Second Handers Quotes

Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy. ~ Ayn Rand

Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes,thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them - while you'd give a year of my life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear. They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors - hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom - the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom. Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don't respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?"
"I've felt it all my life," she said. ~ Ayn Rand

He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. ~ Ayn Rand

He flicked his fingers out, just a whisper of a touch against the back of her hand. "You are brave, Miss Perry."
"I am what I have had to be, Mr. Frost." Her hand turned beneath his, and for a second they were palm against palm. "As are you. ~ Theresa Romain

First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win. ~ Donald Rumsfeld

There is no going back in life, no return, no second chance. I cannot call back the spoken word or the accomplished deed. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

My ultimate aim would be to captivate an audience, even just for a second. ~ Tabrett Bethell

If I wanted to punish myself, I'd keep looking at your face."
"Isn't my face in half the pictures taped to your bunk wall?"
"Maybe I keep them there to scare away the devil."
"Just show him your feet," he said, going for her weak spot. She had adorable toes, but she hated that her second one was longer than the first. "He'll run screaming back to hell with his forked tail between his legs."
"Keep talking and I'll send you there to meet him."
"I'll say hello to your demon-spawn mother while I'm there."
"Try not to wet yourself like you did at the palace."
"Hey!" He drew back an inch. That was hitting below the belt. "I was only four when that happened, and your mom was legitimately scary. ~ Melissa Landers

Every heart beats and radiates love every moment. Every human being desires your love every second. ~ Debasish Mridha

Second, clarify what you really don't want. This is the key to framing the and question. Think of what you are afraid will happen to you if you back away from your current strategy of trying to win or stay safe. What bad thing will happen if you stop pushing so hard? Or if you don't try to escape? What horrible outcome makes game-playing an attractive and sensible option? ~ Kerry Patterson

Minds are of three kinds: one is capable of thinking for itself; another is able to understand the thinking of others; and a third can neither think for itself nor understand the thinking of others. The first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent, and the third is worthless. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Well sue me for staring. I'd be willing to scrub away my shame on his washboard abs. ~ Tia Giacalone

On Aug. 19, 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran became the first victim of a C.I.A. coup. Ten months later, on June 27, 1954, President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala became the second. ~ Stephen Kinzer

A relationship that is not actively nurtured dies out eventually, I told myself. Or does it? ~ Sandhya Jane

I needed to love you more than I wanted to dominate you. Don't doubt for a second that I chose to love you. ~ C.D. Reiss

Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

You're kind of... distracting.

Am I?

Yes. In the best way. ~ Tia Giacalone

I knocked at a second-floor flat in a dreary house, one of two hundred in a dreary Catford street. ~ Derek Raymond

Doing something was better than doing nothing.
Without warning Lucas hit the emergency stop but-ton, and the elevator braked with an uncomfortable jolt. Then he mashed the OPEN DOOR button and punched the door itself. The front doors opened in between the second and first floors.
Lucas's heart pumped in his chest. I hear that baby in the parking lot crying. ~ Paul Aertker

Don't lick your wounds unless you care to taste the sting a second time. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The Second Law: Performance is bounded,
but success is unbounded. ~ Albert Laszlo Barabasi

Ponyboy, listen, don't get tough. You're not like the rest of us and don't try to be ... "
What was the matter with Two-Bit? I knew as well as he did that if you got tough you didn't get hurt. Get smart and nothing can touch you ...
"What in the world are you doing?" Two-Bit's voice broke into my thoughts.
I looked up at him. "Picking up the glass."
He stared at me for a second, then grinned. "You little sonofagun," he said in a relieved voice. I didn't know what he was talking about, so I just went on picking up the glass from the bottle end and put it in a trash can. I didn't want anyone to get a flat tire. ~ S.E. Hinton

Gore speaks to America as if English is its second language; George W. speaks as if English is his second language. ~ Adam Clymer

Sanchez looked at me and we locked eyes a second too long. There was nothing I could do about it. The signal went out. A moment of clear, silent hostility passed between us as hotly charged and unintentional as a thousand-volt arc through a squirrel. ~ Rick Riordan

To get the job done preaching must be committed to two goals: first it should be passionate and second, fascinating. ~ Calvin Miller

The best way to get an idea across to the public, however outlandish, is to have the courage to present it to them in the first place. It's easy to get sidetracked by overthinking something or trying to second-guess the general populace because of doubts and fears. They will be the ultimate authority on what they like and don't like in the end. ~ Stewart Stafford

Everything in your life is a matter of choice. There are only two things we have no choice about. We cannot avoid these two things no matter how hard we try. The first is that we must die. Death is an absolute certainty, and the second thing we have no choice about is that we must live until we die.

