Hands quotes
11.6K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside hands — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigalityand misconduct. By what a frugal man annually saves he not onlyaffords maintenance to an additional number of productive hands?but?he establishes as it were a perpetual fund for the maintenance of an equal number in all times to come."
"The common, the quotidian, is so much more unyielding to me, really stubborn and hard to work with, and I like this because it makes me think and it makes me worry. I can't just plunge my hand into the meat of it. I need new approaches."
"I just think the reassurance and the steadiness and the hands-on kindness can make a huge difference."
"Few enjoyments are given from the open and liberal hand of nature; but by art, labor and industry we can extract them in great abundance. Hence, the ideas of property become necessary in all civil society."
"I bought a clock, but the big hand broke off of it... so I just added "ish" to every number."
"Cotton balls is an example of something I would buy, but not want to have as a nickname. Cinnamon buns, on the other hand, is something I would buy and want to have as a nickname. 'Are you Cinnamon Buns?' 'You bet your sweet ass I am.'"
"A glove is a very literal looking hand puppet."
"The whole Earth is at the hand of the wise man, since the fatherland of an elevated soul is the Universe."
"There was a feeling, not sudden, but complete, as though I had been given a small object to hold unseen in my hands. Precious as opal, smooth as jade, weighty as a river stone, more fragile than a bird's egg. Infinitely still, live as the root of Creation. Not a gift, but a trust. Fiercely to cherish, softly to guard. The words spoke themselves and disappeared into the groined shadows of the roof."
"The fearful danger of the present time is that above the cry for authority, we forget that man stands alone before the ultimate authority, and that anyone who lays violent hands on man here, is infringing eternal laws, and taking upon himself superhuman authority, which will eventually crush him."
"Gift to the creative artist: positive images in, positive images out. On the other hand, garbage in, garbage out."
"The military taught me the importance of getting something done in a timely manner and the importance of completing a mission on time. My lieutenant would say, 'If you don't, you die.' In many ways, life is the same. If you don't pay attention to a timeline, you lose out on the ability to accomplish the task at hand."
"It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace."
"One hand has surely worked throughout the universe."
"It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was."
"But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the thing it looks upon to bless."
"if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right."
"Those of us who write and study history are accustomed to its approximations and ambiguities. This is why we do not take literally the tenth-hand reports of frightened and illiterate peasants who claim to have seen miracles or to have had encounters with messiahs and prophets and redeemers who were, like them, mere humans. And this is also why we will never submit to dictation from those who display a fanatical belief in certainty and revelation."
"A father's and a mother's age must be borne in mind; with joy on the one hand, fear on the other."
"Never bring a lot of money to where a poor man lives. He can only lose what little he has. On the other hand it is mathematically possible that he might win whatever you bring with you. What you must do, with money and the poor, is never let them get too close to one another."
