Little Is Enough Quotes

The use we make of our fortune determines its sufficiency. A little is enough if used wisely, and too much if expended foolishly. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

It does not pay away a penny from you to say "am sorry", "I won't do that again"! It does not take away your integrity to appreciate the very little that you have obtained from someone, even if it's not much! True humility speaks "little is enough if God is in it. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

I have noticed that most times, the least that you give out is the best that someone really needs. So, don't always wait till you have something big to give before you do so! Someone's "big" is your "little"! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

There was a story going around about the Special Olympics. For the hundred-yard dash, there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at the starting line and, at the sound of the gun, they took off. But one little boy didn't get very far. He stumbled and fell and hurt his knee and began to cry. The other eight children heard the boy crying. They slowed down, turned around, and ran back to him--every one of them ran back to him. The little boy got up, and he and the rest of the runners linked their arms together and joyfully walked to the finish line.
They all finished the race at the same time. And when they did, everyone in the stadium stood up and clapped and whistled and cheered for a long, long time. And you know why? Because deep down we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then. ~ Fred Rogers

Gazing out from the mountains, the clouds are whiter, the sky is bluer, the air seeping into your lungs is as clear as the water roaring down from the snow, melting on the high peaks. A place where heaven is a little closer. ~ Virginia Alison

A friend's mother ate nothing but clams for six months. Morning, noon, and night, nothing but clams. 'I don't know what it is - I can't seem to get enough of them' she told her son. He shakes his head, but I understand. I eat nothing but broccoli for a month, then yogurt for six days, then (for one glorious week) lamb chops. One day I roasted a chicken and had seven chicken sandwiches before nightfall. If I like something, I like it a lot. Just one doesn't cut it. I don't know what it is I can't get enough of. ~ Abigail Thomas

I really loved it because it really informed his way of seeing my character and the story. If you look closely he always had this metaphor of an egg, of a little chick pecking her way out of a shell, and in one scene in the kitchen there are all these white plates on a wall and then in the middle there is a yellow plate so even that looks like an egg. And a lot of the furniture was almost sculpted in that way as well. It was really cool to see that. ~ Mia Wasikowska

[Women] ... is nothin' but little girls in long skirts, and their hair done up. ~ Edna Ferber

So, you met Steinbeck," mused Hemingway over his port after the women had left. "It is a fateful peculiarity that you might meet him and me at virtually the same time. To what do you attribute that, Homer?" "I don't know, sir," Homer answered. "Just the way it worked out, I guess." "Don't you believe it. There are no coincidences in life. Although the big God of the Hebrews might be the greatest of them, I believe there are small gods who watch out and sometimes determine our fate. I believe they also like to have a little fun with us from time to time. Kismet. You heard of it?" "I ~ Homer Hickam

Those days when our watch sees to take lazy age over each minute, and there is always so much time left, so little passed, since the last time you looked. And then at the end, when you're suddenly nervous and want to back out, the time goes in a rush and it's now. ~ A.D. Miller

The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure. ~ Eric Clapton

Percy and Books
Percy does not like it when I read a book.
He puts his face over the top of it, and moans.
He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes.
The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.
The tide is out, and the neighbor's dogs are playing.
But Percy, I say, Ideas! The elegance of language!
The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories
that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage.
Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough. Let's go. ~ Mary Oliver

When you put on your shortest dress, please leave some mystery in it. That's the difference between a miniskirt and a ho-skirt. A ho-skirt shows your Frisbee. A miniskirt shows just enough to cause some mystery. What these young women lack is mystery. ~ Tyler Perry

Freedom alone is not enough without light to read at night, without time or access to water to irrigate your farm, without the ability to catch fish to feed your family. ~ Nelson Mandela

Men's clothing hasn't changed in 200 years, maybe a lapel gets a little wider or a tie gets narrower from time to time. But it's usually always the same. There is stupidity in men's fashion. But women know who they are. They can change. Clothing is seductive for women. They get different personas by buying new clothes. But men don't. ~ Massimo Vignelli

