Pick Your Battles Quotes

You won't win every fight… but the key to success isn't dominating every single battle; sometimes it's retreating - living to fight another day when the odds are better, find your strengths, learn your weaknesses, pick your battles. ~ Caleb Roehrig

I want to have scrambled eggs for dinner without this ridiculous construction that a scrambled egg-inclusive meal is breakfast even when it occurs at dinnertime."
"You've gotta pick your battles in this world, Hazel," my mom said. "But if this is the issue you want to champion, we will stand behind you. ~ John Green

Pick your battles. You don't have to show up to every arguement you're invited to. ~ Mandy Hale

You have to pick your battles on set. ~ Claire Danes

Pick your friends like you pick your battles; wisely. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

See, you teach people how to treat you. If you don't like someone's behavior toward you, educate them. Your Girl Logic might be urging you to crawl into a corner, to cry or sulk and pretend it's not happening. And of course you need to pick your battles... But if you aren't getting the respect you deserve, demand it. ~ Iliza Shlesinger

How to be Like RBG:
Work for what you believe in, but pick your battles, and don't burn your bridges. Don't be afraid to take charge, think about what you want, then do the work, but then enjoy what makes you happy, bring along your crew, have a sense of humor.
-Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Notorious RBG by
Irin Carmon ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Pick your battles," she muttered in her ear.
"I am! I'm picking this one! I'm picking all of them! ~ Lauren James

As a novelist, you have to pick your battles. You are tired. You have begun to experience the first ominous tinglings of carpal tunnel syndrome. You wake up in the middle of the night with both hands lying across your chest like a couple of plucked bird carcasses, dead of all sensation. ~ Lynn Coady

You've got to pick your battles, Pen, but then fight to the death for the ones that matter. ~ Tiffany Schmidt

I think to be successful at anything you have to put in a hell of a lot of effort. Pick your battles. I picked music, put in a lot of effort, and it's worked. ~ Ed Sheeran

It's very hard to be an artist, on my first album, and I'm like asking for money for a music video for every song - it's so hard to do. You have to pick your battles for sure, but I definitely want - and I've always worked to make it all connect - for all of it to feel cohesive. ~ Melanie Martinez

You're at this place filled with a bunch of people who want to better their lives, but they need the help of others if they want even the smallest chance to succeed. At this place they tell you their stories, and then they tell you their dreams. You are sitting there, a tourist among people who you do not belong around, but these people, they intrigue you. They show you what it means to rise when you are down. They show you that even the bloodiest battles with your mind can in fact be won. ~ M.B. Julien

Everytime, he breaks your heart. And everytime, he expects me to pick up the pieces. ~ Rainbow Rowell

STOP looking back!!!! When your past calls do NOT pick up!! it has nothing new to say. ~ Joseph Simmons

When you pick up the cross of unpopularity, wherever you may be, you will find God's grace is there, more than sufficient to meet your every need. ~ Billy Graham

I'd wait as long as you needed, as long as Nicole needed. But I know you feel something for me, and I love you, and I've never felt this way about anyone, ever. I want to be with you. I want you to pick me. I know Emma will always be your first love, and that's fine. But don't just ... don't just let me go. ~ Kristan Higgins

All action must be performed with detachment. Regard pain, pleasure; gain, loss; victory, defeat as equal. Battle for battle's sake with your mind completely on what you must do. With this knowledge there is no waster even in the first attempt. There are no impediments. ~ Meera Uberoi

The majority of things in life are about picking your battles. You'll learn that too. And that will never be clearer than when you're at IKEA. You'd have to visit a Danish vacation village after two weeks of pouring rain and no beer to come across as many couples arguing as you'll hear in the IKEA section for changeable sofa covers on any given Tuesday. People take this whole interior design thing really seriously these days. It's become a national pastime to over interpret the symbolism of the fact that "he wants frosted glass, that just proves he never listens to my FEELINGS." "Ahhhhh! She wants beech veneer. Do you hear me? Beech veneer! Sometimes, it feels like I've woken up next to a stranger!" That's how it is, every single time you go there. And I'm not going to lecture you, but if there's just one thing I can get across then let it be this: no one has ever, in the history of the world, had an argument in IKEA that really is about IKEA. People can say whatever they life, but when a couple who has been married for ten years walks around the bookshelves section calling one another words normally only used by alcoholic crime fiction detectives, they might be arguing about a number of things, but trust me: cupboard doors is not one of them. Believe me. You're a Backman. Regardless of how many shortcomings the person you fall in love with might have, I can guarantee that you still come out on top of that bargain. So find someone who doesn't love you for the person you are, ~ Fredrik Backman

