But of all other stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind must have been his who conceived how to communicate his most secret thoughts to any other person, though very far distant either in time or place? And with no greater difficulty than the various arrangement of two dozen little signs upon paper? Let this be the seal of all the admirable inventions of man.
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One cool judgment is worth a dozen hasty councils. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
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When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.
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Most of us think ourselves as standing wearily and helplessly at the center of a circle bristling with tasks, burdens, problems, annoyance, and responsibilities which are rushing in upon us. At every moment we have a dozen different things to do, a dozen problems to solve, a dozen strains to endure. We see ourselves as overdriven, overburdened, overtired. This is a common mental picture and it is totally false. No one of us, however crowded his life, has such an existence. What is the true picture of your life? Imagine that there is an hour glass on your desk. Connecting the bowl at the top with the bowl at the bottom is a tube so thin that only one grain of sand can pass through it at a time. That is the true picture of your life, even on a super busy day, The crowded hours come to you always one moment at a time. That is the only way they can come. The day may bring many tasks, many problems, strains, but invariably they come in single file. You want to gain emotional poise? Remember the hourglass, the grains of sand dropping one by one.
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I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green.
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Everyone is in awe of the lion tamer in a cage with half a dozen lions -- everyone but a school bus driver
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If you don't know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues initials on them and pass them along. When in doubt, route.
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A half a dozen major wars, And forty-five presidents.
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Man is quite insane. He wouldn't know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen.
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It helps to write down half a dozen things which are worrying me. Two of them, say, disappear; about two, nothing can be done, so it’s no use worrying, and two perhaps can be settled.
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There are one or two rules, Half-a-dozen, maybe,...
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What is the most precious, the most exciting smell awaiting you in the house when you return to it after a dozen years or so? The smell of roses, you think? No, moldering books.
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Memory is a net: one that finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook, but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.
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I need to know the price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I need to know right now.
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Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
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An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of stout.
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If you don't know what to do with many of the papers piled on your desk, stick a dozen colleagues' initials on 'em, and pass them along. When in doubt, route.
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Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant.
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If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.
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A ready way to lose your friend is to lend him money. Another equally ready way to lose him is to refuse to lend him money. It is six of one and a half dozen of the other.
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The chess player who develops the ability to play two dozen boards at a time will benefit from learning to compress his or her analysis into less time.
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One rose says more than the dozen
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People don't ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts.
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No one would choose to be jerked randomly off task again and again until you have half a dozen things you're trying to get done, all at the same time.
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One boy is more trouble that a dozen girls.
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I've changed my mind a dozen times. It seems to work better now.
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