We are life. We are the result of life's power, and we are the channels through which that power courses. We want truth, but we reach for more knowledge instead - and then we must defend what we believe. Knowledge makes a small impression on the world compared to the power of truth - even when it serves life, elevating awareness and creating dreams of impeccability. How can knowledge serve better? How can we stop it from doing harm and creating conflict? First, we can see knowledge for what it is - all the agreements we make about reality - and get some perspective. Then we can listen to ourselves. We can modify both our thinking and our emotional attachment to thought. We can win the war in our heads, one that has gone on long enough. We can nurture a belief in ourselves and drift away from the crowd. ~ Miguel Ruiz

When I was little, I grew up in a place called Hertfordshire, which is just near London, but out in the country, and I visited Pakistan in the summers to go and see my family on my dad's side. ~ Bat For Lashes

It doesn't matter who you used to be; what matters is who you decide to be today. You are not your mistakes. You are not your mishaps. You are not your past. You are not your wounds. You can decide differently today and at every moment. Remember that. You are offered a new opportunity with each breath to think, decide, choose and act differently – in a way that supports you in being all that you are capable of being. You are not less than. You are enough. ~ Brittany Josephina

A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world. ~ Abigail Adams

You want to know the story? I'd be happy to tell you. I think I have just enough caloric energy stored up to make it through the telling of the tale. It's short. I am monstrously fat. I am a glutton. My wife was disgusted and repulsed. She gave me six months to lose one hundred pounds. I joined Weight Watchers . . . see it there, right across the street, that gaunt storefront? This afternoon was the big six-month weigh-in. So to speak. I had gained almost seventy pounds in the six months. An errant Snickers bar fell out of the cuff of my pants and rolled against my wife's foot as I stepped on the scale. The scale over there across the street is truly an ingenious device. One preprograms the desired new weight into it, and if one has achieved or gone below that new low weight, the scale bursts into recorded whistles and cheers and some lively marching-band tune. Apparently, tiny flags protrude from the top and wave mechanically back and forth. A failure--see for instance mine--results in a flatulent dirge of disappointed and contemptuous tuba. To the strains of the latter my wife left, the establishment, me, on the arm of a svelte yogurt distributor whom I am even now planning to crush, financially speaking, first thing tomorrow morning. Ms. Beadsman, you will find an eclair on the floor to the left of your chair. Could you perhaps manipulate it onto this plate with minimal chocolate loss and pass it to me. ~ David Foster Wallace

Many systems require slack in order to work well. Old reel-to-reel tape recorders needed an extra bit of tape fed into the mechanism to ensure that the tape wouldn't rip. Your coffee grinder won't grind if you overstuff it. Roadways operate best below 70 percent capacity; traffic jams are caused by lack of slack. In principle, if a road is 85 percent full and everybody goes at the same speed, all cars can easily fit with some room between them. But if one driver speeds up just a bit and then needs to brake, those behind her must brake as well. Now they've slowed down too much, and, as it turns out, it's easier to reduce a car's speed than to increase it again. This small shock - someone lightly deviating from the right speed and then touching her brakes - has caused the traffic to slow substantially. A few more shocks, and traffic grinds to a halt. At 85 percent there is enough road but not enough slack to absorb the small shocks. ~ Sendhil Mullainathan

To achieve long-term success over many financial market and economic cycles, observing a few rules is not enough. Too many things change too quickly in the investment world for that approach to succeed. It is necessary instead to understand the rationale behind the rules in order to appreciate why they work when they do and don't when they don't. ~ Seth Klarman

I think that our whole country needs to have more love and compassion for all children. All life is valuable and a gift from God. Pregnancy is not something that "just happens." Pregnancy is a gift from God. I think it is God telling us "OK, you are responsible enough to raise this new young life that I, God, am going to give you." And for people who can't conceive children, God may be asking you for an even more generous response - to adopt and raise a child. ~ Kim Alexis

Melody is king. Songs are ruled by melody. I believe that melody, more than lyrics, is what does all the heavy lifting emotionally. When I write lyrics, or when I adapt a poem to a song, my goal is to interfere as little as possible with whatever spell is being cast by the melody. At the same time, I hope, at best, that the words enhance the song somehow, add meaning or clarify and underline what the melody is making me feel. ~ Jeff Tweedy

