Subtraction Quotes

• God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.

  Meister Eckhart

  Philosophical, Simplicity, Soul

  Eckhart (Meister), Matthew Fox (1980). “Breakthrough, Meister Eckhart's creation spirituality, in new translation”, Doubleday Books

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• The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Soul, Grows

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• A man has one hundred dollars and you leave him with two dollars, that's subtraction.

  Mae West

  Funny, Money, Math

  1940 Line spoken in My Little Chickadee.

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• Contentment is not by addition but by subtraction: seeking to add a thing will not bring contentment. Instead, subtracting from your desires until you are satisfied only with Christ brings contentment.

  Jeremiah Burroughs

  Spiritual, Contentment, Desire

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• Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Motivational, Leadership, World

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• The process of change is made up of subtraction and addition. Taking something off and then puttin something on.

  Creflo A. Dollar

  Process Of Change, Made, Process

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• "She can't do Subtraction." said the White Queen. "Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife-what's the answer to that?" "I suppose-" Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for her. "Bread-and-butter, of course."

  Lewis Carroll

  Queens, Science, Knives

  Lewis Carroll (1929). “Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass and Other Comic Pieces”

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• The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction.

  Meister Eckhart

  Soul, Doe, Grows

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• Meekness, the subtraction of self, reduces the multiplication of words.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Self, Meekness, Multiplication

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• The minimum could be defined as the perfection that an artefact achieves when it is no longer possible to improve it by subtraction. This is the quality that an object has when every component, every detail, and every junction has been reduced or condensed to the essentials. it is the result of the omission of the inessentials.

  John Pawson

  Omission, Perfection, Simplicity

  "Less really is more" by Luke Jennings, www.theguardian.com. November 25, 2006.

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• I think as technology and expertise makes possible these sort of amazing levels of fidelity to the real world, a lot of people sort of get sort of - what's the word I'm looking for - seduced into that. And after a time, they get tired of it and they become a little bit more interested, I think at a certain level of subtraction and a new level of sophistication.

  Khoi Vinh

  Real, Tired, Technology

  Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. March 3, 2010.

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• Life isn't just addition and subtraction. There's also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.

  Julian Barnes

  Loss, Accumulation, Multiplication

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• Politics is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction.

  Donald Rumsfeld

  Politics, Humans, Human Beings

  Donald Rumsfeld (2001). “Public Statements of Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, 2001”

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• Six minus six is zero. Spears are good for subtraction Ella said

  Rick Riordan

  Zero, Six, Said

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• My method is subtraction. I use erasers to make the images in my paintings. You really have to see it to fully get it, but it is basically erasing shapes from a background of paint.

  Floyd Cooper

  Use, Shapes, Painting

  Source: www.teachingbooks.net

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• Mystical additions and subtractions always come out the way you want.

  Umberto Eco

  Want, Way, Mystical

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• Since Satan can't destroy the gospel, he has too often neutralized its usefulness by addition, subtraction or substitution.

  J. C. Ryle

  Satan, Substitution, Usefulness

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• According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Two, Religion, Peculiar

  "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll: Lectures".

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• Faith is a talent, and it goes the way of all your talents. Getting old is the subtraction of your powers. Which very much goes for writing.

  Martin Amis

  Writing, Way, Talent

  "New New Yorker Martin Amis Talks Terrorism, Pornography, Idyllic Brooklyn and American Decline". Interview with David Wallace-Wells, www.vulture.com. July 22, 2012.

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• A German merchant of the fifteenth century asked an eminent professor where he should send his son for a good business education. The professor responded that German universities would be sufficient to teach the boy addition and subtraction but he would have to go to Italy to learn multiplication and division. Before you smile indulgently, try multiplying or even just adding the Roman numerals CCLXIV, MDCCCIX, DCL, and MLXXXI without first translating them.

  John Allen Paulos

  Son, Boys, Roman Numerals

  John Allen Paulos (2013). “Beyond Numeracy”, p.23, Vintage

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• I meet a man with a thousand dollars and leave him with two; that's the meaning of subtraction.

  Mae West

  Money, Men, Two

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• At nineteen, it seems to me, one has a right to be arrogant; time has usually not begun its stealthy and rotten subtractions. It takes away your hair and your jump-shot, according to a popular country song, but in truth it takes away a lot more than that.

  Stephen King

  Country, Song, Time

  Stephen King (2016). “The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger”, p.12, Simon and Schuster

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• Perhaps nothing ud be a lesson to us if it didn't come too late. It's well we should feel as life's a reckoning we can't make twice over; there's no real making amends in this world, any more nor you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right.

  George Eliot

  Life, Real, Too Late

  George Eliot (2016). “Complete Works Of George Eliot”, p.546, ShandonPress via PublishDrive

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• Had my life increased, or merely added to itself? There had been addition and subtraction in my life, but how much multiplication?

  Julian Barnes

  Multiplication

  Julian Barnes (2011). “The Sense of an Ending”, p.88, Random House

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• There is no division nor subtraction in the heart-arithmetic of a good mother. There are only addition and multiplication.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Mother, Heart, Division

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.82, U of Nebraska Press

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