Quotes on Firsts

Our first computers were born not out of greed or ego, but in the revolutionary spirit of helping common people rise above the most powerful institutions.

For those colours which you wish to be beautiful, always first prepare a pure white ground.

For life affords no higher pleasure, than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. He that labours in any great or laudable undertaking, has his fatigues first supported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy... To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

Everyman is thoroughly happy twice in his life, just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.

She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.

They spent the first three years of school getting you to pretend stuff and then the rest of it marking you down if you did the same thing.

I wasn't exposed to art as I was growing up, and can't recall the first time I saw a work of art. However, I remember very clearly a vision I had of a little green reindeer when I was a child, and visions emanate from the same mythical area where painting resides. Whatever the reason, I immediately felt comfortable working with visual materials.

The gods confound the man who first found out How to distinguish hours! Confound him, too, Who in this place set up a sun-dial, To cut and hack my days so wretchedly Into small portions.

I learned respect for womanhood from my father's tender caring for my mother, my sister, and his sisters. Father was the first to arise from dinner to clear the table. My sister and I would wash and dry the dishes each night at Father's request. If we were not there, Father and Mother would clean the kitchen together.

That afternoon the sky was scattered with black clouds galloping in from the sea and clustering over the city. Flashes of lightening echoed on the horizon and a charged warm wind smelling of dust announced a powerful summer storm. When I reached the station I noticed the first few drops, shiny and heavy, like coins falling from heaven...Night seemed to fall suddenly, interrupted only by the lightning now bursting over the city, leaving a trail of noise and fury.

Morning drew on apace. The air became more sharp and piercing, as its first dull hue: the death of night, rather than the birth of day: glimmered faintly in the sky. The objects which had looked dim and terrible in the darkness, grew more and more defined, and gradually resolved into their familiar shapes. The rain came down, thick and fast; and pattered, noisily, among the leafless bushes.

Two simple principles lie at the bottom of the whole matter, and they may be precipitated into two rules. The first is that, when there is a choice, the milder drink is always the better-not merely the safer but the better. The second is that no really enlightened drinker ever takes a drink at a time when he has any work to do. There is, of course, more to it than this; but these are sufficient for the beginner, and even the virtuoso never outgrows them.

For those who are poor in happiness, each time is a first time; happiness never becomes a habit.

There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game and that is first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay and I never want to finish second again.

But I want her to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with her. I'd always thought the father/daughter thing was overstated. But I can tell you, sometimes, she looks at me and I just become a puddle.

My first wish is, to see this plague of mankind banished from the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements, than in preparing implements, and exercising them, for the destruction of mankind.

The babe at first feeds upon the mother's bosom, but it is always on her heart.

I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.

The truly wise are content to be last. They are, therefore, first. They are indifferent to themselves. They are, therefore self-confident.

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.