Useful Things Quotes - Page 2

• Tradition is a fine thing. Nothing comes out of the blue, except perhaps thunderbolts and they are not really very useful things.

  Stacy Aumonier

  Blue, Tradition, Fine Things

  Stacy Aumonier (1921). “The Golden Windmill: And Other Stories”

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• Like my father, I would never as a child throw anything away, keeping old toys, electric motors and bits of broken machines under my bed in what I called my Box of Useful Things.

  Nick Park

  Children, Father, Electric Motors

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• But I still do believe that there are useful things to say about Elvis Presley, including what his own ordinariness as a poor Southerner says about 20th-century hero-making.

  John Shelton Reed

  Believe, Hero, Poor

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• I am a maker of useful things.

  Eva Zeisel

  Makers

  "Prolific" by Judith Thurman, www.newyorker.com. December 18, 2006.

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• One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating of conformity.

  Anna Quindlen

  Age, Conformity, Realizing

  Anna Quindlen (2012). “Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake: A Memoir of a Woman's Life”, p.42, Random House

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• A studio is an absolute labyrinth of possibilities - this is why records take so long to make because there are millions of permutations of things you can do. The most useful thing you can do is to get rid of some of those options before you start

  Brian Eno

  Long, Labyrinth, Records

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• Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is not a result of inspiration. It is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge - that is to say, of science. When man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Christian, Children, Inspiration

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2145, Library of Alexandria

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• Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, "It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper.

  Diogenes Laertius

  Men, Too Late, Said

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• If you read my short stories, there's a lot of sex in those in all different ways. To me, it's a really good, useful thing to get to have in a story. And in a movie, it's amazing, because you actually get to show things.

  Miranda July

  Sex, Different, Stories

  Interview with Noel Murray, film.avclub.com. July 7, 2008.

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• Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all
  alike,
  boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities
  and
  towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school.
  Education is indeed necessary for all, and this is evident if we
  consider
  the different degrees of ability. No one doubts that those who are
  stupid
  need instruction, that they may shake off their natural dullness. But
  in
  reality those who are clever need it far more, since an active mind, if
  not occupied with useful things, will busy itself with what is useless,
  curious, and pernicious.

  John Amos Comenius

  Girl, Powerful, Children

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• Interviewers have to be work really hard to be good. They¹re more inclined to be bad. Generally, they can go either way, but interviewing on a whole isn¹t such a useful thing. I¹m not a big fan of (interviews), really.

  Ben Lee

  Fans, Way, Interviews

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• Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you're at the top of the chain, sometimes people won't give you honest feedback because they're afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources.

  Steve Jobs

  People, Giving, Honest Feedback

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• We need a tax system that essentially takes very good care of the people who just really aren't as well adapted to the market system but are nevertheless doing useful things in the society.

  Warren Buffett

  People, Needs, Care

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• I believe that prizes are useful things for the disciplines, whether we are talking about chemistry or we're talking... It motivates, it, you know, inspires, it encourages and it brings, in the case of literature, it brings literature, the arts out of the ghetto.

  Wole Soyinka

  Art, Believe, Ghetto

  Source: www.nobelprize.org

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• I'm fundamentally a busy person; I spend my time doing useful things and profoundly useless things!

  Romola Garai

  Useless Things, Busy, Persons

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• My mother always told me to embrace both sides of my background. And she also taught me one very useful thing when I was going to first grade. She said, "You're Bahamian and African-American on one side, and Russian-Jewish on the other. You're no more one than the other, and it's beautiful that you have all this. It makes your life all the more rich. But society will see you only as black."

  Lenny Kravitz

  Beautiful, Mother, African American

  "Lenny Kravitz: The ‘Precious’ Interview With Kam Williams". Interview with Kam Williams, www.eurweb.com. March 18, 2010.

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• Sadness is one of the best universities in life! Though bad things take good things from us, they do give us useful things as well!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Life, Sadness, Giving

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• I think we want to see new voices and new ideas emerge - that's part of the reason why term limits are a really useful thing.

  Barack Obama

  Thinking, Ideas, Voice

  "Report: Obama Holds First News Conference Since Election". "CNN Newsroom", www.cnn.com. November 14, 2016.

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• Probably the most useful thing I can do as secretary of state is to assist the president in adapting and renewing the transnational institutions that were created after World War II.

  Warren Christopher

  War, President, World

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• Like anyone else, a lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experience. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me.

  Satya Nadella

  Believe, Book, Thinking

  "Satya Nadella email to employees on first day as CEO". news.microsoft.com. February 4, 2014.

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• Be passionate and bold. Always keep learning. You stop doing useful things if you don't learn.

  Satya Nadella

  Passionate, Keep Learning, Ifs

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• I can't draw. But I can draw with sound. That's the most useful thing I learned in terms of what my craft is... The arrangements were mine. They were little lines and stuff that I had written myself... And I was locked into this idea that vocals didn't count, melodies didn't count, songwriting craftsmanship didn't count. The only thing that counted was high arching guitar solos...

  Linda Ronstadt

  Guitar, Ideas, Sound

  "Ronstadt Proves She Can Go `Home' Again / New album returns singer to her roots". Interview with Joel Selvin, www.sfgate.com. March 19, 1995.

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• Next came the Patent laws. These began in England in 1624; and, in this country, with the adoption of our constitution. Before then [these?], any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Country, Science, Men

  Second lecture on discoveries and inventions, delivered to the Phi Alpha Society of Illinois College at Jacksonville, Illinois, (February 11, 1859); "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 3" edited by Roy P. Basler, (p. 357), 1953.

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• Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer.

  Oswald Chambers

  Prayer, Drawing, Practice

  Oswald Chambers (2013). “Utmost: Classic Readings and Prayers from Oswald Chambers”, p.62, Discovery House

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• Science only means knowledge; and for [Greek] ancients it did only mean knowledge. Thus the favorite science of the Greeks was Astronomy, because it was as abstract as Algebra. ... We may say that the great Greek ideal was to have no use for useful things. The Slave was he who learned useful things; the Freeman was he who learned useless things. This still remains the ideal of many noble men of science, in the sense they do desire truth as the great Greeks desired it; and their attitude is an external protest against vulgarity of utilitarianism.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Attitude, Learning, Mean

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