You and I are victims of the same disease. We're fighting the same war, just different battles in different theaters, and it's way too late for me to hate you for anything, because we're the same damn thing. My soul, your conscience, whatever's left of me woven into whatever's left of you, all tangled up and conjoined. We're in this together, corpse. ~ Isaac Marion

Your time has come to pick the road you walk in this tale. ~ Claudio Sanchez

I don't really know what 'American' is. I know what Ukrainian is. We're happy Slavic people. We're not Dostoyevsky Slavic people. There's this sense of 'pick it up, get your hands dirty, make the best of it, celebrate.' ~ Nina Arianda

Instead of concentrating on your problems and getting discouraged, focus on God and meditate on His promises for you. You may have fallen down, but you don't have to stay down. God is ready, willing and able to pick you up. ~ Joyce Meyer

A good financial planner is going to do more than pick your funds. ~ Dave Ramsey

Boys will break your heart. Real men will pick up the pieces. ~ Drake

Keep your vocabulary as wide as you can. I have some difficulty with the word 'cool', and I'm not too bothered about the word 'awesome'. People like me are looking to people like you guys of the next generation to deal with this shit. It's like seeing a rock guitarist pick up a Fender Stratocaster and hold it the wrong way. ~ Terry Pratchett

How about I pick out something for your mom, and you pick out something for mine? That way if our moms hate what we got, which they won't say if they do, we can push the blame off on each other. ~ Keary Taylor

A wish is a good place to start but then you have to get off your butt and make it happen. You have to pick up a quill and write your own damn story. ~ Suzanne Selfors

Reading is human contact, and the range of our human contacts is what makes us what we are. Just imagine you live the life of a long-distance truck driver. The books that you read are like the travelers you take into your cab. If you give lifts to people who are cultured and profound, you'll learn a lot from them. If you pick up fools, you'll turn into a fool yourself. ~ Victor Pelevin

I came home to find three rocks on my desk and a card with a penguin on the front. Seeing it was from Greg, I did a little happy dance as I bounced into my room, reading his inscription.


Dearest Fiona,

I'm missing you dreadfully. It's been an age, I don't think you'll recognize me when next we meet. I've put on ten stone and lost all my hair. And an eye. I hope you fancy a fat bald man with an eye patch.

Come out with me on Friday. Finals will finally be over and it'll be time to celebrate. I'll pick you up at four. We'll do a first date do-over, eat at Manganiello's again, plus a new, improved surprise.

Also, FYI: Gentoo penguins mate for life. Whereas Adélie penguins prostitute themselves for rocks.

I'd like to be your Gentoo penguin.

-Greg

P.S. Unless you're open to a rock arrangement. If so, please find my first down payment enclosed. ~ Penny Reid

Everybody who says the same words is the same person if the spectra are the same only they happen differently in time, you dig? But the time is arbitrary. You pick your zero point anywhere you want, that way you can shuffle each person's time line sideways till they all coincide. ~ Thomas Pynchon

They ask me what kind of perfume I wear or how I choose a signature scent or what to wear to what occasion. The truth is, I just go into the perfumery and pick out the most beautiful smell. I sniff the scent and then see with my mind's eye the vision that it brings to my heart. If I want to wear that vision with me every day until the bottle is all used-up, then that's the perfume I'll purchase. And I do use it up until there's nothing left and only then do I go out to buy another one. Another vision for another year or two. Fragrance, to me, is about wearing a perspective on your skin. The scent itself is the vehicle by which you can be reminded of those pictures that those notes have opened in your soul. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Instead of begging to be picked by others, you have the choice to pick yourself and build your brand ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