Apart from such considerations - which as predictions are of little avail and less consolation - there remains the fact that the crisis of our time and its central experience have brought forth an entirely new form of government which as a potentiality and an ever-present danger is only too likely to stay with us from now on, just as other forms of government which came about at different historical moments and rested on different fundamental experiences have stayed with mankind regardless of temporary defeats - monarchies, and republics, tyrannies, dictatorships and despotism. ~ Hannah Arendt

Since I am writing a book about depression, I am often asked in social situations to describe my own experiences, and I usually end by saying that I am on medication.
"Still?" people ask. "But you seem fine!" To which I invariably reply that I seem fine because I am fine, and that I am fine in part because of medication.
"So how long do you expect to go on taking this stuff?" people ask. When I say that I will be on medication indefinitely, people who have dealt calmly and sympathetically with the news of suicide attempts, catatonia, missed years of work, significant loss of body weight, and so on stare at me with alarm.
"But it's really bad to be on medicine that way," they say. "Surely now you are strong enough to be able to phase out some of these drugs!" If you say to them that this is like phasing the carburetor out of your car or the buttresses out of Notre Dame, they laugh.
"So maybe you'll stay on a really low maintenance dose?" They ask. You explain that the level of medication you take was chosen because it normalizes the systems that can go haywire, and that a low dose of medication would be like removing half of your carburetor. You add that you have experienced almost no side effects from the medication you are taking, and that there is no evidence of negative effects of long-term medication. You say that you really don't want to get sick again. But wellness is still, in this area, associated not with achieving control of your problem, but ~ Andrew Solomon

When she's not talking to him the house is heavy and cold and we know we're not supposed to talk to him either for fear she'll give us the bitter look. We know Dad has done the bad thing and we know you can make anyone suffer by not talking to him. Even little Michael knows that when Dad does the bad thing you don't talk to him from Friday to Monday and when he tries to lift you to his lap you run to Mam. ~ Frank McCourt

I can't even see your face."
A strange chill still curled off of him like smoke and even though the glass garden was teeming with little lights, shades veiled him.
"Is that what you want?" he said. "Would it make you trust me?"
"It would be a start."
"You are impossible to please."
I said nothing. Amar leaned forward, and I felt the silken trails of his hood brush across my neck. My breath constricted. "Is that what you want? An unguarded gaze can spill a thousand secrets."
"I would know them anyway," I said evenly.
I waited for him to dissuade me, but when he remained silent, I reached out. Amar stood still, lean muscles tensed beneath his clothes. I could hear his breathing, see his chest rising and falling, smell that particular scent of mint and smoke that hung around him. Slowly, I untied the ends of the dove-gray hood. Small pearls snagged against the silk of his covering.
Suddenly, his hands reached around my wrist.
"I trust you," he said. ~ Roshani Chokshi

I came from advertising. For me it's about protecting the director's vision. That's always the goal. There's keeping things on budget and on time and dealing with selling the movie so that to me is a focus. But also it's about serving the script. We are genre filmmakers, those are the films we love to make, so my perspective is a little different. ~ Charles Roven

I'm a little lavish I must admit. But I'm not really concerned with money. Being rich is not my goal, being wealthy is. ~ CeeLo Green

All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them. ~ Magic Johnson

A brusque whisper coaxed Phillip from slumber. Someone had called his name. The cot squeaked as he sat up and squinted at a featureless silhouette. "Who is it?"
"Rise. Quick. Bring your medicine maker." The ragged voice belonged to True Seeker.
Tasked with keeping a watchful eye on Milly, the young man would come to Phillip at this hour for only one reason. He swung his legs to the ground. With one foot going into his trousers, he took a wide step across the narrow barracks and jostled Buck's shoulder.
His friend was on his feet and half-dressed before Phillip left the building, alarm urging his feet to a gallop. No one need tell him which direction to go. He buckled his sword belt as he went. The scabbard slapped his leg with each footfall, bringing to mind a similar night not long enough ago. His stride lengthened.
This time, he would run Collins clean through. ~ April W. Gardner

Considering that we are born with this condition, that is, that we can become whatever we choose to become, we need to understand that we must take earnest care about this, so that it will never be said to our disadvantage that we were born to a privileged position but failed to realize it and became animals and senseless beasts.... Above all, we should not make that freedom of choice God gave us into something harmful, for it was intended to be to our advantage. Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.

