First Things Quotes

#1. Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.

Noam Chomsky

#2. I think our concept of revolution, in terms of getting the power to do things, is too focused on the state. We have a scenario of revolution that first, you know, comes from 1917, that first you take the state power, and then you change things. And we don't realize it's collapsed.

Grace Lee Boggs

#3. The first profile piece on myself came about after my Rabbi sent information to the Jewish Chronicle on what I was up to. The story was then picked up by one of the nationals and things grew from there.

Benjamin Cohen

#4. Your first mistake might be assuming that people are rational.
Your second mistake could be assuming that people are eager for change.
And the marketer's third mistake is assuming that once someone knows things the way you know them, they will choose what you chose.

Seth Godin

#5. When I first came to NBC, I thought it was going to be swimming with the sharks, all men for themselves, be careful and all that. I have to tell you I learned that you can be kind and a hard worker and move up. You don't have to play dirty or do things that you think happens at big corporations.

Hoda Kotb

#6. Here comes goodbye, here comes the last time
Here comes the start of every sleepless night
The first of every tear Im gonna cry
Here comes the pain, Here comes me wishing things had never changed
And she was right here in my arms tonight, but here comes goodbye

Rascal Flatts

#7. He that first likened glory to a shadow did better than he was aware of. They are both of them things excellently vain. Glory also, like a shadow, goes sometimes before the body, and sometimes in length infinitely exceeds it.

Michel De Montaigne

#8. My first record wasn't even with the Fugees. I was signed to Big Beat Records, so I was signed back in 1989 to the label that the Knocks are on now. You can always tell which generation had the pulse based on how they see things.

Wyclef Jean

#9. Success Comes Through Rapidly Fixing our Mistakes Rather than Getting Things Right the First Time

Tim Harford

#10. I know I haven't said a lot of things I'm quoted as saying in the papers. It makes me wonder why I brought up the recovery story in the first place.

Mary Docter

#11. Few things hurt more than doubt creeping into a life of conviction.
Go back to the last sure knowledge you have - the last revelation you know to be true and stand your ground. Stand firm and wait.
The Universe will send you aid and clarity.
Even if you can't see it at first.

Jaime Buckley

#12. Little changes at first, maybe, but as the Bruce Springsteen song tells us, from small things, baby, big things one day come. They might be good changes, ones

Stephen King

#13. These then are some of my first memories. But of course as an account of my life they are misleading, because the things one does not remember are as important; perhaps they are more important.

Virginia Woolf

#14. And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

Octavia Butler

#15. To be influential in our conversations, we must first be aware of two things, (1) what do we want to bring to the conversation and (2) what do we want to bring out in others.

Bill Crawford

#16. Modern Roman Catholicism has no quarrel with the Big Bang, with a Universe 15 billion or so years old, with the first living things arising from prebiological molecules, or with humans evolving

Carl Sagan

#17. I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.

Galileo Galilei

#18. The fundamental level of success is doing the hard things first - If you go for the feared thing first, then the rest of the day is easy.

Robert G. Allen

#19. Or did a Martian sit within each, ruling, directing, using, much as a man's brain sits and rules in his body? I began to compare the things to human machines, to ask myself for the first time in my life how an ironclad or a steam engine would seem to an intelligent lower animal.

H.G.Wells

#20. Better to put things at the worst at first and reserve the best for a surprise.

Jules Verne

#21. I was the first - I was extremely unpopular with the establishment of the United States, particularly the New York Times was always an enemy, and Time magazine, off and on, the enemy, because I said things and took positions that other people didn't do.

Gore Vidal

#22. When you work as hard as you can and as much as you can to make your first album, and you don't make any money, then you change things.

Adam Ant

#23. We climbed, he first and I behind, until though a small round opening ahead of us, I saw the lovely things the heavens hold, and we came out to see once more the stars.

Dante Alighieri

#24. The things we do today - sowing seeds, or sharing simple truths of Christ - people will someday refer to as the first things that prompted them to think of Him.

George Matheson

#25. One of the things that first attracted me to chess is that it brings you into contact with intelligent, civilized people - men of the stature of Garry Kasparov, the former world champion, who was my part-time coach.

