Things That Matter Charles Krauthammer Quotes

Not only do we all have magic, it's all around us as well. We just don't pay attention to it. Every time we make something out of nothing, that's an act of magic. It doesn't matter if it's a painting or a garden, or an abuelo telling his grandchildren some tall tale. Every time we fix something that's broken, whether it's a car engine or a broken heart, that's an act of magic.

And what makes it magic is that we *choose* to create or help, just as we can choose to harm. But it's so easy to destroy and so much harder to make things better. That's why doing the right thing makes you stronger.

If we can only remember what we are and what we can do, nobody can bind us or control us. ~ Charles De Lint

[I]t is more than slightly ironic that Democrats, the fiercely pro-choice party, reserve free choice for aborting a fetus, while denying it for such matters as choosing your child's school or joining a union. ~ Charles Krauthammer

It is surely a matter of common observation that a man who knows no one thing intimately has no views worth hearing on things in general. ~ Charles Horton Cooley

Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art. I buy art that I like. I buy it to show it off in exhibitions. Then, if I feel like it, I sell it and buy more art. ~ Charles Saatchi

Every relationship has at least one really good day. What I mean is, no matter how sour things go, there's always that day. That day is always in your possession. That's the day you remember. You get old and you think: well, at least I had that day. It happened once. You think all the variables might just line up again. But they don't. Not always. I once talked to a woman who said, Yeah, that's the day we had an angel around. ~ Charles Baxter

There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us; and if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost a matter of impossibilty to separate the two. Nor is this, the most striking phenomenon, incidental to such a state. It is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced, and materially influenced, by the mere silent presence of some external object: which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness. ~ Charles Dickens

Some persons fancy that bias and counter-bias are favorable to the extraction of truth–that hot and partisan debate is the way to investigate. This is the theory of our atrocious legal procedure. But Logic puts its heel upon this suggestion. It irrefragably demonstrates that knowledge can only be furthered by the real desire for it, and that the methods of obstinacy, of authority and every mode of trying to reach a foregone conclusion, are absolutely of no value. These things are proved. The reader is at liberty to think so or not as long as the proof is not set forth, or as long as he refrains from examining it. Just so, he can preserve, if he likes, his freedom of opinion in regard to the propositions of geometry; only, in that case, if he takes a fancy to read Euclid, he will do well to skip whatever he finds with A, B, C, etc., for, if he reads attentively that disagreeable matter, the freedom of his opinion about geometry may unhappily be lost forever. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce

There's never an easy route to the things that matter. ~ Charles De Lint

The half-brained creature to whom books are other than living things may see with the eyes of a bat and draw with the fingers of a mole his dullard's distinction between books and life: those who live the fuller life of a higher animal than he know that books are to poets as much part of that life as pictures are to painters or as music is to musicians, dead matter though they may be to the spiritually still-born children of dirt and dullness who find it possible and natural to live while dead in heart and brain. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

The way you feel is the way you feel, and no matter how much you think you should feel some other way, you can't change that. There's some things in this life you can change and some you can't. I'm sure August tells you the same thing. Here's what you do when the time comes to talk to your dad. Here's what I do. I say to my creator, 'I'm about to open my mouth here. And, historically, that's been a dicey thing, as we both know. So some help is in order. So let me know what you want me to say to this person in this situation. Say it through me. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

Hear and understand: the Flame is the source of all things, all things are its manifestation! Seek to be One with the Divine Sun! Hold your thought on uniting the Light with your human body. Light is the Source of all the life; for without the Great Light nothing can ever exist! Know, Light is the basis of all formed matter. Know, O man, that all space is filled by worlds within worlds. ~ Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov

When we have poor values - that is, poor standards we set for ourselves and others - we are essentially giving fucks about the things that don't matter, things that in fact make our life worse. But when we choose better values, we are able to divert our fucks to something better - toward things that matter, things that improve the state of our well-being and that generate happiness, pleasure, and success as side effects. ~ Mark Manson

It feels like everything's been decided in advance that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense of who I am. It's like my identity's an orbit that I've strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch. ~ Haruki Murakami

Cesar knew better. He did. And love. Love just makes a man weak. A woman, a child - doesn't matter what face the love has, love makes you stupid, it takes you out of your character, twists you, folds you, it drags you out into deep waters and drowns you. Love has you thinking about all the things you buried. All the things you left behind. It has you thinking about your mother, who was a nurse once, wearing scrubs and coming home late, before all the fighting, before the vodka, before the heroin, before Cesar found her in the bathtub sleeping in her own blood.
Love has you crying on the couch while you're feeding your baby. Not even a month old and you're leaving him. Not because you want to, but because of love. Because you love him and you know he's better off with somebody else. Because it's the right thing to do. But righteousness doesn't take the edge of the sting. Because it hurts. Because he's looking up at you. His eyes wide in awe like you're God herself. Your son cannot understand a word that you're saying.

