Surest Quotes

One of the surest evidences of an elevated taste is the power of enjoying works of impassioned terrorism, in poetry, and painting. The man who can look at impassioned subjects of terror with a feeling of exultation may be certain he has an elevated taste. ~ Benjamin Haydon

Before, you think of it as a permanent bond of happiness; later, you see that it is a yoke, borne unequally. You marry to keep love, but sometimes that is the surest way to lose it. ~ Myrtle Reed

In a word, people really loved music without ostentation; they allowed it to operate upon them with its magic charms, no matter whether it was executed by four performers or by four hundred, and employed it in general as the surest medium for improving heart and mind, and thus giving a noble direction to the feelings. ~ Anton Schindler

The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not. ~ John Quincy Adams

The surest aid in combating the male's disease of self-contempt is to be loved by a clever woman. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people. ~ Thomas Jefferson

You can't uninvent things, you can only make them obsolete ... Ronald Reagan understood that the surest method of neutralising any weapon is to make it obsolete. ~ Mark Steyn

Virtue is its own punishment - "nice girls" lose - and one of the surest signs of potential proficiency in witchcraft is an inability to get along with other women. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey

Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist. ~ Pope Pius X

An impersonal and scientific knowledge of the structure of our bodies is the surest safeguard against prurient curiosity and lascivious gloating. ~ Marie Stopes

Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction. ~ Thomas Jefferson

The surest sign that two people no longer speak the same language is that both say ironic things to one another but that neither senses the irony. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Obstinacy and heat in argument are surest proofs of folly. Is there anything so stubborn, obstinate, disdainful, contemplative, grave, or serious, as an ass? ~ Michel De Montaigne

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice. ~ Mark Twain

Focusing on strengths is the surest way to greater job satisfaction, team performance and organizational excellence. ~ Marcus Buckingham

Both agree in repudiating "marriage for love"; but the idealist repudiates it in the name of love, the critic in the name of marriage. Love, for the idealist Ibsen, is a passion which loses its virtue when it reaches its goal, which inspires only while it aspires, and flags bewildered when it attains. Marriage, for the critic Ibsen, is an institution beset with pitfalls into which those are surest to step who enter it blinded with love. ~ Henrik Ibsen

This invisible and divine goodness, of which I only speak here because of its being one of the surest and nearest signs of the unceasing activity of our soul, this invisible and divine goodness ennobles, in decisive fashion, all that it has unconsciously touched. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them. ~ Henry Bolingbroke

Conflicts in relationships - having an annoying office mate or room-mate, or having chronic conflict with your spouse - is one of the surest ways to reduce your happiness. You never adapt to interpersonal conflict;45 it damages every day, even days when you don't see the other person but ruminate about the conflict nonetheless. ~ Jonathan Haidt

The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality. After that, and a long way after, comes cost. ~ Andrew Carnegie

Being convinced one knows the whole story is the surest way to fail. ~ Phil Crosby

Balance lives in the present. The surest way to lose your footing is to focus on what dreadful things might happen. ~ Oprah Winfrey

To pursue happiness for its own sake is the surest way to lose it. ~ George Roche

Employment is the surest antidote to sorrow. ~ Ann Radcliffe

We have a maxim in the House of Commons, and written on the walls of our houses, that old ways are the safest and surest ways. ~ Edward Coke

It is alone that part of the external universe which we call material which acts on man through his senses - that part of which we ordinarily feel our knowledge to be the surest; but in reality, strangely enough, as will soon appear, this is one of the aspects of the external world, of which we can know nothing. ~ Richard Maurice Bucke

New technology is the true friend of full employment; the indispensable ally of progress; and the surest guarantee of prosperity. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Offensive operations, often times, is the surest, if not the only means of defence. ~ George Washington

The doctrine of the atonement is to my mind one of the surest proofs of the divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. "What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning?"
and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him?
"Not at all," was her answer; "but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it. ~ Jane Austen

The Rakshasa," said Percy pedantically, "are a different breed altogether from our vampires. Much in the same way that poodles and dachshunds are different breeds of dog. Rakshasas are reviled in India. Their position as tax collectors is an attempts by the crown to integrate them in a more progressive and mundane manner."
Rue said, "Oh, how logical. Because we all know ordaining someone as a tax collector is the surest way to get them accepted by society. ~ Gail Carriger

