What Matters Quotes - Page 18

A consoling thought: what matters is not what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. Others suffer too; so much so that there is nothing in the world but suffering; the problem is simply to keep a clear conscience.

Cesare Pavese

Suffering, World, Spirit

Cesare Pavese, Alma Elizabeth Murch (1961). “This Business of Living”, p.78, Transaction Publishers

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What matters most has an ultimate metallic quality of death. The chasuble and the wagon wheel, the razor and the prickly beards of shepherds, the bare moon, a fly, humid cupboards, rubble piles, the images of saints covered in lace, quicklime, and the wounding edges of the rooflines and watchtowers.

Federico Garcia Lorca

Moon, Quality, Razors

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Those of us who have the privilege to serve this country have an obligation to do our job as best we can. We come from different parties, but we are Americans first. And that's why disagreement cannot mean dysfunction. It can't degenerate into hatred. The American people's hopes and dreams are what matters, not ours. Our obligations are to them. Our regard for them compels us all, Democrats and Republicans, to cooperate, and compromise, and act in the best interests of our nation - one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Barack Obama

Dream, Country, Jobs

"Obama may have won now, but next three years could be tough" by Leigh Ann Caldwell, www.cnn.com. October 18, 2013.

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We see many instances of cities going down like sinking ships to their destruction. There have been such wrecks in the past and there surely will be others in the future, caused by the wickedness of captains and crews alike. For these are guilty men, whose sin is supreme ignorance of what matters most.

Plato

Ignorance, Past, Men

Plato (1952). “Plato's Statesman”

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David Blunkett and I both take the same view that it is scandalous that someone from North Tyneside, Laura Spence, with the best qualifications and who wants to be a doctor, should be turned down by Oxford University using an interview system more reminiscent of the old school network and the old school tie than justice. It is about time for an end to that old Britain where what matters more are the privileges you are born with, rather than the potential you actually have.

Gordon Brown

School, Doctors, Views

"Brown goes to war over Oxford elite" by Alexandra Frean, John O'Leary and Philip Webster, The Times, May 26, 2000.

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I have just accepted the invitation of Her Majesty The Queen to form a Government. This will be a new Government with new priorities and I have been privileged to have been granted the great opportunity to serve my country and at all times I will be strong in purpose, steadfast in will, resolute in action in the service of what matters to the British people, meeting the concerns and aspirations of our whole country.

Gordon Brown

Country, Strong, Queens

"Gordon Brown's First Speech as Prime Minister". www.telegraph.co.uk. June 27, 2007.

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Once an author finishes a poem, he becomes merely another reader. I may remember what I intended to put into a text, but what matters is what a reader actually finds there which is usually something both more and less than the poet planned.

Dana Gioia

May, Remember, Poet

"Paradigms Lost", interview with Gloria Brame, ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum, Spring 1995.

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I was taught very early on how you treat people is actually what matters.

Gerald Chertavian

People, Taught, Treats

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What matters is to aid others, to have a group dream.

Frederick Lenz

Dream, Groups, Aids

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

Frederick Lenz

Buddhism, Rama, Succeed

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What matters is that they are curious about life, energy, truth, and themselves and that they haven't sold out to the establishment powers that tell us what to think, what to wear, how to behave, what to believe in and what goes beyond the line of rational and irrational thought.

Frederick Lenz

Believe, Buddhism, Thinking

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What matters is that you meditate, you're seeking enlightenment, you're on the pathway to enlightenment, and you're having fun. Don't look for reassurance in the eyes of others. Look for reassurance in your own eyes. Only you know if Buddhist practice is improving the quality of your life.

Frederick Lenz

Buddhist, Fun, Eye

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Popularity isn't the end-all, be-all. What matters far more is that you stick to your principles, that you stand up and you live a life of integrity.

Ted Cruz

Integrity, Principles, Sticks

Source: www.npr.org

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You are quite, quite wrong if you think that ... I find your happiness painful. What matters is that happiness - the golden day - should exist in the world, not much to whom it comes. For all of us it is so transitory a thing, how could one not draw joy from its arrival?

Winifred Holtby

Happiness, Thinking, Golden Days

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in a sense much great literature is subversive, since its very existence implies that what matters is art, imagination, and truth. In what we call the real world, on the other hand, what usually counts is money, power, and public success.

Alison Lurie

Art, Real, Hands

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I always feel like I'm rehearsing. I'm a workaholic. But youve got to let go and trust and enjoy! I'm a real perfectionist. Its probably my biggest disadvantage. But as long as I can go out there, trust in the work and just have fun, thats what matters.

Nicole Scherzinger

Letting Go, Fun, Real

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whereas in childhood ... it was the parents' judgement that mattered to the child, later on the situation becomes reversed: it is then that the opinions of one's grown-up children become what matters, as well as their kindness.

Iris Origo

Children, Kindness, Childhood

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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

Cancer, Thinking, Cycling

"Lance Armstrong says turn back time and he would 'probably' dope again". Interview with Brendan Trembath, www.abc.net.au. January 27, 2015.

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Percentage margins don't matter. What matters always is dollar margins: the actual dollar amount. Companies are valued not on their percentage margins, but on how many dollars they actually make, and a multiple of that.

Jeff Bezos

Dollars, Percentages, Multiple

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Any single path truly taken leads to all the others. What matters is choosing a starting place - where to stand and begin spinning outward. Even then, you will find that outward and inward become the same direction. The center of the wheel is everywhere.

Robin Morgan

Taken, Inward, Spinning

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It doesn't matter what you've done in the past - what matters are the choices you make right now. God gives you the chance to start over with every breath.

Ashley Judd

Past, Giving, Starting Over

"Ashley's Secret Life". Interview with Laurie Sandell, www.glamour.com. July 9, 2006.

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Sometimes, in order to say yes to what matters most, I must say no to good things.

Sue Monk Kidd

Order, Sometimes, Good Things

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As we write, so we build: to keep a record of what matters to us.

Alain de Botton

Writing, Records, Matter

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one feels guilty on behalf of Western civilisation. What damage are we doing, blindly and swiftly, to those races who are being taught that because we are materially richer we must be emulated without question? What compels us to infect everyone else with our own sick urgency to change, soften and standardise? How can we have the effrontery to lord it over peoples who retain what we have lost - a sane awareness that what matters most is immeasurable?

Dervla Murphy

Race, Sick, Damage

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when you are dealing with art, any kind of art, your pleasure in making it is what matters most.

Marion Dane Bauer

Art, Kind, Pleasure

Marion Dane Bauer (1992). “What's Your Story?: A Young Person's Guide to Writing Fiction”, p.17, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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