Least Quotes
More Least Quotes
Language does not leave fossils, at least not until it has become written.
Richard Brautigan— 1967 Trout Fishing In America,'Prelude to the Mayonnaise Chapter'.
If a city has a 30% Negro population, then it is logical to assume that Negroes should have at least 30% of the jobs in any particular company, and jobs in all categories rather than only in menial areas.
Martin Luther King Jr.— From a 1968 Playboy magazine interview.
Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.
bernard baruch— As quoted in Meyer Berger’s New York (1960)
The disciples seem alone; but up yonder, in some hidden cleft of the hills, their Master looks down on all the weltering storm, and lifts His voice in prayer. Then when the need is sorest, and the hope least, He comes across the waves, making their surges His pavement, and using all opposition as the means of His approach; and His presence brings calmness; and immediately they are at the land.
alexander maclaren— Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895, p. 110)
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
jesus christ— The Gospel of Matthew 13:31 (KJV).
I am rather inclined to silence, and whether that be wise or not, it is at least more unusual nowadays to find a man who can hold his tongue than to find one who cannot.
Abraham Lincoln— Remarks at the Monogahela House (February 14, 1861); quoted in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 209.
Kathakali has become a world-famous dance-drama within the least fifteen years. Nearly every foreigner who visits Kerala wants to see a Kathakali performance
— Philip Zarrilly in p.xi (The Kathakali complex)
Good theories of the mind must span at least three different scales of time: slow, for the billions of years in which our brains have survivied; fast, for the fleeting weeks and months of childhood; and in between, the centuries of growth of our ideas through history.
marvin minsky— Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind (1988) Ch.1
When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face.
Edmund Clerihew Bentley— 1939 Baseless Biography,'Bacon'.
My canvas soothes me into forgetfulness of the scene of turmoil and folly — and worse — of the scene around me. Every gleam of sunshine is blighted to me in the art at least. Can it therefore be wondered at that I paint continual storms? "Tempest o'er tempest roll'd" — still the "darkness" is majestic.
john constable— Letter to C.R. Leslie (1834), John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett, (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1962-1970), vol. 3, p. 122; also quoted in Hugh Honour, Romanticism (Westview Press, 1979, ISBN 0-064-30089-7), ch. 3, p. 91
Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similies (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).
ernest hemingway— Letter (20 March 1953); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.
muhammad iqbal— Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 (from University of Columbia website)
Charlie Chaplin and I would have a friendly contest: Who could do the feature film with the least subtitles?
buster keaton— Interview with Studs Terkel (1960)
Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep. I can express with very limited adequacy the passionate devotion to this land that possesses millions of our people, born, like myself, under other skies, for the privilege that that this county has bestowed in allowing them to partake of its fellowship.
felix frankfurter— Speech accepting an award from the National Institute for Immigrant Welfare, Biltmore Hotel, New York (May 11, 1933).
“Titus, have you ever had your heart broken?”
“Oh, son. How could you ask a man who used to play the blues a question like that?”
“How long does it take to go away?”
“A broken heart?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s no precise formula, Sammy.”
“Just give me an estimate.”
“A good rule of thumb is at least half the time that you were in love. Or twice the time. It all just depends.”
— Sex in the Title: A Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC (2013)
I'm saving myself for marriage. Or at least consent.
— Xavier from Xavier: Renegade Angel, episode "Escape From Squatopian Freedom" by John Lee and Vernon Chatman, 2007.
If you can't be famous, at least you can be notorious.
Mohamad Mahathir— c.1994 Quoted in the Eastern Express, 24 Apr1995.
Film is the least realistic of art forms.
— 1989 In The Guardian,16 Feb.
Sometimes, I genuinely enjoy having conversations with journalists; enjoying the few moments of intimacy with a stranger is fascinating to me. But once in a while that backfires and you're suddenly reading something that has a bent on it that you didn't feel was in the least bit a part of the conversation that you thought you were having. Then you get overly protective and say very little and then you come out of the hole again.
gillian anderson— The Observer staff (October 1, 2000 ) "Review: Interview: The truth is out here: X-files star Gillian Anderson has rejected the lure of Hollywood for the austere style of cult British director Terence Davies. What is she thinking of...", The Observer.
At least being prosperous set one apart in England; here it guaranteed nothing, not even taste.
gregory benford— Chapter 11 (p. 134, concerning the USA)
The purpose of this closed session in the Senate chamber is to finally give the truth to at least the members of the Senate—to finally call to task the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
richard durbin— "Senate Dems Force Rare Closed Session". FOX News. 2005-11-03. Retrieved on 2006-08-23.
There is no room in the universe for the least contempt or pride; but only for a gentle and a reverent heart.
james martineau— P. 160. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Computer programming is like the ability or skill to see what Picasso saw from all the different angles at once. If it is an art, the crucial element of art is to look at things from an angle that produces new insight or at least has that potential.
erik naggum— Re: Guide to Lisp, v1.20 (Usenet article)
Increase in the wealth per capita fosters democracy; but the latter, at least according to what we have been able to observe up to now, entails great destruction of wealth and even eventually dries up the sources of it. Hence it is its own grave-digger, it destroys what gave it birth.
vilfredo pareto— page 300 (Manual of Political Economy)
If God has made the world a perfect mechanism, He has at least conceded so much to our imperfect intellect that in order to predict little parts of it, we need not solve innumerable differential equations, but can use dice with fair success.
Max Born— "Einstein's Statistical Theories" in Albert Einstein : Philosopher-Scientist (1951) edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, p. 176
There is at least a punky spark in my heart and it may blaze in this autumn gold, fanned by the King. Some of my grandfathers must have been born on a muirland for there is heather in me, and tinctures of bog juices, that send me to Cassiope, and oozing through all my veins impel me unhaltingly through endless glacier meadows, seemingly the deeper and danker the better.
john muir— letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr (perhaps Autumn 1870); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir (1924), chapter 8: Yosemite, Emerson, and the Sequoias
