Fractions Quotes - Page 9

• I imagine you working on me as an algebra problem, reducing me to fractions, crossing out common denominators, until there's nothing left on the page but a line that says x = whatever it is that is wrong with me.

  Patricia McCormick

  Lines, Pages, Common

  Patricia McCormick (2011). “Cut”, p.61, Scholastic Inc.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• People? People are chaotic quiddities living in one cave each. They pass the hours in amorous grudge and playback and thought experiment. At the campfire they put the usual fraction on exhibit, and listen to their own silent gibber about how they're feeling and how they're going down. We've been there. Death helps. Death gives us something to do. Because it's a fulltime job looking the other way.

  Martin Amis

  Jobs, People, Giving

  54 Copy quote

• Sometimes your whole life could hinge on a fraction of an inch. Or the beat of a nanosecond. Or the knock on a door.

  J.R. Ward

  Doors, Sometimes, Beats

  5 Copy quote

• I have one aim only: to impart a fraction of the meaning of the word now.

  Frederick Salomon Perls

  Aim, Impart

  32 Copy quote

• To only a fraction of the human race does God give the privilege of earning one's bread doing what one would have gladly pursued free, for passion.

  Fred Brooks

  Passion, Race, Giving

  6 Copy quote

• New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.

  Michael J. Boskin

  Government, Voting, President

  4 Copy quote

• All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95% of Americans are "scientifically illiterate." That's...the same fraction...of slaves who were illiterate before the Civil War.

  Carl Sagan

  War, Smart, Passion

  4 Copy quote

• There is in life only one moment and in eternity only one. It is so brief that it is represented by the fleeting of a luminous mote through the thin ray of sunlight - and it is visible but a fraction of a second. The moments that preceded it have been lived, are forgotten and are without value; the moments that have not been lived have no existence and will have no value except in the moment that each shall be lived. While you are asleep you are dead; and whether you stay dead an hour or a billion years the time to you is the same.

  Mark Twain

  Years, Rays, Fleeting

  Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine (1971). “Mark Twain's notebook”, Scholarly Pr

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ability is not something to be saved, like money, in the hope that you can draw interest on it. The interest comes from the spending. Unused ability, like unused muscles, will atrophy. It is tragic to realize that the majority of human beings, even the so-called educated, call upon only the smallest fraction of their potential capacity. They leave many talents dormant. They fail to develop their mental qualities. They are almost unaware of the degree of energy upon which they might call to build a full and rewarding life.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Quality, Might, Energy

  4 Copy quote

• We spend billions on banks when we know that a fraction of this money could save all the children in the world.

  Desmond Tutu

  Children, World, Billions

  29 Copy quote

• We are all born with extraordinary powers of imagination, intelligence, feeling, intuition, spirituality, and of physical and sensory awareness. For the most part, we use only a fraction of these powers, and some not at all.

  Ken Robinson

  Imagination, Feelings, Intuition

  Ken Robinson Ph.D., Lou Aronica (2009). “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything”, p.15, Penguin

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Historians will not fail to note that a people who could spend $300 billion on defense refused to spend a tiny fraction of that total to keep their libraries open in the evening.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  People, Library, Tiny

  4 Copy quote

• Our country regularly uses military force, but only a fraction of Americans serve in the military. This means fewer and fewer people have a direct link to the military, and yet it remains as important as ever that we have a rich understanding of what we are doing as a country.

  Phil Klay

  Country, Military, Mean

  4 Copy quote

• The world we inhabit is abundant beyond our wildest imagination. There are trees, dreams, sunrises; there are thunderstorms, shadows, rivers; there are wars, flea bites, love affairs; there are the lives of people, Gods, entire galaxies. The simplest human action varies from one person and occasion to the next-how else would we recognize our friends only from their gait, posture, voice, and divine their changing moods? Only a tiny fraction of this abundance affects our minds. This is a blessing, not a drawback.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Dream, War, Blessing

  "Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction Versus the Richness of Being".

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• Time is a funny thing. I was always puzzled with the way a single day could stretch itself out to the point of eternity in your mind, all while years melted down into the fraction of a second.

  Gloria Naylor

  Years, Funny Things, Mind

  Gloria Naylor (2017). “Mama Day: A Novel”, p.117, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people, But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavours that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

  Jeff Bezos

  Years, People, Vision

  "Jeff Bezos Owns the Web in More Ways Than You Think". Interview with Steven Levy, www.wired.com. November 13, 2011.

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have long been a critic of Social Security, basically because I believe that it is not the business of government to tell people what fraction of their incomes they should devote to providing for their own or someone else's old age.

  Milton Friedman

  Believe, Government, Long

  10 Copy quote

• The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly you look at those blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those blacks who have dropped out of high school. So it’s not being black; it’s a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people.

  Thomas Sowell

  Couple, Rap, School

  10 Copy quote

• It couldn't be an all-bad world, could it, not with birds who warble and call? Maybe that was the secret - to find the few things that made life just a fraction better, and to focus on those. Bird warbles. Peach fuzz. Puppies barking as if they're full grown dogs. Nothing great, certainly nothing to justify the rest of it, but enough to keep you going.

  Shalom Auslander

  Dog, Focus, Bird

  13 Copy quote

• If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one’s existence, if one does not use the mind to it’s fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. True happiness involves the pursuit of worthy goals. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.

  Dan Buettner

  Dream, Giving, Goal

  Dan Buettner (2010). “Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way”, p.16, National Geographic Books

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's funny when I read the tabloids and they're reporting on only a fraction of the life I'm leading.

  Zach Braff

  Tabloids

  4 Copy quote

• Not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Giving, May, Littles

  Albert Schweitzer (2015). “The Light Within Us”, p.13, Open Road Media

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• A significant fraction of thru-hikers reach Katahdin, then turn around and start back to Georgia. They just can't stop walking, which kind of makes you wonder.

  Bill Bryson

  Georgia, Kind, Wonder

  Bill Bryson (2010). “A Walk In The Woods: The World's Funniest Travel Writer Takes a Hike”, p.145, Random House

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a world in which the price of calculation continues to decrease rapidly, but the price of theorem proving continues to hold steady or increase, elementary economics indicates that we ought to spend a larger and larger fraction of our time on calculation.

  John Tukey

  World, Economics, Increase

  38 Copy quote

• Only a fraction of the history of literacy has been typographic.

  Marshall McLuhan

  Literacy, Has Beens

  Marshall McLuhan (2011). “The Gutenberg Galaxy”, p.135, University of Toronto Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source