She knew that there were all kinds of ways to make a conquest and that one of the surest roads to a woman's genitals was through her sadness. ~ Milan Kundera

The person of Christ is to me the greatest and surest of all facts. ~ Philip Schaff

The surest step toward joy in the morning is virtue in the evening. ~ Russell M. Nelson

The surest sign of an adult is the ability to accept delayed gratification. ~ Tommy Tomlinson

Every relationship, job, or situation
Should reinforce your internal relation
The surest way to derail your dream
Is clinging to things that destroy your self esteem ~ Joan Marques

The deadliest blow the enemy of the human soul can strike is to do fury honor ... Official acceptance is the one unmistakable symptom that salvation is beaten again, and is the one surest sign of fatal misunderstanding, and is the kiss of Judas. ~ James Agee

The real secret, though, is that nobody belongs, whether they are natives or not. After expulsion from paradise all humans are in exile. You can be a Colonel Sanders chicken, born, raised and fried in one quarter of a square foot and you'll still be an outsider. The thing we call reality is a holding tank for people who must worry about belonging -- it's a worrier prison. Don't worry people! You'll soon be fried and eaten. A few of us are writers, hence double-alienated, but happier (because we are busy)
If it's true that many of us go through life feeling like we don't belong, could digression (geographical and otherwise) be our way of trying to forget, or to escape, that feeling?

Bad news: there are no digressions. Everything is connected in the whole darn ball of yarn: start pulling at any end and you'll get to the same place. On the other hand, most normal people dislike digression because they have to lose themselves to follow you. The surest way to drive your dear ones crazy is to digress. In private, it's an offense. In public it's "art," "performance. ~ Andrei Codrescu

We must insist that free oratory is only the beginning of free speech; it is not the end, but a means to an end. The end is to find the truth. The practical justification of civil liberties is not that self-expression is one of the rights of man. It is that the examination of opinion is one of the
necessities of man. For experience tells us that it is only when freedom of opinion becomes the compulsion to debate that the seed which our fathers planted has produced its fruit. When that is
understood, freedom will be cherished not because it is a vent for our opinions but because it is the surest method of correcting them. ~ Walter Lippmann

There are no men more careful of the use of means than those that are surest of a good issue and conclusion, for the one stirs up diligence in the other. Assurance of the end stirs up diligence in the means. For the soul of a believing Christian knows that God has decreed both. ~ Richard Sibbes

And since the mind is of a man one part,
Which in one fixed place remains, like ears,
And eyes, and every sense which pilots life;
And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart,
Severed from us, can neither feel nor be,
But in the least of time is left to rot,
Thus mind alone can never be, without
The body and the man himself, which seems,
As 'twere the vessel of the same- or aught
Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined:
Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds. ~ Lucretius

The surest way to stop growing is to stop reading. ~ Fred B. Craddock

The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves. ~ John Calvin

Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of stupidity. ~ Bernard Barton

The surest way to get a VC interested is to say that you're not interested in taking VC money. ~ Chris Yeh

The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed. ~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The surest sign that you're working with the life-affirming kind of discipline, rather than the spirit-depressing kind, is that you don't complain very much about doing what it takes. ~ Danielle LaPorte

It should be pointed out for our own guidance in the West that the continual signing of manifestoes and protests is one of the surest ways of undermining the efficacy and dignity of the intellectual. There exists a permanent blackmail that we all know and that we must have the often solitary courage to resist. ~ Albert Camus

If honesty did not exist, it would have to be invented, as it is the surest way of getting rich. ~ Earl Nightingale

Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. ~ John Milton

The surest proof of being endowed with noble qualities is to be free from envy. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The surest method of being incomprehensible or, moreover, to be misunderstood is to use words in their original sense; especially words from the ancient languages. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Cannabis sativa and its derivatives are strictly prohibited in Turkey, and the natural correlative of this proscription is that alcohol, far from being frowned upon as it is in other Moslem lands, is freely drunk; being a government monopoly it can be bought at any cigarette counter. This fact is no mere detail; it is of primary social importance, since the psychological effects of the two substances are diametrically opposed to each other. Alcohol blurs the personality by loosening inhibitions. The drinker feels, temporarily at least, a sense of participation. Kif abolishes no inhibitions; on the contrary it reinforces them, pushes the individual further back into the recesses of his own isolated personality, pledging him to contemplation and inaction. It is to be expected that there should be a close relationsip between the culture of a given society and the means used by its members to achieve release and euphoria. For Judaism and Christianity the means has always been alcohol; for Islam it has been hashish. The first is dynamic in its effects, the other static. If a nation wishes, however mistakenly, to Westernize itself, first let it give up hashish. The rest will follow, more or less as a manner of course. Conversely, in a Western country, if a whole segment of the population desires, for reasons of protest (as has happened in the United States), to isolate itself in a radical fashion from the society around it, the quickest and surest way is for it to replace alcohol b ~ Paul Bowles

