Quotes About Comparison

The fact that my neighbor has succeeded in this struggle better than I constitutes no grievance for me. Certain

Sometimes thou hearest one pray with a moving expression, while thou canst hardly get out a few broken words in duty, and thou art ready to accuse thyself and to admire him, as if the gilt of the key made it open the door the better.

There is no more difference betwixt a hypocrite and an apostate, than betwixt a green apple and a ripe one; come a while hence, and you will see him fall rottenripe from his profession.

Nipples may be said to resemble the ripest of raspberries or perhaps even a thimble, but "why take the trouble when the trouble taken is so evident," though Gass himself is willing to do it and make it look effortless. Maybe they really look like "the lightly chewed ends of large pencil erasers," and for someone who spends his days at his desk that image can prove surprisingly effective.

Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded.

The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.

The difference between the vanity of a Frenchman and an Englishman is this: The one thinks everything right that is French, while the other thinks everything wrong that is not English.

We occasionally see something on the stage that reminds us a little of Shakespear. [Oct. 16, 1814, The Champion ]

Bonds are even worse, since their returns do not mean revert—a series of bad years is likely to be followed by even more bad ones, as happened during the 1970s. This is the point made by Jeremy Siegel in his superb treatise, Stocks For The Long Run. Professor Siegel pointed out that stocks outperformed bonds in only 61% of the years after 1802, but that they bested bonds in 80% of ten-year periods and in 99% of 30-year periods. Looked

Looked at from another perspective, in the 30 years from 1952 to 1981, stocks returned 9.9% and bonds returned only 2.3%, while inflation annualized out at 4.3%. Thus, during this period, the bond investor lost 2% of real value on an annualized basis, while the stock investor made a 5.6% real annualized return. The last fifteen years of that period were years of high inflation, so this is just another way of saying that stocks withstand inflation better than bonds. Short-term

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

There are two kinds of people in the world, Norman. People who have things and people who want the things other people have.

What does she see in him?' Cork asked. 'He looks like a burned matchstick.

The United States has a homicide rate three times that of Canada; two-thirds of those homicides are committed with firearms. A child in the United States is twelve times more likely to die of a firearm injury than a child in Canada. I could go on. The evidence in support of Canada's attitude and legislative action is so convincing only an idiot wouldn't get it.

Akama made a small bow. "I can see why he fears you. You are very much alike.

Christians find in God a source of moral strength that helps us to lead better lives than those we would have led without Him, still it would be arrogant and ignorant to claim that unbelievers don't often lead good moral lives—in fact, sometimes lives that put ours to shame.

There I sat, in the wreckage of my apartment, in the wreckage of my life – no love, no prospects, a gnawing sense of existential futility along with the certainty that a better life was being lived by everyone else

there is nothing so brittle as someone else's perfection.

You can learn more about human nature by reading the Bible than by living in New York.

The disgrace of the church in the twentieth century is that more zeal is evident among Communists and cultists than among Christians.

Leroy unscrewed the hose from its faucet and prepared to put it away in the basement, thinking: Nobody can put nothing over on Rhoda, I'll say that much for her. And nobody can put nothing over on me, neither. I guess Rhoda and me are just alike. But in this he was mistaken, as we shall see in time, for Rhoda was able to put into action the things that he could only turn over in his mind as fantasies.

The speckled moth changes its wing coloring; bacteria develop drug resistance. Why should this count in favor of the thesis that whales are derived from ungulates, or men from fish?

In describing the causes of poverty, Muhammad Yunus has often compared a poor person to a bonsai tree. The seed of a bonsai has the potential to grow into a full-size tree, but, planted in a tiny pot, its growth is stunted. To Yunus, a person deprived of education or opportunity is like a bonsai. The constraint isn't the seed, it's the pot.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there with Bryan Ferry.