Magnus Carlsen

#26. Of all the things I've done, the first 'Strongman' story was one of the easiest things to write. It was almost fully formed from the get-go. It's almost a 'Dark Knight Returns' riff, except you have a battle-worn Mexican wrestler instead of Batman.

Charles Soule

#27. When I was a child, I wanted to watch things that made me laugh. It's attacking boredom, as simple as that. I was 19 when I first went to a comedy club - I wanted to do it, so I gave it a try and that was it. I found my office.

Dylan Moran

#28. When I teach and meet a class for the first time, you realize that there are people there that have exceptional abilities or have the potential to do exceptional things and you never know who those people are. My job is to provide the best information I can.

John Sexton

#29. My approach is I put God first; I say "God willing" all the time. The only way things will change is with God. So knowing that I can't really change anything, I'm just going to satire it.

Lupe Fiasco

#30. Pleasing things: finding a large number of tales that one has not read before. Or acquiring the second volume of a tale whose first volume one has enjoyed. But often it is a disappointment.

Sei Shonagon

#31. My body is far from a wonderland. My body is more like a pawnshop. There's a lot of interesting things put together, and if you look closely you'd probably be excited, but at first glance, not so much.

Jennifer Love Hewitt

#32. The only way to write a great book is to write it with the eyes of a child who sees things for the first time.

Arnold Bennett

#33. Half of bravery is perspective. The first time I did this, it was one of the hardest things I had ever done. Now, preparing to jump off a moving train is nothing, because I have done more difficult things in the past few weeks that most people will in a lifetime.

Veronica Roth

#34. The person your child becomes is a product of two things. The first is his life experience. The second is how he interacts with that experience.

Tedd Tripp

#35. First and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I'm other things ... But I didn't play drums to make money.

Ringo Starr

#36. Happiness is a thing honored and perfect. This seems to be borne out by the fact that it is a first principle or starting-point, since all other things that all men do are done for its sake; and that which is the first principle and cause of things good we agree to be something honorable and divine.

Aristotle.

#37. One day you may make wake up and think your all alone.
One day you may feel this house is not my home.
One day you may find that things around you have change.
But one thing for sure God still knows your first and last name.

E.R. Turner

#38. All successful men have agreed in one thing
they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#39. There is a special mystique to Texas. Texans represent many things to the uninitiated: We are bigger than life in our boots and Stetsons, rugged individualists whose two-steppin' has achieved world-wide acclaim, and we were the first to define hospitality.

Ann Richards

#40. If you're going to look back on
something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh
about it now.
Things are almost never as bad as they first seem.
Loosen up, girlfriend!

James Patterson

#41. many things tempt our hearts to put them first and God second. We must root out the desire to worship these things and focus on the true God. The

Richard J. Foster

#42. The problem is so severe that trying to say, "First we'll fix the government and then we'll tackle climate change," or, "First we have to figure out alternative systems to capitalism and then we'll tackle climate change," I don't see how those things are possible in the very short term.

Margaret D. Klein

#43. All things are created twice; first mentally; then physically. The key to creativity is to begin with the end in mind, with a vision and a blue print of the desired result.

Stephen Covey

#44. Little by little, I've reached the stage of using only a small number of forms and colors. It's not the first time that painting has been done with a very narrow range of colors. The frescoes of the tenth century are painted like this. For me, they are magnificent things.

Joan Miro

#45. One of the first things successful people realize is the old adage, "If it is to be, it is up to me." That is, for you, the fact that your success and your course is up to you. This doesn't mean that you do it all alone. It simply means that you take responsibility for your life and your career.

Jim Rohn

#46. This man represents so many things to me. He was my first true friend. My first love. First lover. The master of more pleasure than I knew existed, and the architect of more heartache than I thought I could endure. It

Leisa Rayven

#47. was, and who is still to come; from the sevenfold Spirit* before his throne; 5 and from Jesus Christ. He is the faithful witness to these things, the first

Anonymous

#48. It was during a strike when I first saw hate on a man's face. Hate is an awful thing. It gets inside you and makes you do things you swear you'd never do.

Homer Hickam

#49. Obciously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school today the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself.

