What Matters Quotes

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

Know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts. ~ Kristin Hannah

But there's quality behind Dustin's eyes when he talks, a dimness, like the slow fade of a dying flashlight. Like someone forgot to replace the batteries in Dustin's face. This kind of emptiness can only be filled with heartache and struggle and I-don't-know-what...the enormity of things. The shit-stink of life. And neither the enormity nor the shit-stink can be found in a pancake breakfast. Pain is what matters. ~ David Arnold

From a multidimensional perspective our relationships with other people are simulations of our relationship with ourselves, yet also our relationship with ourselves is a simulation of our relationship with other people, and our relationship with ourselves and other people are also simulations of our relationship with our doubles existing in parallel universes, and all these relationships are simulations of our relationship with God, and ...
yes, it is all rather complicated, yet what matters in the end is that Love prevails. ~ Franco Santoro

We are shocked by thieves taking pride in their clever touch, prostitutes in their depravity and murderers in their callousness. But it is shocking only because the atmosphere of the circles they move in is restricted, and - what matters most - we are on the outside. But isn't the same thing happening when rich men take pride in their wealth (which is theft), military commanders in their victories (which are murder) and rulers in their power (which is violence)? We do not see them as people who corrupt the concept of life, or good and evil, in order to justify their own situation, but only because the circles of people who share these corrupt concepts are wider, and we belong to them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Woman's Anthem
Women are fierce. They are powerful. No matter what language they speak, how they dress, or the work they choose to do. What matters is they have a choice, and the freedom to carve out a life for themselves.
As long as we know women who are strong and resilient, we must respect them, carry them forward, lift them up.
For they are the product of all our other selves, the women we were, the ones we strive to be, the collective struggle of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters.
Our salvation will only come if we stand together ~ Lang Leav

What, then, of the priest's iconic representation of Christ at the altar? If there is no specifically masculine or feminine charism or ontology, the significance of the priest's maleness fades away. What matters - as patristic Christology recognized centuries ago with its dictum, 'That which is not assumed [by the Son of God in the incarnation] is not healed' - is that Christ became human, assuming and thereby healing the nature common to men and women. Although biologically a man, Christ assumed human nature in such a way as to include both men and women in his salvific work. And that means, in turn, that to refuse to allow a woman to preside at the Eucharist may be to say much more than opponents of women's ordination realize - namely, 'that women are not adequate icons of Christ.' The result, notes [Sarah] Hinlicky Wilson near the end of her book, is nothing less than 'to leave both their humanity and their salvation in doubt.' If women can't reflect the human nature of Christ at the altar, how then can they trust Christ's human nature to save them at all? ~ Wesley Hill

Don't bother too much about your feelings. When they are humble, loving, brave, give thanks for them; when they are conceited, selfish, cowardly, ask to have them altered. In neither case are they you, but only a thing that happens to you. What matters is your intentions and your behavior ~ C.S. Lewis

You see, the outcome of the battle is unimportant. What matters is the chaos, and the slaughter. ~ Neil Gaiman

Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you. ~ Haruki Murakami

What really happened doesn't matter. What matters is how we agree to remember it. ~ Leila Sales

Wild keeps a man on his toes … causes him to always pay attention, not take a single thing for granted. When a man gets complacent, he can lose sight of what matters most. ~ K. Bromberg

You'll be alive', he pointed out. 'That's what matters. Enjoy what you have, every little detail of wherever you are. Don't focus on where you aren't. ~ Richelle Mead

What matters is not the enclosure of the work within a harmonious figure, but the centrifugal force produced by it
a plurality of language as a guarantee of a truth that is not merely partial. ~ Italo Calvino

For those of us with introverted tendencies, many think that hard work and good results is what matters most. It would be great if that were the case, but it's wrong to believe that to be true. Superb performance on the job is important, but if you don't have a supportive network, you're in for some big disappointments. We speak to people continuously who suffer from the missing component of good networking in their career path. Those people find that their missed opportunities or promotions are demoralizing and certainly frustrating. ~ Dorothy Tannahill-Moran

There's a mess inside you:
You clean the outside. ~ Anonymous

As one old gentleman put it, Son, I don't care if you're stark nekkid and wear a bone in your nose. If you kin fiddle, you're all right with me. It's the music we make that counts. ~ Robert Fulghum

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?
No flags are fair, if Freedom's flag be furled.
Who fights for Freedom, goes with joyful tread
To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled. ~ Joyce Kilmer