He doesn't understand that you're saying goodbye. ~ Daniel Abbott

Embrace it. Live it. Life's too short. Even looking at it from my end, when I've had more chances than many, I wish
actually even more so now
that I could go back and tinker with a few things ... do a little more of this, a little less of that. But the things about which I feel no regret are those that I did with passion. Those things I remember in living colour. The good and the bad. The rest have faded to black and white. They don't matter. Maybe they never did. ~ Ella J. Fraser

You can have a lot of political "change" in the United States, but will it really change that much? Will it change the amount of money in someone's bank account? Will it change contracts? Will it void contracts that already exist? And contracts on contracts? And contracts on contracts on contracts? Not really. So I say that free speech in many Western places is free not as a result of liberal circumstances but rather as a result of such intense fiscalization that it doesn't matter what you say. The dominant elite doesn't have to be scared of what people think, because a change in political view is not going to change whether they own their company or not; it is not going to change whether they own a piece of land or not. But China is still a political society, although it is rapidly heading toward a fiscalized society. And other societies, like Egypt, are still heavily politicized. Their rulers really do need to be concerned about what people think, so they expend proportionate efforts on controlling freedom of speech.


But I think young people actually innately have fairly good values. Of course it's a spectrum, but they have fairly good values most of the time and they want to demonstrate them to other people, and you can see this when people first go to university. They become hardened as a result of certain things having a payoff and other things not having a payoff. ~ Julian Assange

Children expect different things from each parent. Traditionally, the mother is expected to protect and defend the children, while the father is seen as head of the household, primary wage earner, problem solver, and disciplinarian - roles that often seem to entitle him respect and devotion no matter how he behaves. Many abused children blame their mothers as much as or even more than they blame their fathers for the abuse they experienced. A boy's additional need to identify with his father makes it even harder for him to find fault with his father, even if his father is brutal. But the boy is free to get angry at Mother when she does not protect him from abuse, because she is expected to be the fountainhead of all love and comfort. ~ Susan Forward

There's no doubt that motherhood is the best thing in my life. It's all that really matters. ~ Courteney Cox

Neutrality in things good or evil is both odious and prejudicial; but in matters of an indifferent nature is safe and commendable. Herein taking of parts maketh sides, and breaketh unity. In an unjust cause of separation, he that favoreth both parts may perhaps have least love of either side, but hath most charity in himself. ~ Joseph Hall

I love you, Trace. I always have. Just remember that, okay? Hold on to it. No matter what I say or what I do ... and trust me, I'll do some terrible things. Just know. I love you. With every fiber of my being. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

No accident of environment or circumstance need cut us off from nature ... It does not matter how shut in we are. Opportunity for wide experience is of small acccount in this as in other things; it is depth that brings understanding and life. ~ Mary Webb

That profound firmness which enabler a man to regard difficulties but as evils to be surmounted, no matter what shape they may assume. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Our chaotic economic situation has convinced so many of our young people that there is no room for them. They become uncertain andrestless and morbid; they grab at false promises, embrace false gods and judge things by treacherous values. Their insecurity makes them believe that tomorrow doesn't matter and the ineffectualness of their lives makes them deny the ideals which we of an older generation acknowledged. ~ Hortense Odlum

Dear Jude

Thank you for your beautiful (if unnecessary) note. I appreciate everything in it. You're right; that mug means a lot to me. But you mean more, so please stop torturing yourself.

If I were a different kind of person, I might say that this whole incident is a metaphor for life in general: things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize dat no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.

Actually - maybe I am that kind of person after all. ~ Hanya Yanagihara

Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things. That of which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be, the last into which they are resolved ... this they say is the element and this is the principle of things ... yet they do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these principle is water ... ~ Mary Hunter Austin

It was a bunch of explanations but not an excuse. The bottom line is that no matter why I did the things I did, I always had a choice in doing them. ~ Jana Deleon

I guess I've learned that no matter how bad things get, there are always people who love you. ~ Michael Thomas Ford

A particularly significant example of brain against body, or measures against matter, is urban man's total slavery to clocks. A clock is a convenient device for arranging to meet a friend, or for helping people to do things together, although things of this kind happened long before they were invented. Clocks should not be smashed; they should simply be kept in their place. And they are very much out of place when we try to adapt our biological rhythms of eating, sleeping, evacuation, working, and relaxing to their uniform circular rotation. Our slavery to these mechanical drill masters has gone so far and our whole culture is so involved with it that reform is a forlorn hope; without them civilization would collapse entirely. A less brainy culture would learn to synchronize its body rhythms rather than its clocks. ~ Alan W. Watts

