Quotes on Certain

He seemed so certain about everything, didn't he? And yet none of his certainties was worth one hair of a woman's head. He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man.

Memory exercised in a particular way is a natural gift of poetic genius. The poet above all else, is a person who never forgets certain sense impressions which he has experienced and which he can relive again as though with all their original freshness.

When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?

To terrorize a man into believing in God is never the work of God, but the work of human expediency. If we want to convince a congregation of a certain thing, we may use terror to frighten them into it; but never say that is God's way, it is our way. To call that God's method is a travesty to the character of God.

I've never felt a desire (and I don't believe I ever shall) to bring the public to my work... a certain popularity seems to me the least desirable of things.

Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.

As a parent you try to maintain a certain amount of control and so you have this tug-of-war ... You have to learn when to let go. And that's not easy.

There is a certain unique and strange delight about walking down an empty street alone.

The work of a writer, his continuing work, depends for breath of life on a certain privacy of heart.

Prose should have a flow, the forward momentum of a certain energized weight; it should feel like a voice tumbling in your ear.

All human beings are like travelers floating down the eternal river of time, embarking at a certain point and disembarking again at another point in order to make room for others waiting below the river to come aboard.

The one certain thing was that death never came at an expected moment.

I don't believe in curfews, because you can't treat men like they were boys without forfeiting a certain level of trust.

Strictly speaking, no activity and no industry is possible without a certain amount of violence, no matter how little. Even the very process of living is impossible without a certain amount of violence. What we have to do is to minimize it to the greatest extent possible.

Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.

You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to. It's like trying to write a song, making tiny tweaks, reading it out loud, shifting things to make it sound a certain way... Sometimes it feels like digging out of a hole, but sometimes it feels like flying. When it's working and the rhythm's there, it does feel like magic to me.

If you fight with all your might, there is a chance of life; where as death is certain if you cling to your corner

The nature of the mind is such that if certain mental qualities are developed on a sound basis, they not only remain, but they also increase. In fact, once properly developed, the mind's good qualities eventually increase indefinitely. Therefore spiritual practice brings us long-term happiness and inner strength.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else.

Some people take certain things and they try to forget what that pain felt like. I don't. I take that same pain and I chase it every time I walk in a weight room.