What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil? ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Collins, echoing Ed Catmull, "What separates people is the return on luck, what you do with it when you get it. What matters is how you play the hand you're dealt." He continues, "You don't leave the game, until it's not your choice. Steve Jobs had great luck at arriving at the birth of an industry. Then he had bad luck in getting booted out. But Steve played whatever hand he was dealt to the best of his ability. Sometimes you create the hand, by giving yourself challenges that will make you stronger, where you don't even know what's next. That's the beauty of the story. Steve's almost like the Tom Hanks character in Castaway - just keep breathing because you don't know what the tide will bring in tomorrow. ~ Brent Schlender

…Maybe that's what matters. Maybe that's what being "alive" is. It's not some trick. There's no magic chemical that gives something a soul. It's about being loved and loving in return. ~ Lauren James

It doesn't matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is - what matters is its relative 'share of customer value' in the final product or solution, and its cost of producing that value. ~ Gary Hamel

I fight for the man next to me. It don't matter about me, what matters about me is sacrificing for you; for the ultimate goal which is us. ~ Ray Lewis

A few generations ago, men went to work or war and rarely got to see life beyond their careers. A generation ago, our parents had to answer the question of what they would do with the last third of their lives. How would they spend their retirement? Would it be squandered on silly things or invested in significance? But now, the question of legacy isn't a matter of if you live long enough or when you retire; it's a matter of what you will do with what you have right now. You don't have to earn a living for thirty years to turn around and spend the next thirty giving it away. If significance is what matters to you, you can structure your life and work in a way that allows you to live your legacy now. In fact, your giving doesn't have to be a by-product of your success; it can be the very thing that drives it in the first place. ~ Jeff Goins

I do not want to frighten you by telling you about the temptations life will bring. Anyone who is healthy in spirit will overcome them. But there is something I want you to realize. It does not matter so much what you do. What matters is whether your soul is harmed by what you do. If your soul is harmed, something irreparable happens, the extent of which you won't realize until it will be too late. ~ Albert Schweitzer

One of its (civilisations) most powerful weapons has always been 'barbarity': 'we' know that 'we' are civilised by contrasting ourselves with those we deem to be uncivilised, with those who do not -or cannot be trusted to - share our values. Civilisation is a process of exclusion as well as inclusion. The boundary between 'us' and 'them' may be an internal one (for much of world history the idea of a 'civilised woman' has been a contradiction in terms), or an external one, as the word 'barbarian' suggests; it was originally a derogatory and ethnocentric ancient Greek term for foreigners you could not understand, because they spoke in an incomprehensible babble: 'bar-bar-bar ...' The inconvenient truth, of course, is that so-called 'barbarians' may be no more than those with a different view from ourselves of what it is to be civilised, and of what matters in human culture. In the end, one person's barbarity is another person's civilisation. ~ Mary Beard

I'm not afraid of death. What's to fear? Once you're dead, that's it. Nothing. I don't believe in heaven or hell. That's baloney. What matters is the here and now. Yes, I'm 88, and there are things I can't do: I can't run a race or climb Everest. But isn't life magnificent? ~ Patrick Macnee

What matters is how I use what I know, every minute of every day; how I use it to remember, in the midst of the game. ~ Richard Bach

When people are coming to Krakow and we show them how and where we practice, they are like, 'Seriously? Are you kidding me?' But we're always saying that what matters about the courts - the lines, the nets - are the same. I'm practicing in Poland even when I don't have good facilities. ~ Agnieszka Radwanska

What you want to do is to get to the point where you only do what matters to you. The real goal in life is to become more of who you are, so that you can make the choices that really satisfy who you are and what you want to do. ~ Oprah Winfrey

When you get down to it, what matters is practice, will and a certain amount of skill. Capacity is a small matter, but if everything else is equal, capacity will win out. That's why we want magazines with lots of bullets in them. ~ Patrick Sweeney

Above all, believe. Cultivate your swagger. Make this your new religion: You are funny and talented, and you're going to try something new. This is the exact right time for that. This is the most important year of your life, and for once you are NOT going to let yourself down. If you fall down and feel depressed, you will get back up. If you feel lethargic and scared, you will try something else: a new routine, a new roommate situation, a healthier diet. You will read books about comedy. You will work tirelessly and take pride in your tireless work. And you will take time every few hours to stop and say to yourself, "Look at me. I'm doing it. I'm chasing my dream. I am following my calling." It doesn't matter if your dreams come true, if agents swoon and audiences cheer. Trust me on that: It truly doesn't matter. What matters is the feeling that you're doing it, every day. What matters is the work - diving in, feeling your way in the dark, finding the words, trusting yourself, embracing your weird voice, celebrating your quirks on the page, believing in all of it. What matters is the feeling that you're not following someone else around, that you're not half-assing this, that you're not waiting for something to happen, that you're not waiting for your whole life to start.

