Quotes About Priorities

remembered how my father used to come home each night and talk about his job to my mother. The job talk began when he entered the door, continued over the dinner table, and ended in the bedroom where my father would scream "Lights Out!" at 8 p.m., so he could get his rest and his full strength for the job the next day. There was no other subject except the job.

What this suggests is that, contrary to economists, the discount rate accounts for only part of our relationship to the future. People are concerned about future generations. Even if the logic is hard to parse, they think that humanity's fate is worth more than an apartment.

Marrying a woman for her beauty makes no more sense than eating a bird for its singing. But it's a common mistake nonetheless.

If your knuckles are bloodier than your knees,then you're fighting the wrong battle.

Compromise occurs when our behavior fails to reflect our priorities. In what ways have you compromised, and how can you get back on track?

The church can seldom resurrect what the home puts to death.

If you're a humble believer set on doing your deity's will, then what are you doing spending the take on Lamborghinis and single malt?

Organizations are not human beings and they don't obey the same priorities. They're hives. Like the bank you worked for, I suppose, but you were too specialized, working at too low a level to see the politics going on around you. Hives run on emergent consensus and policy.

Only then will her father's geas allow her to turn her ingenuity to more urgent priorities—such as saving herself from her stepmother's murderous attention, partying with cute boy, and performing in Dracula at Whitby.

you've got to learn to think like a state if you work in the Civil Service. Organizations are not human beings and they don't obey the same priorities. They're hives.

Less obviously, concern for the environment is a luxury good. Wealthy Americans are willing to spend more money to protect the environment as a fraction of their incomes than are less wealthy Americans. The same relationship holds true across countries; wealthy nations devote a greater share of their resources to protecting the environment than do poor countries.

If your $99 printer breaks and you have to pay out of pocket to fix or replace it, this will not meaningfully change your life.

Maybe it's a stretch to blame a broader social pathology on hyper-competitive soccer parents. Still, there is not a huge downside to asking every once in a while, Why am I doing this? We will know for certain that my analysis is wrong when we see the following obituary: Bob Smith died yesterday at the age of 74. He finished life in 186th place.

Why do women have this perverse talent for sneaking up on a man and whamming him over the head with some inconsequential chore when he has his mind on weightier issues? Because men have this perverse talent for weaseling out of the chores on the specious grounds that doing a little honest work around the place is less important than playing Cops & Robbers with Fred Ottermole.

For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie.

I'm not that shallow, asshole. I don't need money. It's way more important for them to be good-looking.

In fact, we'd discussed marriage on several occasions just because we seemed to get along so well, but after thinking long and hard, I realized it was not in my best interest to waste my first marriage on a gay man.

From biscuit to brides, if there is anything their children really want, parents have a problem.

Children left their old parents at home and scattered in all directions in search of money. It was hard on an old woman with eight children. It was like having a river and yet washing one's hands with spittle.

I USED TO make love. Now I Make coffee.

Fatherhood has changed me - it has to change you. It makes you much more aware of the minutiae of life, it's not about your needs any more, its about everyone else's.

I'd rather be able to face myself in the bathroom mirror than be rich and famous.

I'm not really that bothered by appearance. I know a few players who go off doing stuff in the mirror ages before they go out to play a game, but I'm not really interested in that.

At one point, I kind of looked in the mirror and said, 'You know, you're a mom. You're a wife. People count on you; you can't go off the deep end into this kind of crazy musical swirl.'