I can't help thinking," she confided when he finished answering her questions about women in India who covered their faces and hair in public, "that it is grossly unfair that I was born a female and so must never know such adventures, or see but a few of those places. Even if I were to journey there, I'd only be allowed to go where everything was as civilized as-as London!"
"There does seem to be a case of extreme disparity between the privileges accorded the sexes," Ian agreed.
"Still, we each have our duty to perform," she informed him with sham solemnity. "And there's said to be great satisfaction in that."
"How do you view your-er-duty?" he countered, responding to her teasing tone with a lazy white smile.
"That's easy. It is a female's duty to be a wife who is an asset to her husband in every way. It is a male's duty to do whatever he wishes, whenever he wishes, so long as he is prepared to defend his country should the occasion demand it in his lifetime-which it very likely won't. Men," she informed him, "gain honor by sacrificing themselves on the field of battle while we sacrifice ourselves on the altar of matrimony."
He laughed aloud then, and Elizabeth smiled back at him, enjoying herself hugely. "Which, when one considers it, only proves that our sacrifice is by far the greater and more noble."
"How is that?" he asked, still chuckling.
"It's perfectly obvious-battles last mere days or weeks, months at the very most. While matrimon ~ Judith McNaught

My dad always said that 90 percent of marital problems could be solved by getting your blood sugar up, and he's right! So I would say pick a partner who's forgiving when you have low blood sugar and threaten to drive your car through your shared home. ~ Casey Wilson

There is one sure way to identify your greatest potential for strength: Step back and watch yourself for a while. Try an activity and see how quickly you pick it up, how quickly you skip steps in the learning and add twists and kinks you haven't been taught yet. See whether you become absorbed in the activity to such an extent that you lose track of time. If none of these has happened after a couple of months, try another activity and watch-and another. Over time your dominant talents will reveal themselves, and you can start to refine them into a powerful strength. ~ Donald O. Clifton

Always
in the middle
of our bloodiest battles
you lay down your arms
like flowering mines
to conqueror me home,
-Audre Lorde ~ Audre Lorde

Now you must cast aside your laziness,"
my master said, "for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame;
and he who spends his life without renown
leaves such a vestige of himself on earth
as smoke bequeaths to air or foam to water.
Therefore, get up; defeat your breathlessness
with spirit that can win all battles if
the body's heaviness does not deter it.
A longer ladder still is to be climbed;
it's not enough to have left them behind;
if you have understood, now profit from it. ~ Dante Alighieri

Aspiring authors, get this through your head. Cover art serves one purpose, and one purpose only, to get potential customers interested long enough to pick up the book to read the back cover blurb. In the internet age that means the thumb nail image needs to be interesting enough to click on. That's what covers are for. ~ Larry Correia

Angry at his parents and all grown-ups who thought that school life was a lark, a good time, the best years of your life with a few test and quizzes thrown in to keep you on your toes. Bullshit. There was nothing good about it. Tests were daily battles in the larger war of school. School meant rules and orders and commands. To say nothing of homework. ~ Robert Cormier

It takes sweat to water the money tree. Don't pick the fruit from your neighbor's tree. ~ Harmon Sloan

In life we have our trophy people. These are the ones we work hard for, we are proud of. We want to show them off to our family, our friends, we want them on our arm at company functions. We take pictures with them to let everyone know we feel like a winner and we are happy.

Then you have your participation ribbons, the ribbons you get just for simply showing up. You didn't have to earn it, it was just given to you. These things usually end up in a drawer somewhere, maybe you pick them up again when you are bored and say "that was a fun night, I wonder if they are still handing out these things?" but you don't tell people about it, nothing to be proud of. ~ Brittany Williams

Always throw your clubs ahead of you. That way you don't have to waste energy going back to pick them up. ~ Tommy Bolt

If I had coal and fire
And metal fine and true
I'd make an iron band
An iron band for you
I'd pick up all the pieces
From where they fell that day
Fit them back together
And take the pain away
But I don't have the iron
And I don't have the steel
To wrap around your broken heart
And teach it how to heal
Somewhere in the fire
Somewhere in the pain
I'd find the magic that I need
To make you whole again
I'd make the iron band so strong
I'd make it gleam so bright
I'd fix the things I've broken
I'd turn my wrongs to right
But I don't have the steel
To wrap around your broken heart
Wish I could make it heal
Wish I could make it heal
(Ch. 27) ~ Jennifer Donnelly