What matters is you, all alone at your desk at five in the morning. I write this from my own desk at five in the morning, my favorite place, a place where I know who I am and what I'm meant to ac ~ Heather Havrilesky

Fortunate people often have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. What matters isn't being applauded when you arrive - for that is common - but being missed when you leave. ~ Baltasar Gracian

Don't get caught up in hopes of what you'll achieve and how good your situation will be some day in the future. What you do right now is what matters. ~ Pema Chodron

A book is finished when it does not want me to work on it any longer...it reaches a point when it feels like it is literally avoiding me. I have a very physical relationship with the manuscript, almost a corps à corps. Paradoxically, when I finally feel at ease with a manuscript, with its voices, I realize it is finished. I see a book as a living organism, with its own rules and will. What matters to me is to allow it to grow and to acquire an existence of its own. It's as if the book uses me in order to come into existence, rather than being written. ~ Antonio Lobo Antunes

This is going to be hideously trite," he says. "Prepare yourself."

"Prepared."

"It's Christmas. You love them. They love you. More than anything else, that's what matters. Things will happen the way they happen, and you'll sort out the way you feel about them, and it will be all right. And you'll keep loving them, and they'll keep loving you, and … God bless us, everyone."

I consider this. "Kind of a weak ending."

"I can't help suspecting it would have resonated more if I were a sickly child in Victorian Britain," he agrees wistfully. ~ Hannah Johnson

Writing is a physical art. And writing a book is a lot more like making a complex sculpture out of bronze than writing a whole bunch of reports. What's in your head does not count, not for sculpture, not for book writing. Pencil on paper is what matters. Words on paper, pages and pages, chapter after chapter. ~ Heather Sellers

Pixar's Ed Catmull likes to say that since you can't control the luck itself, which is bound to come your way for better and for worse, what matters is your state of preparedness to deal with it. ~ Brent Schlender

What matters is hunger. Appetite. In this way I have become what I behold. ~ Benjamin Percy

How you recover from what life's throwing at you is what matters. ~ Joe Namath

I wasn't offering her pity," Mrs. Caswell said impatiently. "Tragedies don't interest me, tragedies and heartbreaks are all alike, what matters is how a person meets them, how they survive them. Given the inevitability of losses and disappointments in life, that's where the challenge is and the uniqueness. I was offering her sympathy. ~ Dorothy Gilman

At the heart of it all, Passion exists to see a generation stake their lives on what matters most. For us, that's the fame of the One who rescues and restores, and the privilege we have to fully leverage our lives by amplifying His name in everything we do. ~ Louie Giglio

Devote yourself to your partner's sense of safety and security and not simply to your idea about what that should be. What may make you feel safe and secure may not be what your partner requires from you. Your job is to know what matters to your partner and how to make him or her feel safe and secure. ~ Stan Tatkin

I took quite an interest in polar expeditions. And I've been familiar with explorers who were still investigating polar zones, especially Greenland, with dog sleighs. What matters with dog sleighs is the guide. The guide is often a female dog, who is particularly subtle, and knows there's a crevice 25 or 30 meters ahead. Yet we can't see it under the snow. So we shall say she is violent because she warns the dog sleighs they're going to fall into the crevice, a 60 to 70 meter drop into a hole, and that will be it, death. Well, maybe I have the astuteness of a female dog leading dog sleighs, nothing more than that. ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

To paraphrase Titus 3:3, we live as slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in chaos and envy, hassled by others and hassling one another. We are all very busy, but not with what matters ~ Kevin DeYoung

Don't be so concerned about the size of your next step ... The direction is what matters! ~ Joseph Simmons

This doesn't just involve you, honey. If it did, then what you suggest might be the best option. But it involves Shea and, by proxy, everyone at KGI because now you and your sister both are part of us. We don't run from a fight. It's not what KGI is about. KGI is about family. It's about protecting what matters the most to us. It's about never letting anyone take what is ours. You and Shea are ours now, we'll protect you with our last breaths. ~ Maya Banks

We work our whole lives trying to get rich so we can impress the world with our fancy houses and cars, but in the end it doesn't matter how much money we make. What matters most are the choices we make, and unfortunately I made some very bad choices. ~ J.S. Bailey

