171 Priorities Quotes

That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.

There is no doubt that our nation's security and defeating terrorism trump all other priorities.

Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire.

Why were the Europeans bothered about the Soviet Union at all? It was nothing to do with us. China had nothing to do with us. Why were we not building, without reference to the Soviet Union, a good society in our own countries? But no, we were all - in one way or another - obsessed with the bloody Soviet Union, which was a disaster. What people were supporting was failure. And continually justifying it.

It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.

College football is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture.

While liberals appeared to be safely in power, feminists could perhaps afford the luxury of defining Larry Flynt or Roman Polanski as Enemy Number One. Now that we have to cope with Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms, a rethinking of priorities seems in order.

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?

All this fuss about sleeping together. For physical pleasure I'd sooner go to my dentist any day.

I can't talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes.

I go to bed early; my favorite dream comes on at nine.

The thing that's important for me is to remember what's the most important thing.

There's no bigger task than protecting the homeland of our country.

The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case.

We've more important studies than your fantasies and fears You know that rock's been perched up there for a hundred thousand years.

Sports is the toy department of human life.

I need physics more than friends.

Work first and then rest. Work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden ploughshares, nor bind ledgers in enamel.

Universal peace sounds ridiculous to the head of an average family.

There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.

But I know what's important to me, and what isn't. And I think I know what people can get used to, and what they can even learn to like. (It just takes some people longer than others. :-)

Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.

Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand. I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys, in that they make such a big deal about concentrating on security to the point where they pretty much admit that nothing else matters to them.

I was a woman before I was an abolitionist. I must speak for the women.

Why should I go into details, we have nothing that is not perishable except what our hearts and our intellects endows us with.

I'm tired of chasing people.

Indignation at literary wrongs I leave to men born under happier stars. I cannot afford it.

I went camping and borrowed a circus tent by mistake. I didn't notice until I got it set up. People complained because they couldn't see the lake.

Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Love not Pleasure; love God.

Thus must we toil in other men's extremes, That know not how to remedy our own.

A man should never neglect his family for business.

Those who never have time do least.

Beware of the man whose god is in the skies.

I want you to know that farmers are not going to be secondary thoughts to a Bush administration. They will be in the forethought of our thinking.

I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake.

A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have time to preach his own heresy.

I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all.

I'll be a wife and mother first, then first lady.

The first time you marry for love, the second for money, and the third for companionship.

Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence- neither speed up nor slow down, add to nor diminish- it is an imponderably valuable gift.

Give me to live with Love alone And let the world go dine and dress; For Love hath lowly haunts... If life's a flower, I choose my own- 'T is 'love in Idleness'.

'I don't know why the players make such a big fuss about sitting in the first class section of the plane. Does that mean they'll get there faster?'

I care so much about everything that I care about nothing.

Being gay is a spectacular irrelevance to getting on with your life.

I believe global warming is grossly exaggerated as a problem. It's a real problem, but it's nothing like as serious as people are led to believe. The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm. It distracts people's attention from much more serious problems.

It's no go the Yogi-Man, it's no go Blavatsky, All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.

The West as a whole in the early 1990s became obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forgot that the only real peace dividend is peace.

My friend James Morris heads the World Food Programme, whose task it is to feed the hungry. He recently told me, 'If I could have just 1 per cent of the money spent on global armaments, no one in this world would go to bed hungry.'

If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.

You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember the time you spent hanging out with your friends. So stay up late, go out on Tuesday when you have a paper due Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does.

We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role.

And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket?

I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests

But charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

I am a patient man - always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance. Still I must save this government if possible.

'My ego only needs a good rhythm section.' On being asked what he looked for in musicians.

The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us... than the need for any external expansion of our power.

In a war on terrorism, I could care less about regulating who sleeps with who.

Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is an episode in a man's.

It is a remarkable thing with reference to men who are distressed for money...they never seem at a loss for small sums, or deny themselves those luxuries which small sums purchase. Cabs, dinners, wine, theatres, and new gloves are always at the command of men who are drowned in pecuniary embarrassments, whereas those who don't owe a shilling are so frequently obliged to go without them!

Britney: Let's not go! Let's just stay here and f--k all day!

Action: 'Do not let your grand ambitions stand in the way of small but meaningful accomplishments.'

We have a war going on - I have family in that war - yet we're talking about steroids. ... If everybody in the world got on steroids, we'll still lose more kids to a war than we will from steroids.