You will die."
"I guess. I don't know." She shook her head, trying to pick through her feelings. "I used to think I was alive just because I kept getting away. If someone didn't put a bullet in my head, I was winning. I was still breathing, right?" She looked at the blackened land around her, feeling tired and sad and alone. "But now I'm thinking it ain't like that. Now I'm thinking that once you got enough dead looking over your shoulder, you're dead anyway. Don't matter if you're still walking and talking, they weigh you down. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

There is a misconception, geocentric and anthropomorphic, common to the large majority the the earthbound, which causes them to visualize a planetary system stereoscopically. The mind's eye sees a sun, remote from a backdrop of stars, and surrounded by spinning apples
the planets. Step out on your balcony and look. Can you tell the planets from the stars? Venus you may pick out with ease, but could you tell it from Canopus, if you had not previously been introduced? That little red speck
is it Mars, or is it Antares? Blast for Antares, believing it to be a planet, and you will never live to have grandchildren. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

They (the corporations) are counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to stand at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket. ~ Bill Moyers

My grin tipped up on one side. "I'm sorry. Who asked about the television screens in my truck?"
Her lush lips thinned. "And how long did it take you to pick out the watermelon? Thirty minutes?"
"Twenty-nine," I shot back. "And it's the best fucking watermelon I've ever had. Worth every minute."
A single brow quirked. "You want a medal?"
I leaned over the counter and she met my stare. I wasn't sure what was happening, but it seemed like the air cracked with electricity, heating my skin, quickening my pulse. This couldn't be normal. Maybe I was getting sick. I'd overheated in all of the seventy-eight degrees outside. Yeah, that had to be it.
"I'd love one."
It was so fast, I almost missed it. Her gaze dipped to my mouth before dropping to the island again. "There isn't any more room on your shelf for one more medal."
"I'll just put up another shelf."
"I'm sure you would. ~ Ashlan Thomas

To me, it doesn't make any sense to pick your work based on the size of the budget of the movie. ~ John C. Reilly

Ye ken how to pick a good lass, MacKenzie? Start at the bottom and work your way up! ~ Diana Gabaldon

Perhaps the reason we so often experience happiness only in hindsight, and that chasing it is such a fool's errand, is that happiness isn't a goal in itself but is only an aftereffect. It's the consequence of having lived in the way that we're supposed to - by which I don't mean ethically correctly so much as just consciously, fully engaged in the business of living. In this respect it resembles averted vision, a phenomena familiar to backyard astronomers whereby, in order to pick out a very faint star, you have to let your gaze drift casually to the space just next to it; if you look directly at it, it vanishes. And it's also true, come to think of it, that the only stars we ever see are not the "real" stars, those cataclysms taking place in the present, but always only the light of the untouchable past. ~ Tim Kreider

In a world where every single person -good or bad- has a voice, I hope you pick up your pen and use yours. ~ Sarah Andersen

When spreading your wings do not fear, the people who love you will always pick you back up when you fall, and on the day that you learn to soar the ones who love you will be your biggest cheerleaders. ~ Me

I ask people of the world and children of light to start reflecting the stories of their souls to vibrate wisdom around the earth. Pick up a paintbrush or microphone. Press the inks of your pens to paper or tap words onto your screens, and start sharing what you know and have learned with the masses. Turn your personal painting into a piece of the earth's puzzle so that our unified assemblage of thoughts, experiences and lessons reveal common truths that cannot be denied. Imagine the changes that could happen if everyone suddenly stopped acting like someone else, became true to themselves, and celebrated the beauty of their uniqueness? Only after people have willingly removed their masks and costumes, and have begun pouring light from their hearts to reveal their vulnerability, dreams and pains, will we be able to see that beneath the surface we are all the same. After all, how can the world collectively fight for Truth, if soldiers in its army are void of truth? We must first all be true by putting truth in our words and actions. And to do so, everyone must learn to think and react with their conscience. Imagine what Truth could do to neutralize the clutches of evil once this black and white world suddenly became embraced by a strong rainbow of loud powerful voices. We could put color back into every home, every school, every industry, every nation, and every garden on earth where flowers have been crushed by corruption. ~ Suzy Kassem

Charlotte merely rolled her eyes. "You are such a drama llama. Fine. But I get to pick your partner." "Drama llama?" Tag's jaw dropped a little. "You do know that I am more like an elephant. I never fucking forget. The minute that boy is born, your ass is mine. I've got a list of punishments that will make your head spin. ~ Lexi Blake