Now understand this - everything else in your life that you think you have to do, or are forced to do, is a choice ~ Robert Anthony

Netscape brought the Internet alive with the browser. They made the Internet so that Grandma could use it, and her grandchildren could use it. The second thing that Netscape did was commercialize a set of open transmission protocols so that no company could own the Net. ~ Thomas Friedman

An unmarried adult who cannot navigate the welfare system has no choice but to work, but a married working parent is constantly evaluating the relative merits of staying home with the kids versus bringing home that second paycheck. ~ Philip Greenspun

Hope, however, isn't all that's needed to achieve change. Hope is a hand extended, but two hands are required to be pulled out of this deep hole. The second hand was faith ... ~ Dean Koontz

Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance. It was his addled understanding of the rules of warfare that the marksman should be given a second chance ~ Kurt Vonnegut

. . .In a heartbeat, you will fall right into that novel, that poem, the story that you are most in love with right now. When you learn to be able to decide in the moment to take breaks from your internal voices - even though it's only for a split second - you will be taking your first baby steps toward the full-out exhilaration of living in the midst of the wholly realized writer's life.

Then all the negatives - yes, even your cherished writer's block ego trip - will fade into background noise, then you will find silence, and your story will take over. Before you know it, you will be working calmly and clearly for hours, rather than for a couple minutes.

1 hour, not 1 second, 2 hours, not 2 seconds, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours of allowing your mind to come to rest from the horrid, every day, mental chatter we lock ourselves up with - a time to anchor within the natural spaciousness that you already know instinctively, know from deep within will make you feel full inside. . . . ~ Terry Kennedy

I will tell you this much; it is the moment (not the year or the month, mind you, nor even the hour, but the very second) when a man is grown up, when he sees things as they are (that is, backwards), and feels solidly himself. Do I make myself clear? No matter, it is the Shock of Maturity, and that must suffice for you. ~ Hilaire Belloc

...no matter how damaged or lost you think you are you can find your way back. Keep believing and you will be granted favor to find that which is lost. No one is ever too gone or too lost. Ever... ~ Joey Renee

Kelly was starting to have serious second thoughts about the whole assignment. Like all war correspondents, she supposed. Being on the ground was very different to sitting in the office anticipating being on the ground. Especially with the appearance of that red cloud. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

They migrated to the usual room on the second floor. Heywood Broun was there by the door, setting up bottles of gin, scotch and beer. Alexander Woollcott sat ensconced behind the round table (not THE Round Table). He shuffled the cards and stacked up poker chips.

Dorothy stopped in the doorway and watched what they were doing. 'You boys sure know how to treat a woman,' she said. 'Liquor in the front and poker in the rear. ~ J.J. Murphy

Instead of going into politics, I decided to go into comedy, which is the second most daunting career path for a woman. ~ Casey Wilson

We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility
boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

The single most important thing in my life is God. The second most important thing in my life is my family and the third thing is the great profession that I chose. I chose to do something that I love. I never had to work a day in my life. ~ Sam Rutigliano

There are three degrees of filial piety. The highest is being a credit to our parents, the second is not disgracing them; the lowest is being able simply to support them. ~ Confucius

Every husband knows that nuclear energy is not the most powerful force on earth. It's not even a close second. The most powerful and awesome force on earth is a woman's emotions. Nothing can match it in sheer intensity and shocking impact. I truly believe that one twenty-minute outburst from a woman could power a small town for three days. ~ David E. Clarke

These are the saddest of possible words, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance. Trio of Bear Cubs fleeter than birds, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance. Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble, Making a Giant hit into a double, Words that are weighty with nothing but trouble, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance. This brief poem, immortalized the Chicago Cubs' double-play combination: Shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Frank Chance. ~ Franklin P. Adams