All shall be well, child."

I reared up then. "Will it? You cannot know that! How can you know that?"

"Oh, Ana, Ana. When I tell you all shall be well, I don't mean that life won't bring you tragedy. Life will be life. I only mean you will be well in spite of it. All shall be well, no matter what."

"If Antipas kills my husband as he did John, I cannot imagine I will be well."

"If Antipas kills him, you'll be devastated and grief-stricken, but there's a place in you that is inviolate - it's the surest part of you, a piece of Sophia herself. You'll find your way there, when you need to. And you'll know then what I speak of. ~ Sue Monk Kidd

Books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments. ~ Johann Georg Ritter Von Zimmermann

No society can exist if respect for the law does not to some extent prevail; but the surest way to have the laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality are in contradiction, the citizen finds himself in the cruel dilemma of either losing his moral sense or of losing respect for the law, two evils of which one is as great as the other, and between which it is difficult to choose. ~ Frederic Bastiat

Emotion,' she told him, 'is not a reliable guide for our words and actions.'
'There you are wrong,' he said. 'Deep, true emotion is our surest guide. We make our greatest mistake when we allow our heads to rules ours hearts.'
'Emotion is our human weakness.,' she said, 'reason our strength.'
'And love,' he said, 'is our destiny. ~ Mary Balogh

The surest way to be alone is to get married. ~ Gloria Steinem

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support? ~ James Madison

Experiment. Live a little. And remember that the fear of absence is the surest sign that absence is direly needed. ~ Michael Harris

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness. ~ George Washington

The surest way of winning love is to look as if you didn't need it. ~ Ellen Glasgow

The surest plan to make a Man
Is, think him so. ~ James Russell Lowell

I don't know humans, but I know fools. And I know the surest way to encourage fools to follow a wicked man is to tell them not to. ~ R. Lee Smith

Hesitancy is the surest destroyer of talent. One cannot be timorous and reticent, one must be original and loud. New metaphors, new rhythms, new expressions of emotion can only spring from unhindered gall. Nothing should interfere with that intuition
not the fear of appearing stupid, nor of offending somebody, nor jeopardizing publication, nor being trivial. The intuition must be as unhindered as a karate chop. ~ Stephen Dobyns

Curiosity is, and has been from the creation of the world, a master passion. To awaken it, to gratify it by slight degrees, and yet leave something always in suspense, is to establish the surest hold that can be had, in wrong, on the unthinking portion of mankind. ~ Charles Dickens

The surest way to determine whether one possesses the love of God is to see whether he or she loves his or her neighbor. These two loves are never separated. Rest assured, the more you progress in love of neighbor the more your love of God will increase. ~ Teresa Of Avila

It was strange the paths the human heart chose to take and the attachments it made along the way. The surest sign of the altruistic nature of the organ is its ability to ignore race, color, creed, and gender and just blindly love with all its might - one of the most irrefutable forces on earth. They ~ Craig Johnson

Adam went to bed comforted, having woven for himself an ingenious web of probabilities - the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth. His ~ George Eliot

If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Being greedy for money is the surest way not to get it, but when one serves for the sake of service - for the satisfaction of doing that which one believes to be right - then money abundantly takes care of itself. ~ Henry Ford

Death Valley wasn't dead at all. It was asleep. It was simply waiting for the conditions of growth. When the conditions came, life returned to the heart of Death Valley.
Human beings and human communities are the same. We need the right conditions for growth, in our schools, businesses, and communities, and in our individual lives. If the conditions are right, people grown in synergy with the people around them and the environments they create. If the conditions are poor, people protect themselves and their anxieties from neighbors and the world. Some of the elements of our growth are inside us. They include the need to develop our unique natural aptitudes and personal passions. Finding and nurturing them is the surest way to ensure our growth and fulfillment a as individuals. ~ Ken Robinson

