Scarce Quotes - Page 10

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these Of mid September; through the still warm noon The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune Than ever in the summer; from the trees Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies, No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon Finds motionless white mists out on the leas.

Edward Dowden

Summer, Spring, Moon

Edward Dowden (1877). “Poems”

8 Copy quote

Show source
He that riseth late, must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night.

Benjamin Franklin

Business, Night, Laziness

Benjamin Franklin (2004). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.286, Barnes & Noble Publishing

9 Copy quote

Show source
As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor. Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead Which, the more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mother, Children, Sleep

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1988). “Selected Poems”, p.322, Penguin

17 Copy quote

Show source
No organization can depend on genius; the supply is always scarce and unreliable. It is the test of an organization to make ordinary people perform better than they seem capable of, to bring out whatever strength there is in its members, and to use each person's strength to help all the other members perform.

Peter Drucker

Strength, Men, Organization

"Management".

4 Copy quote

Show source
Man hath still either toys or care: But hath no root, nor to one place is tied, but ever restless and irregular, about this earth doth run and ride. He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where; He says it is so far, that he has quite forgot how to go there.

Henry Vaughan

Running, Home, Men

Henry Vaughan (1976). “The complete poems”, Penguin Group USA

7 Copy quote

Show source
There is only one important resource which has shown a trend of increasing scarcity rather than increasing abundance. That resource is the most important of all—human beings. . . . [An] increase in the price of peoples’ services is a clear indication that people are becoming more scarce even though there are more of us.

Julian Simon

People, Important, Scarcity

20 Copy quote
Confronted with the choice between having time and having things, we’ve chosen to have things. Today it is a luxury to read what Socrates said, not because the books are expensive, but because our time is scarce.

Gabriel Zaid

Book, Luxury, Choices

Gabriel Zaid “So Many Books: Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance”, Paul Dry Books

5 Copy quote

Show source
There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah - get first all the people's money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants forever.

Benjamin Franklin

Kings, Children, Land

Benjamin Franklin, William Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin ...”, p.385

8 Copy quote

Show source
Even good excuses, really good ones, don't help very much.
Explanations, on the other hand, are both scarce and useful.
And accurate forecasts and insightful intuition are priceless.

Seth Godin

Hands, Insightful, Intuition

6 Copy quote
Why do we value leadership, connection and grace? Because it's scarce, and that scacity creates value.

Seth Godin

Grace, Connections, Values

8 Copy quote
...when we really get into hard times, where food is scarce or there is none at all, and so with clothing and shelter, money may be no good for there may be nothing to buy, and you cannot eat money, you cannot get enough of it together to burn to keep you warm, and you cannot wear it.

J. Reuben Clark

Religious, Hard Times, Self Reliance

15 Copy quote
The industrial civilisation is based on the consumption of energy resources that are inherently limited in quantity and that are about to become scarce. When they do, competition for what remains will trigger dramatic economic and geopolitical events; in the end, it may be impossible for even a single nation to sustain industrialism as we have know it in the twentieth century.

Richard Heinberg

Competition, Environmental, Energy

Richard Heinberg (2003). “The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies”, New Society Pub

8 Copy quote

Show source
He is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admire the one, ere you despise the other.

John Dryden

Two, Faces, Admiration

'Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age' (1672)

6 Copy quote

Show source
Where resources are plentiful (i.e. no constraints), you will find very little creativity. Where resources are scarce (i.e. many constraints), you will find an abundance of creativity.

Andy Murray

Creativity, Littles, Abundance

33 Copy quote
Like looking through a telescope into the Milky Way and wondering if we're alone in the universe, it made me realize with the glaring clarity of desert light how scarce and delicate life is, how insignificant we are compared with the forces of nature and the dimensions of space.

Aron Ralston

Delicate Life, Space, Light

Aron Ralston (2011). “127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

11 Copy quote

Show source
Now suppose that the clue experiences that can correct the illusion become for some reason increasingly scarce – perhaps because the dominant story itself brings about their elimination! Then the illusion might go on for a very long time, might have to result in real catastrophe, before anyone realizes anything is wrong.

Val Plumwood

Real, Long, Stories

Val Plumwood (2012). “The Eye of the Crocodile”, p.13, ANU E Press

7 Copy quote

Show source
Using the latest in science and technology to shatter today's economic paradigm of 'insatiable individuals competing for scarce resources,' Planetary Citizenship brings us full circle to the ancient wisdom of indigenous peoples and the sacredness of creation.

Rebecca Adamson

Technology, Circles, Full Circle

6 Copy quote
Affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.

John Donne

Men, Joy, Suffering

John Donne (1839). “The works of John Donne”, p.575

9 Copy quote

Show source
The relative size of your force as against that of your adversary is by itself of no consequence. What controls is the relative size of your force at the point where you join in battle. You can strike with the few and be many if you strike your adversary in his gaps. Seek out places where the defense is not strict, the place not tightly guarded, the generals weak, the troops disorderly, the supplies are scarce and the forces are isolated.

Sun Tzu

Art, War, Battle

7 Copy quote
……, but as I am a scholar I feel obliged to document what it is like here, most of the time, between the dramatic climaxes. In truth it is like this: You cannot imagine how time can be so still. It hangs. It weighs, and yet there is so little of it. It goes so slowly and it is so scarce. If I was writing this scene it would last a full 15 minutes. I would lie here and you would sit there.

Margaret Edson

Lying, Writing, Littles

5 Copy quote
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t'inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.

Ben Jonson

Prayer, Grief, Wish

Ben Jonson, William (Schriftsteller) Gifford (1816). “The Works: In 9 Volumes. ... containing Masques, &c. Epigrams. Underwoods”, p.289

4 Copy quote

Show source
Long, blue, spiky-edged shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed like devout worshippers waiting to be blessed.

John Muir

Religious, Blessed, Light

John Muir (1968). “South of Yosemite”

28 Copy quote

Show source
He looked at a world of incredible loveliness. Old distaff Celt's blood in some back chamber of his brain moved him to discourse with the birches, with the oaks. A cool green fire kept breaking in the woods and he could hear the footsteps of the dead. Everything had fallen from him. He scarce could tell where his being ended or the world began nor did he care. He lay on his back in the gravel, the earth's core sucking his bones, a moment's giddy vertigo with this illusion of falling outward through blue and windy space, over the offside of the planet, hurtling through the high thin cirrus.

Cormac McCarthy

Fall, Blood, Space

4 Copy quote
We pay for sins we do not remember, and seek to do a will we can scarce fathom. That is what it is, to be a god's chosen.

Jacqueline Carey

Pay, Remember, Sin

Jacqueline Carey (2011). “Kushiel's Avatar”, p.423, Pan Macmillan

4 Copy quote

Show source
Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Art, Book, Reading

Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2005). “The Shadow of the Wind”, p.457, Penguin

5 Copy quote

Show source