Let us disdain earthly things, and despise the things of heaven, and, judging little of what is in the world, fly to the court beyond the world and next to God. In that court, as the mystic writings tell us, are the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones in the foremost places; let us not even yield place to them, the highest of the angelic orders, and not be content with a lower place, imitate them in all their glory and dignity. If we choose to, we will not be second to them in anything. ~ Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

There was a moment, late into the season, where I was noticing I was darkening a little bit at night. I was like, 'It will be nice when the show is over for the season. I need a vacation.' ~ Justin Theroux

My inbox is now bulging with touching emails from young women scientists who have been kind enough to write and thank me for inspiring them and helping them on their way. It has also been of great comfort to me to see many women at the top of science testifying for my record in supporting women scientists. ~ Tim Hunt

Nobody today is normal, everybody is a little bit crazy or unbalanced, people's minds are running all the time. Their perceptions of the world are partial, incomplete. They are eaten alive by their egos. They think they see, but they are mistaken; all they do is project their madness, their world, upon the world. There is no clarity, no wisdom in that! ~ Taisen Deshimaru

I like to watch Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, because I like them when they travel. I like Ina Garten, 'The Barefoot Contessa.' Giada is really nice, but I get a little bit bored with just staying in the kitchen. ~ Debi Mazar

The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. ~ Erich Fromm

It is nice enough to be a child, but it is far rarer, and much more precious, to no longer be young, and to truly feel young again. ~ Dexter Palmer

Mimoo shook her head. "Too sleepy for her maybe, but ideal for her mother, who worries too much. I don't need excitement in my life. I've had enough of it, thank you." She shrugged. "Gia will be fine. She'll be fine anywhere."
"Gia?"
"It's Gia when I love her," said Mimoo. "My husband never called her anything but that. Me, I love her, but she drives me crazy. So headstrong. To call her stubborn like a mule is an injustice to mules. The mules are St. Francis compared to her."
Harry laughed. ~ Paullina Simons

consumer societies are stealing children away from their kith, their family of nature, in a steady alienation. This is not about some luxury, a hobby, a bit of playtime in the garden. This is about the longest, deepest necessity of the human spirit to know itself in nature, and about the homesickness children feel, whose genesis is so obvious but so little examined. Writer on Native American spirituality Linda Hogan describes the term susto as a sickness of soul caused by disconnection from nature and cured by 'the great without. ~ Jay Griffiths

It is our daily lament that we cannot love enough. Would that our hearts were capable of holding more, and reaching further. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Learning grammar can be viewed as a game that a little boy plays with his father. Daddy talks, the boy listens - perhaps disobeys - and Daddy talks some more. All the while the boy is trying to figure out the grammar that can generate the sentences in Daddy's speech. The boy might occasionally talk back, but there is no guarantee that Daddy will pay any attention. Not that he is a bad father: recall from Chapter 5 that in some cultures, adults do not interact with children until they are socially and linguistically adept. To fully understand the game of language learning, then, Daddy can be assumed only as a rather passive participant. The goal of the game is to learn Daddy's grammar within some finite amount of time: nobody learns forever. ~ Charles Yang

If we construct an economy where quantities are controlled, based on the belief there is never enough for all, then we must compete to determine the winners. We begin this with grades in the first grade. There is the presumption that competition is essential and so there must be a normal distribution of grades. All students cannot receive high marks. If I get an A, someone in the class must perform poorly. It is an early lesson in how the marketplace ideology works. In a community organized around abundance, competition will occur, but it is not built into the system as a core design element. In a neighborly culture, the abundance of resources becomes the design element ~ Walter Brueggemann