At least they're trying to get rid of AIDS. Some diseases they just gave up on. Some diseases, if you get them, you're on your own. They ain't going to have no telethon for you. R Kelly ain't singing no song. You just got this shit.

Ad Graecas literas totum animum applicui; statimque, ut pecuniam accpero, Graecus primum autores, deinde vestes emam.

When you look at your life the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.

A radish will never stand in the way of victory.

People say, 'I want to get laid a lot and make lots of money.' That's not the right order.

I hadn't heard that.... I, frankly, have been focused elsewhere, like on gasoline prices.

I don't know where he [Osama Bin Laden] is. I have no idea and I really don't care.

He is a Presbyterian first and an artist second, which is just as comfortable as trying to be a Presbyterian first and a chorus girl second.

Being a well-dressed man is a career, and he who goes in for it has no time for anything else.

To do a job effectively, one must set priorities. Too many people let their 'in' basket set the priorities. On any given day, unimportant but interesting trivia pass through an office; one must not permit these to monopolize his time. The human tendency is to while away time with unimportant matters that do not require mental effort or energy. Since they can be easily resolved, they give a false sense of accomplishment. The manager must exert self-discipline to ensure that his energy is focused where it is truly needed.

He tried to harden his heart; but it was not a success. There were many things that he had not the face to say no to, whether he thought them duties or not; and there were some things he was compelled to do, whatever he thought. Some of his visitors hinted that his garden was rather neglected, and that he might get a visit from an Inspector. Very few of them knew about his picture, of course; but if they had known, it would not have made much difference. I doubt if they would have thought that it mattered much. I dare say it was not really a very good picture, though it may have had some good passages. The Tree, at any rate, was curious. Quite unique in its way. So was Niggle; though he was also a very ordinary and rather silly little man.

I'm going to be with Gloria now.

One good man, Oh ain't much, honey ain't much, It's only everything...

Hold on, dude. It's Britney Spears. (puts on phone headset and pretends to talk to Spears) Britney--Britney? Don't have time for you right now, I'm busy. Stop calling me. Jeez.

Who is worse shod than the shoemaker's wife?

I don't think it's worth washing hogs over.

[W]e have things fundamentally backwards today: we let the needs of the economy dictate the nature of our society, while we should let the needs of our society determine the nature of our economy.

I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system. And I'm not just saying that. I'm really not a very nice person. I can say 'I don't care' with a straight face, and really mean it.

I always gave first place to building of character.

In restaurants we argue over which of us will pay for your funeral though the real question is whether or not I will make you immortal.

(The Community Charge is) the flagship of the Thatcher fleet.

I should have my 'girl citizenship' revoked. I never get facials. I never get my nails done. I'm so busy.

Consider also our approach to the sanctity and value of human life. In the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, we all grieved deeply, and expressed outrage at this heinous crime - and rightly so. But many people today are unaware that, as the result of civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 3.8 million people have lost their lives since 1998. Are we to conclude that our priorities are skewed, and our approaches uneven?

Even if [9/11 conspiracy theories] were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? It doesn't have any significance. It's a little bit like the huge energy that's put out on trying to figure out who killed John F. Kennedy. Who knows? And who cares? Plenty of people get killed all the time, why does it matter that one of them happened to be John F. Kennedy? If there was some reason to believe that there was a high level conspiracy, it might be interesting. But the evidence against that is just overwhelming. And after that, if it happened to be a jealous husband, or the mafia, or someone else, what difference does it make? It's just taking energy away from serious issues onto ones that don't matter. And I think the same is true here; it's my personal opinion.

The big debate in Washington is totally pointless. And the media, about whether Bush downgraded terror in order to invade Iraq. There's nothing to debate. He invaded Iraq. That proves beyond doubt that he downgraded the threat of terror in favor of invading Iraq. They anticipated, and their own intelligence agencies told them, and everyone else did too, that invasion of Iraq was likely to increase the threat of terror. It's not a high priority, so they invaded Iraq because that's much higher priority.

I think murdering Iraqi union leaders is criminal, for example. And a lot of what the insurgents have done is criminal. But, you know, you rank the priorities. Our priority is to stop major war crimes, like Fallujah for example. So yeah, what the resistance is doing, one can also criticize, harshly in fact. But in any kind of ranking, even if we're on Mars, and certainly if we're in the United States, what vastly more important is our own crimes, which are much worse, and they're ours.