Quotes About Comparison

Those who think he had lucky breaks are not only unaware of the real story but also fall prey to that sin of the mediocre: bitchiness about others' success

I look at other people and think, He lives without meds. She does. What is wrong with me? Am I so biochemically screwed up, so neurotic, so narcissistically self-absorbed that every hour is an obstacle course for me?

Perhaps we know only by comparing, by drawing distinctions from and similarities to what we already know. But when we use our terms of comparison to shut off any understanding of our connections with one another as human beings, we risk becoming something less than human ourselves. (7)

Suffering doesn't concern itself with the scale of other sufferings.

My calculations about how to stay alive and sane on this particular planet have clearly been at fault. Lots of people are plenty uglier and poorer than me without seeming to mind, without the self-hate and self-pity – the sentimentality, in a word – that makes me such a quivering condom of neurosis and ineptitude.

I will now take the chance to repeat my contention that the drama is handily inferior to the novel and the poem. Dramatists who have lasted more than a century include Shakespeare and – who else? One is soon reaching for a sepulchral Norwegian. Compare that to English poetry and its great waves of immortality. I agree that it is very funny that Shakespeare was a playwright. I scream with laughter about it all the time. This is one of God's best jokes.

The criminal resembles the artist in his pretension, his incompetence, and his self-pity.

A Brazilian, talking to one of the R.A.F. men, said that he could not understand two major nations fighting over the tiny Falklands; it was, said the Brazilian, 'like two bald men fighting over a comb'.

It hardly sounds like France," he said. "Paris never was France," she said.

What do you not have, Lord Hardford?" she asked. "For no one has everything, you know, or even nearly everything.

Dear me! Mr. Holmes, why, you are even a quicker smoker than I am myself." Holmes smiled. "I am a connoisseur," said he, taking another cigarette from the box — his fourth

Bir kad?n?n hayalini elinden almak, bir kaplan?n yavrusunu elinden almaya benzer.

Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire.

La mediocridad no reconoce nada por encima de sí misma, pero el talento reconoce al genio al instante

Svaka budala na?e još ve?u budalu od sebe koja joj se divi!

There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much knowledge of the world.

Se considera que el mandril de África central es el más vistoso de todos los primates -dijo-. Pero yo creo que la aprendiz de geisha es tal vez el más vistoso de todos los primates.

My goodness, Sayuri, you do look like a peasant!" he said.

ich so sehr eine Konkurrenz für Dich, wie eine Pfütze als Meer gilt

The French attitude to the Finnish War reminded one of the voyeur who gets his thrills out of other people's virile exploits, which he is unable to imitate

You, Comrade Rubashov, have just used the same arguments as this women's delegation from Manchester. You, of course, know better than these women. So one may wonder at your using the same arguments. But then, you have something in common with them: you were given a watch as a child….

A man is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime.

To feel envy is human, to savour schadenfreude is devilish.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power.