G.K. Chesterton

#50. When you're little, you're open to things. It's not like you get into this rehearsed zone when you're a child. At first you play different sides of yourself. And I think it will be really exciting one day to have a character to go into that's not anything like me whatsoever.

Kirsten Dunst

#51. You're never healing the level you're on. You're always healing the level you came from. For example, you know things today that you didn't know in your first marriage.

Iyanla Vanzant

#52. When I first started coaching, one of the worst things that I think I heard was 'It will be O.K.' I would wonder, 'How the hell is it going to be O.K.?' The worst word in the English language is 'hope.'

Bobby Knight

#53. Words were not just words, describing things a person could see. Even if most did not. Maybe they had to know a thing first, to see it.

Barbara Kingsolver

#54. Knowing the strike zone is very important, but I think the first thing is knowing yourself, knowing what things you do well.

Tony Gwynn

#55. What makes humans valuable in the first place? Science can't answer that question because science deals only with things we can measure empirically though the senses. If you want an answer, you'll have to do metaphysics.

Scott Klusendorf

#56. - You are better, do not worry - she said. - In fact, when we light up our inner light, the first things we see are the cobwebs and dust, our weak points. They were there all the time, only you saw nothing in the darkness. Now it will be easier to cleanse your soul.

Paulo Coelho

#57. These things were in my mind from the first moment I entered the vocal booth. The gratitude I had for rock and roll as it pulled me through a difficult adolescence. The joy I experienced when I danced. The moral power I gleaned in taking responsibility for one's action.
Patti Smith

Patti Smith

#58. Oddly enough, we can destroy the very things that allowed us to pursue our agendas in the first place.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#59. Growing up in the 80's, I think a lot of us saw things that were "new," an experience we don't get too much of these days. We saw things that were never done before. When Star Wars first came out, no movie before that had ever looked that way.

Gabriel Campisi

#60. When we finally become present in our lives its as if we are seeing things for the first time.

Renae A. Sauter

#61. I thought it was normal to recycle pants and shoes from your older cousins. That was just my way of life. At the end of the month, there was not much food in the refrigerator and you're hoping the first comes so food can come again. You never forget those things.

Tyson Chandler

#62. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things

Albert Einstein

#63. Certain things have to happen before other things. Gods play games with the fates of men. But first they have to get all the pieces on the board, and look all over the place for the dice.

Terry Pratchett

#64. For a photographer, the first 70 years are a bit difficult, but after that things get better.

Robert Doisneau

#65. I miss him for all the things he forgot to see in himself & if im lucky fate will help us rekindle a flame that never got set alight in the first place.

Nikki Rowe

#66. The two hardest things to say in life are hello for the first time and goodbye for the last.

Moira Rogers

#67. Look for 3 things in a person. Intelligence, Energy, & Integrity.
If they don't have the last one, don't even bother with the first two.

Warren Buffett

#68. There are a few things that I will hopefully be credited for as a pioneer. One is my four-mallet playing. Another one is the starting what was first called jazz rock in 1967 when I started my first band, later became jazz fusion by the 1970s.

Gary Burton

#69. One of the first things I do with people is help them figure out what their limiting beliefs are and then encourage them to question, "Well, do I really want to keep that one? Is it limiting me? Does it not fit me? Is it holding me back?"

Deborah King

#70. Start from the body, and then go, slowly slowly, deeper. And don't start with anything else unless you have first solved the primary. If your body is tense, don't start with the mind. Wait. Work on the body. And just small things are of immense help.

Rajneesh

#71. One of the first things I bought when I made 'Roseanne Show' money was a farm in Iowa.

Roseanne Barr

#72. Life is precious and all too short. So I laugh, sing and dive into things heads first with the hope that I don't scrape my ass on the bottom. And when I do I break out the bandaids

K.L. Parry

#73. He stopped for a moment, and he thought about people, and about things, and about how hard it is to do anything for the first time.

Neil Gaiman

#74. Put first things first and we get second things thrown in:
Put second things first and we lose both first things and second things.

Jim George

#75. There are few things more disconcerting than realizing the first date you thought went so well was in fact a dud.

