
'Not the least.'
'Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.'
'I am tired, sir.'
He looked at me for a minute.
'And a little depressed,' he said. 'What about? Tell me.'
'Nothing - nothing, sir. I am not depressed.'
'But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes - indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my..' He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.
(Jane and Mr Rochester) ~ Charlotte Bronte

And in fact I don't believe there is such a thing as a definitive picture of something. The land is a living, breathing thing and light changes its character every second of every day. That's why I love it so much. ~ Fay Godwin

We spend half of our lives preparing to live-instead of just living. ~ Leah Newman Fredrichs