Only lifeless mechanisms move along faultlessly straight lines and compass circles. In art the surest way to destroy is to canonize one given form and one philosophy: that which is canonized quickly dies of obesity, of entropy. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Eloquence in public assemblies is not the surest road to fame and preferment, at least unless it be used with great caution, very rarely, and with great reserve. ~ John Adams

I wish we may learn from all our changes, to be sober and watchful, not to rest in grace received, in experience or comforts, but still to be pressing forward, and never think ourselves either safe or happy, but when we are beholding the glory of Christ by the light of faith in the glass of the Gospel. To view him as God manifest in the flesh, as all in all in himself, and all in all for us; this is cheering, this is strengthening, this makes hard things easy, and bitter things sweet. This includes all I can wish for my dear friends, that you may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus. To know him, is the shortest description of true grace; to know him better, is the surest mark of growth in grace; to know him perfectly, is eternal life. This is the prize of our high calling; the sum and substance of all we can desire or hope for is, to see him as he is, and to be like him: and to this honor and happiness he will surely bring all that love his name.81 ~ Tony Reinke

Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know. ~ Mark Twain

The surest way to lose sight of who you are is to constantly compare yourself to others. ~ Tom Krause

For the Humanist, ... head and heart ... must function together ... The constitution of the Phillips Exeter Academy reads: 'Though goodness without knowledge ... is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous ... Both united form the noblest character and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.' ~ Corliss Lamont

Perhaps the surest test of an individual's integrity is his refusal to do or say anything that would damage his self-respect. ~ Thomas S. Monson

The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

If the past has been an obstacle and a burden, knowledge of the past is the safest and the surest emancipation. ~ John Acton

Among the many signs of a lively faith and hope we have in eternal life, one of the surest is not being overly sad at the death of those whom we dearly love in our Lord. ~ Saint Ignatius

In a world of twelve-years-olds in sexy boots and nans in sparkly mini-dresses, the surest way to tell the prostitute walking into a hotel at Heathrow is to look for the lady in the designer suit. ~ Belle De Jour

If you remain calm in the midst of great chaos, it is the surest guarantee the it will eventually subside ~ Julie Andrews Edwards

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even - if you will - eccentricity. ~ Joseph Brodsky

I follow nature as the surest guide, and resign myself with implicit obedience to her sacred ordinances. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

The surest way to hurt yourself is to give up on love, just because it didn't
work out the first time. ~ Amanda Howells

The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter. ~ Hannah Arendt

As the mental endowment of a man varies with the organisation of his accumulated experiences, the better endowed he is, the more readily will he be able to remember his whole past, everything that he has ever thought or heard, seen or done, perceived or felt, the more completely in fact will he be able to reproduce his whole life. Universal remembrance of all its experiences, therefore, is the surest, most general, and most easily proved mark of a genius. ~ Otto Weininger

All the truly great stand-ups say, 'I go onstage, and I work on jokes. The inspiration will happen while I'm doing my work.' To me, in the end, the surest thing is work. ~ Patton Oswalt

The surest way to lose democracy is to take it for granted. Every citizen must contribute to its advancement in some way. No nation or culture can long survive the absence of transcendent values and absolutes. ~ Carl F. H. Henry

Freemasonry is 'veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols' because these are the surest way by which moral and ethical truths may be taught. It is not only with the brain and with the mind that the initiate must take Freemasonry but also with the heart. ~ Carl H. Claudy

Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth. ~ Mark Twain

Our responding to life's unfairness with sympathy ... may be the surest proof of all of God's reality. ~ Harold S. Kushner

A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guaranty of peace. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Alas," said Zee, "this predominance of the few over the many is the surest and most fatal sign of a race incorrigibly savage. See you not that the primary condition of mortal happiness consists in the extinction of that strife and competition between individuals, which, no matter what forms of government they adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, destroy real liberty to the individual, whatever may be the nominal liberty of the state, and annul that calm of existence, without which, felicity, mental or bodily, cannot be attained? ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy. ~ Alexander Hamilton

The surest way to keep a secret is to make someone think they already know the answer. ~ Frank Herbert