Mallory Ortberg

#76. Libraries are the mainstays of democracy. The first thing dictators do when taking over a country is close all the libraries, because libraries are full of ideas and differences of opinion, all the things we say we want in a free and open society. So keep 'em, fund 'em, embrace and cherish 'em.

David Baldacci

#77. It seems like the first law of Nature is that everybody likes to receive things, but nobody likes to feel grateful.

Zora Neale Hurston

#78. I've not got a first in philosophy without being able to muddy things pretty satisfactory.

John Banham

#79. Without first setting your goals correctly, it is impossible to focus on a plan to achieve them. That is why goal setting is so vital to time management and developing focus.

Mani S. Sivasubramanian

#80. I became more courageous by doing the very things I needed to be courageous for-first, a little, and badly. Then, bit by bit, more and better. Being avidly-sometimes annoy-ingly-curious and persistent about discovering how others were doing what I wanted to do.

Audre Lorde

#81. I met Arcade Fire on their first record, 'Funeral.' I loved that record, and it was a record I was listening to while I wrote 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Those songs - especially 'Wake Up' and 'Neighbourhood' - there's a lot of that record that's about childhood.

Spike Jonze

#82. It is worse than useless to do things halfway Bee, for then you think the work is done, but someone must come behind you later to do it all over again. Even if you must work much harder and get less done, it is better to do the whole task the first time.

Robin Hobb

#83. First of all," he said, "if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view
until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.

Harper Lee

#84. Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'

Kate Atkinson

#85. It seems that in order to inscribe themselves upon the heart of humanity with everlasting claims, all great things have first to wander about the earth as enormous and awe-inspiring caricatures:

Friedrich Nietzsche

#86. A player who conjugates a verb in the first person singular cannot be part of the squad, he has to conjugate the verb in the first person plural. We. We want to conquer. We are going to conquer. Using the word I when you're in a group makes things complicated.

Vanderlei Luxemburgo

#87. There are certain things I learned when I first started learning about acting, to try and place the character physically and emotionally. And the way you place them emotionally is often with humor.

David Duchovny

#88. I think what's so great about making your first feature film is that you're so naive in some ways; you don't know what to expect, and you don't question things as much because you're just trying to figure it out as you go.

Gia Coppola

#89. If at great things thou would'st arrive, Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap, Not difficult, if thou hearken to me; Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand, They whom I favor thrive in wealth amain, While virtue, valor, wisdom, sit in want.

John Milton

#90. The first rule of success, and the one that supersedes all others, is to have energy. It is important to know how to concentrate it, how to husband it, how to focus it on important things instead of frittering it away on trivia.

Michael Korda

#91. I have only danced my life. As a child I danced the spontaneous joy of growing things. As an adolescent, I danced with joy turning to apprehension of the first realisation of tragic undercurrents; apprehension of the pitiless brutality and crushing progress of life.

Isadora Duncan

#92. I am astounded
at how long it takes
to discover ...
for the first time,
the things I have learned ...
over and over again
all my life.

Portia Nelson

#93. I look for two things when I am about to launch into a book. First, there has to be a dramatic arc to the story itself that will carry me, and the reader, from beginning to end. Second, the story has to weave through larger themes that can illuminate the world of the subject.

David Maraniss

#94. Many of the things the slow food people honor were innovations within historical times. Somebody had to be the first European to eat a tomato.

Nathan Myhrvold

#95. All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things.

Alfred The Great

#96. You'll never be ready. Some things you just have to deal with head on and see what happens. You can't save anything if you don't save yourself first.

Amy Matayo

#97. The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true.

Marcus Aurelius

#98. There are two things that have been happening over the last few decades in my opinion. First, there have been unbelievable, remarkable, pioneering advances in technology and, second, an equal amount of evolution in creativity. These two shifts are meeting at an intersection.

Kevin Spacey

#99. My brother's costume is the exception. He looks like an American. In fact, he behaves like one. When he tried to pick up the first kid he knocked down, he smashed into several others, it snowballed, chaos ensued. My brother very much resembled America today in pretty much all things.

Peter Hedges

#100. It was one of the first things I did on my own; I worked at McDonald's, raised the money and did it. I'm really, really passionate about pro-choice, because I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if I'd had a kid at 15.

Kathleen Hanna