I’ve been quite fascinated by the relative insignificance of human existence, the shortness of life. We might as well be a letter in a word in a sentence on a page in a book in a library in a city in one country in this enormous universe! And that kind of fear and insignificance has kept me awake at night.
Mormons… are so strong, they can handle wealth, they are confident. I think it is because they are not bogged down by rules for equality, but have a firmly defined system of relative status and responsible command.
If God be an infinite being, there cannot be, either in the present or future world, any relative proportion between man and his God. Thus, the idea of God can never enter the human mind.
America’s role in the global economy inevitably was going to diminish; we’re smaller relative to – as China, India, other emerging markets grow.
Fear is a relative thing; its effects are relative to power.
There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.
In Greece, Italy and, to a lesser extent, France, unsustainable tax cuts and spending sprees added to households’ estimates of their private wealth relative to their wage income.
As governor, I would seek to ensure that Massachusetts has access to a balanced portfolio of low-cost energy that doesn’t put us at a competitive disadvantage relative to other states, or put an even heavier burden on working families.
I would not say I chose to write long poems on a conscious level. The long poem has been a relative constant.
In business, success often depends upon the relative age of your ideas.
We’re at maybe 1% of what is possible. Despite the faster change, we’re still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have. I think a lot of that is because of the negativity… Every story I read is Google vs someone else. That’s boring. We should be focusing on building the things that don’t exist.
Genuine cosmopolitanism is a rare thing. It requires comfort with real difference, with forms of life that are truly exotic relative to one’s own.
We never stop to consider that our beliefs are only a relative truth that’s always going to be distorted by all the knowledge we have stored in our memory.
Right and wrong are not relative terms. There are fundamental truths. Evil flourishes, but good men continue to battle it – and win.
The 21st Amendment gives the states the right to decide what the drinking ages should be and other aspects relative to alcoholic beverages, and I support that. As a United States senator, I want to weigh in – this is not my agenda.
I think the Sixties in some ways is a barrier to young people today. They think of it, you know, what we’re doing is not that. But it’s partly the myth of the Sixties. It always felt embattled and small. It always, almost always, was a small group of people relative to the opposition around.
Relative to most people I know, I am comfortable just about anywhere. I went to 20 schools before the 8th grade because my father couldn’t hold a job. We moved every six months. I had to adjust.
For many children, it’s seeing a beloved relative ill and in pain that leads them to want to become doctors. But, for me, it was watching my grandma get better.
To the extent the dollar gains strength relative to other currencies, assets priced in those other currencies would become cheaper on a dollar basis.
I haven’t been as healthy as I’d like or as spry as I’d like. But it’s all relative to the sport. So I’m just enjoying the process, really. It’s been ups and downs obviously and frustrating times. I know that’s the beauty and the struggle.
Western Europe GDP per capita – not taking into account the new accession counties – was lower in 2001 relative to that of the US than any time since the 1960’s.
As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system.
It doesn’t matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is – what matters is its relative ‘share of customer value’ in the final product or solution, and its cost of producing that value.
What played to what had been a relative weakness for us-this was exploding overseas as well, and we had to scramble to mount some reach and get into places and be competitive on the ground.
I think doing period piece is easier, because after a certain distance, everybody is equal, I think. The relative contemporary is harder. I think that’s the way it is.
Both Conservative and Labour politicians in Britain are rather too fond of praising the relative ‘classlessness’ of American society and of urging their own people to emulate it. There is a certain falseness about such arguments, and also a certain hypocrisy.
We who are interested in relative truth have to keep digging for it and not let ourselves be sucked under.
When the dollar collapses, it’s not doing it in a vacuum. If the dollar loses value, it’s doing so relative to some other currency. So the purchasing power that we lose, somebody else gets.
For investors who do want to speculate in high-yield bonds, one alternative may be a junk bond mutual fund, which can offer investors the relative safety of diversification.
The reality is that the workforce relative to the number of people retired has shrunk and today in America there are only 3.3 working Americans paying payroll taxes to support each individual currently retired and collecting Social Security taxes.
Concentrate your strengths against your competitor’s relative weaknesses.
Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.
The benefits of globalisation and economic growth are being unevenly distributed and people are acutely aware of their own relative disadvantage.
I had to keep from laughing when a male relative of mine became concerned about how often I danced.
There is no myth relative to the manners and customs of the English that in my experience is more tenaciously held by the ordinary Frenchman than that the sale of a wife in the market-place is an habitual and an accepted fact in English life.
One of the most surprising forms of nonverbal communication is the way we automatically adjust the amount of time we spend looking into another’s eyes as a function of our relative social position.
I had a great time on News Radio, I got to make tons of money in relative obscurity and learn a lot about the TV biz and work on my standup act constantly. It was a dream gig.
Economists argue about the relative impact of immigrants versus robots on wage stagnation – voters don’t care much. They blame immigrants. It’s easier to get mad at a person from Macedonia or Mexico, taking your job than it is to get mad at a piece of technology from Silicon Valley.
Perhaps because my town was so naturally gothic in its architecture and relative isolation – the roads often closed in winter – my stories tended toward the ghostly and the creepily suspenseful right from the get-go.
A lot of times, you’ll be flipping through country radio and there’s just no substance. Like I’ve said before, it’s all about props: Solo cups or whatever. It’s not about a dude’s work day or someone that lost a good friend or relative. There’s nothing to hold onto when you’re going through something.
An increase in the relative price of products from the low wage manufacturers in Asia and Latin America will also make those products less attractive to American consumers.
The 9/11 strikes left an indelible impact on our minds, but in relative terms, the scale of casualties actually wasn’t all that high.
I remember being really hurt by a relative of a good friend of mine when I mentioned that someone was a great wrestler – she said, ‘What do you mean? How can you be great at wrestling?’ I stopped them and said, ‘Do you think that what I do takes no talent whatsoever?’ She realized how hurtful those words were.
There’s no such thing as an absolute openness. Openness is relative, I think, in all societies.
The theory of relativity worked out by Mr. Einstein, which is in the domain of natural science, I believe can also be applied to the political field. Both democracy and human rights are relative concepts – and not absolute and general.
Our lives are structured by our memories of events. Event X happened just before the big Paris vacation. I was doing Y in the first summer after I learned to drive. Z happened the weekend after I landed my first job. We remember events by positioning them in time relative to other events.
I grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut – during the school time of year – but I preferred it in New Hampshire. I preferred the culture, the landscape, the relative solitude. I’ve always loved it.
The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person’s belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.
I think everyone knows someone who’s battling with dementia or caring for a relative affected by it. I’ve been staggered by how commonplace it is.
The relative illiquidity of small-company shares – which often contributes to their being undervalued – also increases their volatility.
I still have drive, but everything is relative.