Students need to decide, 'All right, well, does the height matter? Does the side of it matter? Does the color of the valve matter? What matters here?' - such an underrepresented question in math curriculum. ~ Dan Meyer

Our need to reimagine our world through the vibratory larynx, that's what matters. Re-awaken the world to itself. Through ideas, pictures, sounds. Hold the mirror up to "nature." ~ Anne Waldman

You shall go west, and face the god who has turned. His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned. The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend. Finally, Eddie, our building super, delivered the worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end. ~ Rick Riordan

What matters isn't how well you play when you're playing well. What mattersis how well you play when you're playing badly.'
- Martina Navratilova ~ Harsha Bhogle

I'm a very introverted person. Nothing that's happened has changed that, but one of the reasons I write for teens is it's a real privilege to have a seat at the table in the lives of young people when they're figuring out what matters to them. ~ John Green

For me, where genre ends and literature begins doesn't matter. What matters is whether a given novel hits me with high impact. If it does, it probably is fulfilling the purpose of fiction. It has drawn me into a story world, held me captive, taken me on a journey with characters like none I've ever met, revealed truths I've somehow always known and insights that rock my brain. It's filled me with awe, which is to say it's made me see the familiar in a wholly new way and made the unfamiliar a foundational part of me. It both entertains and matters. It both captures our age and becomes timelessly great. It does all that with the sturdy tools of story and the flair of narrative art. ~ Donald Maass

When you cannot do what you have always done, then you only do what matters most. ~ Robert D. Hales

I have seen tyrants come and go, and each seems more invincible and more terrible than the last. They all fail. Empires arise and crumble. What matters is what each of us do where we are, when we are. ~ Christopher R. Taylor

It does not matter what comes up. What matters is who you are, the one perceiving it. ~ Mooji

Live or die: mere consequences of what you have built. What matters is building well. So here we are I've assigned myself a new obligation. I'm going to stop undoing deconstructing I'm going to start building ... What matters is what you are doing when you die ... I want to be building. ~ Muriel Barbery

Giving tells the Universe that you believe you are provided for. For even as you empty your purse, you fear not. The act alone is a demonstration of faith that you will remain whole, that your coffers will be replenished, and that love is what matters most. And for whomsoever believes these things to be true, it shall become their reality, and abundance shall be showered upon them unceasingly, as if the heavens had opened up. ~ Mike Dooley

What matters is that she becomes an engaged lifelong learner and an adaptable thinker who can thrive in any environment and is comfortable dealing with other cultures. ~ Ben Green

What matters is ultimately what collectively those people on the street - whether that's the cycling community, the cancer community - it matters what they think. ~ Lance Armstrong

...don't simplify your life so you can do more. Simplify your life so you can focus on what matters - and you are what matters. Simplifying your life means focusing on who you are physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If you want to choose joy daily, that's the place to start. ~ Kay Warren

What matters are not the truths other people tell us or the practices that we are able to mimic, but the spiritual discoveries we make through personal investigation. ~ Adyashanti

No matter how little money we have, no matter what rung we occupy on anybody's corporate ladder of success, in the end what everybody discovers is that what matters is other people. Human beings who give themselves to relational greatness - who have friends they laugh with, cry with, learn with, fight with, dance with, live and love and grow old and die with - these are the human beings who lead magnificent lives. ~ John Ortberg Jr.

Trifles, trifles are what matter! ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

Whoever is unable to stand up for an ideal with his person, his arm, his blood, is unworthy of that ideal, and no matter how intellectual one may become, what matters is that one remains a man. ~ Thomas Mann

You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters- all that matters, really- is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest- women, art, success- is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries. ~ Albert Camus

It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes. ~ Elias Canetti

What matters is 'Have you done a better job of making our experiences feel like home on Windows?' That's our real goal, and that's what we're going to stay focused on. ~ Satya Nadella

Shocked at this rebuke, Sarah took a step backward. "But I ... I am the daughter of a marquess. I cannot marry either - "
"You are new here, so I will explain. In this land, nobility comes not from one's fathers or a title or from the land one owns, but from one's actions." His voice was hard-edged, and his words seemed harsh to her. "The MacKinnon brothers are the highest nobility to those who live on the frontier - true warriors, men who know how to fight and survive, men who put the lives of others before their own. Your family's wealth, your title, your virtue - they mean nothing out here. They won't fill your belly, and they won't keep you alive. What matters most right now is your survival. ~ Pamela Clare

