Groundwork Quotes

• The groundwork of all happiness is health.

  Leigh Hunt

  Life, Motivational, Fitness

  The Indicator No. XXXI, 'On the Realities of the Imagination'

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• There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

  Milan Kundera

  Life, Mean, Decision

  90 Copy quote

• Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.

  Laurence Sterne

  Wisdom, Passion, Heart

  8 Copy quote

• And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?

  Milan Kundera

  Rehearsal, Firsts, Unbearable

  "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Book by Milan Kundera, 1984.

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• But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.

  Amy Ray

  Country, Thinking, Rocks

  "Lung Of Love : A Conversation With Amy Ray". Interview with Mike Ragogna, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 24, 2012.

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• We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Father, Ignorance

  9 Copy quote

• Acceptance of the power of God in one's life lays the groundwork for personal commitment to both science and Christianity, which so often have been in conflict.

  Kenneth Lee Pike

  Commitment, Acceptance, Conflict

  8 Copy quote

• The common erotic project of destroying women makes it possible for men to unite into a brotherhood; this project is the only firm and trustworthy groundwork for cooperation among males and all male bonding is based on it.

  Andrea Dworkin

  Women, Erotic, Brotherhood

  "Our Blood". Book by Andrea Dworkin, 1976.

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• A writer's work often reflects what he or she has been exposed to in life; experiences which are the groundwork of a poem or a story.

  Eyvind Johnson

  Stories, Life Experience, Exposed

  8 Copy quote

• The electronic media introduced this idea to the larger audience very, very quickly. We spent years and years and years meeting with activists all over Europe to lay the groundwork for a political response, as we did here.

  Jeremy Rifkin

  Media, Years, Europe

  63 Copy quote

• From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

  Jane Austen

  Selfish, Men, Feelings

  Jane Austen (1819). “Pride and Prejudice: A Novel”, p.133

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• Everybody makes money when times are good. It's when times are not so good that the groundwork is laid for the next generation.

  Stephen Harper

  Next, Generations, Making Money

  Interview with Peter Mansbridge, www.cbc.ca. January 17, 2011.

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• Before I had decided to get into politics, I was laying the groundwork to have a career in the law, but that was really to lay the foundation to teach, either at the college level or law school level after my federal clerkships.

  Stephanie Herseth Sandlin

  School, College, Law

  7 Copy quote

• I was raised by two women, and that laid the groundwork for the way I treat 'em: with the utmost respect and admiration.

  Jimmy Connors

  Two, Ems, Way

  11 Copy quote

• Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It's about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others' success, and then standing back and letting them shine.

  Chris Hadfield

  Inspirational, Team, Goal

  Chris Hadfield (2013). “An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth”, p.154, Pan Macmillan

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• Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love.

  Bell Hooks

  Honesty, Heart, Commitment

  15 Copy quote

• If we want to be respected and honored when we're older, then we must lay the groundwork by respecting and honoring the elders we meet in our lives today. How we treat them today is the way we'll be treated later.

  Louise Hay

  Want, Today, Way

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• If a country is governed with tolerance, the people are comfortable and honest. If a country is governed with repression, the people are depressed and crafty. When the will to power is in charge, the higher the ideals, the lower the results. Try to make people happy, and you lay the groundwork for misery. Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice. Thus the Master is content to serve as an example and not to impose her will. She is pointed, but doesn't pierce. Straightforward, but supple. Radiant, but easy on the eyes.

  Laozi

  Country, Eye, People

  4 Copy quote

• Extremes are for us as though they were not, and we are not within their notice. They escape us, or we them. This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance... This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.

  Blaise Pascal

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Desire

  "Pensées" by Blaise Pascal, (Ch. 72), 1669.

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• Kantian ethical theory distinguishes three levels: First, that of a fundamental principle (the categorical imperative, formulated in three main ways in Kant's Groundwork); second, a set of duties, not deduced from but derived from this principle, by way of its interpretation or specification, its application to the general conditions of human life - which Kant does in the Doctrine of virtue, the second main part of the Metaphysics of Morals; and then finally an act of judgment, through which these duties are applied to particular cases.

  Allen W. Wood

  Principles, Doe, Doctrine

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• You want to take some responsibility for you choices so that it sets the groundwork for that next generation of actresses.

  Nicole Kidman

  Responsibility, Choices, Generations

  FaceBook post by Nicole Kidman from Jan 13, 2017

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• The drug war has nothing to do with making communities livable or creating a decent future for black kids. On the contrary, prohibition is directly responsible for the power of crack dealers to terrorize whole neighborhoods. And every cent spent on the cops, investigators, bureaucrats, courts, jails, weapons, and tests required to feed the drug-war machine is a cent not spent on reversing the social policies that have destroyed the cities, nourished racism, and laid the groundwork for crack culture.

  Ellen Willis

  War, Kids, Jail

  Ellen Willis (2012). “No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays”, p.250, U of Minnesota Press

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• Two men with a camera, thoughtfully observing the visual cacophony of one major thoroughfare and the complicated interplay of its history, its present, and the certainty of change, have laid the groundwork for a dialogue and a vision that reaches farther than human eyes can see.

  Vicki Goldberg

  Eye, Men, Two

  4 Copy quote

• Thanks to many great K-pop singers, the groundwork has been laid for more Korean songs to be readily accessible to an overseas audience via channels like YouTube.

  PSY

  Song, Singers, Thanks

  4 Copy quote

• By laying the groundwork for a system centered on home ownership rather than the public housing popular in Europe, the New Deal made possible the great postwar housing boom that populated the Sun Belt and boosted millions of Americans into the middle class, where, ironically, they often became Republicans.

  Jonathan Alter

  Home, Europe, Class

  Jonathan Alter (2007). “The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope”, p.284, Simon and Schuster

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