We are all short sighted, and very often see but one side of a matter; our views are not extended to all that has a connection with it. From this defect I think no man is free. We see but in part, and we know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder we conclude not right from our partial views. This might instruct the proudest esteemer of his own parts, how useful it is to talk and consult with others, even such as come short of him in capacity, quickness and penetration: for since no one sees all, and we generally have different prospects of the same thing, according to our different, as I may say, positions to it, it is not incongruous to think nor beneath any man to try, whether another may not have notions of things which have escaped him, and which his reason would make use of if they came into his mind. ~ John Locke

so here i sit. a sum of the parts. about a third way down this wonderful path, so to speak. and i've been thinking lately about a friendship that fell apart with time, with distance, and with the misunderstanding of youth. i'm trying not to confuse sadness with regret. not the easiest thing at times. i dont regret that certain things happened. i understand that perhaps i had a choice in the matter, or perhaps i believe in fate. probably not, but so far actions as small as the quickest glance to events as monumental as death have pushed me slowly along to right here, right now. there was no other way to get here. the meandering and erratic path was actually the straightest of lines. take away a handful of angry words, things once thought of as mistakes or regrets, and i'm suddenly a different person with a different history, a different future. that, i would regret. so here i sit. thinking about a person i once called my best friends. a man who might be full of sadness and regret, who might not give a damn, or who might, just might, remember the future and realize that's where its at. ~ Chris Wright

When Gabriel was about Ivo's age," the duchess remarked almost dreamily, staring out at the plum-colored sky, "he found a pair of orphaned fox cubs in the woods, at a country manor we'd leased in Hampshire. Has he told you about that?"
Pandora shook her head, her eyes wide.
A reminiscent smile curved the duchess's full lips. "It was a pair of females, with big ears, and eyes like shiny black buttons. They made chirping sounds, like small birds. Their mother had been killed in a poacher's trap, so Gabriel wrapped the poor th-things in his coat and brought them home. They were too young to survive on their own. Naturally, he begged to be allowed to keep them. His father agreed to let him raise them under the gamekeeper's supervision, until they were old enough to return the f-forest. Gabriel spent weeks spoon-feeding them with a mixture of meat paste and milk. Later on, he taught them to stalk and catch prey in an outside pen."
"How?" Pandora asked, fascinated.
The older woman glanced at her with an unexpectedly mischievous grin. "He dragged dead mice through their pen on a string."
"That's horrid," Pandora exclaimed, laughing.
"It was," the duchess agreed with a chuckle. "Gabriel pretended not to mind, of course, but it was qu-quite disgusting. Still, the cubs had to learn." The duchess paused before continuing more thoughtfully. "I think for Gabriel, the most difficult part of raising them was having to keep his distance, no matter how he loved t ~ Lisa Kleypas

what a shame we all became such fragile, broken things.
A memory remains just a tiny spark.
I give it all my oxygen,
To let the flames begin
To let the flames begin.

Oh, glory.
Oh, glory.
This is how we'll dance when,
When they try to take us down.
This is what will be oh glory.

Somewhere weakness is our strength,
And I'll die searching for it.
I can't let myself regret such selfishness.
My pain and all the trouble caused,
No matter how long
I believe that there's hope
Buried beneath it all and
Hiding beneath it all, and
Growing beneath it all, and...

This is how we'll dance when,
When they try to take us down
This is how we'll sing it.
This is how we'll stand when
When they burn our houses down.
This is what will be oh glory.

Reaching as I sink down into light.
Reaching as I sink down into light.

This is how we dance when,
When they try to take us down
This is how we'll sing it.
This is how we'll stand when,
When they burn our houses down.
This is what will be oh glory. ~ Hayley Williams

What is the point of sharing your life with someone if you can't communicate with them about the things that matter? ~ Michael Robotham

It's only awkward if it matters. ~ Joyce Rachelle

If you find that thing you love, it doesn't necessarily matter whether you do it well or not-you just need to do it. ~ Stanley Tucci

People would see a lot of times fighting as a ugly thing, as a thing that denigrates the human being. In reality, you see fighting on everything ... Everything's fighting. Doesn't matter what it is. You wake up in the morning, to get out of bed is a fight, believe it. So, fighting is actually the best thing a man can have in his soul. ~ Renzo Gracie

Of all the things that make for happiness, the love of books comes first. No matter how the world may have used us, sure solace lies there. ~ Myrtle Reed