But there's so much that was a lie, it's hard to figure out what was true, what was real, what matters. ~ Veronica Roth

Thou art the Lord who slept upon the pillow,
Thou art the Lord who soothed the furious sea,
What matters beating wind and tossing billow
If only we are in the boat with Thee?
Hold us quiet through the age-long minute
While Thou art silent and the wind is shrill :
Can the boat sink while Thou, dear Lord, are in it;
Can the heart faint that waiteth on Thy will? ~ Amy Carmichael

What matters is the value we've created in our lives, the people we've made happy and how much we've grown as people. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

We could have died just now. We didn't. Maybe we'll die tomorrow. I don't know. What matters is that we're alive now. ~ Richelle Mead

What matters, always matters, is living. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

What matters most is that the people you work with share your values. ~ Ray Dalio

What matters is what you are holding in your consciousness as to the possibility for your life now. ~ Karen S. Wylie MA

We've spent our time together talking about everything but what matters. We've never brought to each other the heavy things we were meant to help each other carry. We've only introduced each other to our representatives, while our real selves tried to live life alone. We thought that was safer. We thought that this way our real selves wouldn't get hurt. But as I read these messages, it becomes clear that we are all hurting anyway. And we think we are alone. At our cores, we are our tender selves peeking out at a world of shiny representatives, so shame has been layered on top of our pain. We're suffocating underneath all the layers. * ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

Remember, Weed: The good of one tree is not important. The good of the forest is what matters. ~ Maryrose Wood

It's easy to convince people that children need to learn the alphabet and numbers. . . . How do we help people to realize that what matters even more than the superimposition of adult symbols is how a person's inner life finally puts together the alphabet and numbers of his outer life? What really matters is whether he uses the alphabet for the declaration of war or the description of a sunrise - his numbers for the final count at Buchenwald or the specifics of a brand-new bridge. ~ Fred Rogers

[Seeds Are Small.] Becoming a force of nature doesn't mean that all of our aspirations must be "grand." First steps are often small, and initial visions that focus energy effectively often address immediate problems. What matters is engagement in the service of a larger purpose rather than lofty aspirations that paralyze action. Indeed, it's a dangerous trap to believe that we can pursue onlhy "great visions." ~ Peter Senge

For if God be on our side, what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes, or whatsoever names they will? ~ William Tyndale

How a club is run is what matters to me. The fewer board members, the better. If it's 18, I'm just not interested. ~ Ernst Happel

To see them succeed, to see them improve, that is what matters. ~ Frederick Lenz

Your education never stops and college is just the beginning. You come out of college with a huge advantage in that you've ideally and more times than not you've come out with a love of learning and that's what matters above all. ~ David McCullough

Joy is a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters. ~ Oprah Winfrey

When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters. There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone. And I believe they may be the things that mean most to you, and that even your own child would have to know in order to know you well at all. ~ Marilynne Robinson

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true. ~ Albert Schweitzer

Culture, social order, and external ceremony have no bearing on spiritual life. What matters is faith and obedience. ~ Anonymous

[I]f you are truly a man, sure of yourself and confident of your strength, you may taste of life without fear and without reserve; you may be sad or joyous, deceived or respected; but be sure you are loved, for what matters the rest? ~ Alfred De Musset

Fair play doesn't pertain in bargaining. What matters there is leverage. ~ Alan Rosenberg

What matters most is not what is behind us or before us, but what is within us. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have been offered "the gift of crisis". As Kathleen Norris reminds us, the Greek root of the word crisis is "to sift", as in, to shake out the excesses and leave only what's important. That's what crises do. They skae things up until we are forced to hold on to only what matters most. The rest falls away. ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

At the end, what matters is the strength of the string - not the wealth and power of the dining party. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

In the end, what matters most is how well you lived, how well you loved, and how well you learned to let go. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour

It does not matter how many talents we have, what matters is how we use them. ~ Paul H. Dunn

What's important is finding out what works for you. ~ Thomas Moore

I spent as much time as I could with Ghosh. I wanted every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, "Seize the day! What matters is THIS moment!" Most of us can't go back and make restitution. We can't do a thing about our should haves and our could haves. But a few lucky men like Ghosh never have such worries; there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize.
Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live. ~ Abraham Verghese

We all make mistakes, but what matters is how we go back and fix them. ~ Rwynn Christian

I think every person should have some faith inside him, in his heart. What matters is not an external display of this faith, but the inner state of the soul. ~ Vladimir Putin