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1 " I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident. I hadn't learned that it can happen so gradually you don't lose your stomach or hurt yourself in the landing. You don't necessarily sense the motion. I've found it takes at least two and generally three things to alter the course of a life: You slip around the truth once, and then again, and one more time, and there you are, feeling, for a moment, that it was sudden, your arrival at the bottom of the heap. "
― Jane Hamilton , A Map of the World
2 " There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. "
― Judith Martin
3 " There are at least two ways to believe in the idea of quality. You can believe there's something ineffable going on within the human mind, or you can believe we just don't understand what quality in a mind is yet, even though we might someday. Either of those opinions allows one to distinguish quantity and quality. In order to confuse quantity and quality, you have to reject both possibilities. The mere possibility of there being something ineffable about personhood is what drives many technologists to reject the notion of quality. They want to live in an airtight reality that resembles an idealized computer program, in which everything is understood and there are no fundamental mysteries. They recoil from even the hint of a potential zone of mystery or an unresolved seam in one's worldview. This desire for absolute order usually leads to tears in human affairs, so there is a historical reason to distrust it. Materialist extremists have long seemed determined to win a race with religious fanatics: Who can do the most damage to the most people? "
― Jaron Lanier , You Are Not a Gadget
4 " You never want one thing at any given moment of life. Your mind always comes up with at least two choices. If your limbic system wins, the choice you make seems to be pleasurable at first but in the long run ends up being the wrong one. And if your prefrontal cortex wins the choice you make may appear rough at first, but in the long run it turns out to be the right one. "
― Abhijit Naskar
5 " The delicate balance between these factors helps explain why, for instance, the typical prostitute earns more than the typical architect. It may not seem as though she should. The architect would appear tobe more skilled (as the word is usually defined) and better educated (again, as usually defined). But little girls don’t grow up dreaming of becoming prostitutes, so the supply of potential prostitutes is relatively small. Their skills, while not necessarily “specialized,” are practiced in a very specialized context. The job is unpleasant and forbidding in at least two significant ways: the likelihood of violence and the lost opportunity of having a stable family life. As for demand? Let’s just say that an architect is more likely to hire a prostitute than vice versa. "
6 " I can be absolutely assured that any endeavor of which God is not a part is most certainly a step backward. And any step backward is at least two steps behind where I’d be if I’d have gone forward in the first place. "
― Craig D. Lounsbrough , An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus
7 " Books are an absolute necessity. I always have at least two with me wherever I go, to say nothing of my digital collection, and whenever I can get my hands on a delicious new reading piece, I will finish it at a slackened pace, to savour it with all the esteem it deserves, gratulating in its pleasance, deliciating in every word with ardent affection. I have an extensive library that I could never do without, and there are at least four books decorating every surface in my house. A table is not properly set without a book to furnish it. Half of my great collection is non-fiction, mostly science and history books, ranging from the archaeological to the agricultural, and my fiction section is dedicated to the classics, mostly books published before the world forgot about exquisite prose. I have all the greats in hardcover, but I do not read those: hardcover is for smelling and touching only. For all my favourite authors, I have reading copies, which I might take with me anywhere, to read in cafes or to be used as a swatting tool for unwanted visitors, but books are always fashionable even as ornaments; everyone likes a reader, for a good collection of books betrays a intellectualism that is becoming at anytime. Never succumb to the friable wills of those who reject the majesty of books: there is nothing so repelling as willful illiteracy. "
― Michelle Franklin , I Hate Summer: My tribulations with seasonal depression, anxiety, plumbers, spiders, neighbours, and the world.
8 " Ainsi dans le faste ostenstatoire d'une dernière cérémonie, le bourgeois, laissant à ses fils un héritage plus riche que celui qu'il a reçu de son père, quite ce monde où il a conu au moins deux grands sources de joie, la fortune et la vanité...Thus in the ostentatious pomp of a last ceremony, the bourgeois, leaving his sons a richer heritage than he has received from his own father, departs from this world where he has known at least two great sources of joy, the fortune and the vanity... "
― , La Vie Quotidienne sous Louis XIV
9 " For breakfast to be called ‘in bed’ instead of ‘on top of a bed,’ the house in which it is about to be eaten has to have at least two rooms (excluding the kitchen); (at least) three, if it has a bathroom. "
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana
10 " The neural basis for the self, as I see it, resides with the continuous reactivation of at least two sets of representations. One set concerns representations of key events in an individual's autobiography, on the basis of which a notion of identity can be reconstructed repeatedly, by partial activation in topologically organized sensory maps. ... In brief, the endless reactivation of updated images about our identity (a combination of memories of the past and of the planned future) constitutes a sizable part of the state of self as I understand it.The second set of representations underlying the neural self consists of the primordial representations of an individual's body ... Of necessity, this encompasses background body states and emotional states. The collective representation of the body constitute the basis for a " concept" of self, much as a collection of representations of shape, size, color, texture, and taste can constitute the basis for the concept of orange. "
11 " And if ever you need encouragement, remember at least two sober facts which nobody can rationally deny: that you are a new and unique living force in nature, and that you can, by taking thought and pursuing it, become more and more intensely alive. "
12 " Always think at least two steps ahead [in everything, with everyone]. "
― A.J. Darkholme , Rise of the Morningstar (The Morningstar Chronicles, #1)
13 " After an Indian meal they went back to Jamie's flat and Tony did at least two things to him on the sofa that no one had ever done to him before then came back and them again the following evening, and suddenly life became very good indeed. "
― Mark Haddon , A Spot of Bother
14 " I have argued that this sort of thinking is problematic in at least two regards:First, the notion that nonhuman animals do not have an interest in continued existence—that they do not have an interest in their lives—involves relying on a speciesist concept of what sort of self-awareness matters morally. I have argued that every sentient being necessarily has an interest in continued existence—every sentient being values her or his life—and that to say that only those animals (human animals) who have a particular sort of self-awareness have an interest in not being treated as commodities begs the fundamental moral question. Even if, as some maintain, nonhuman animals live in an “eternal present”—and I think that is empirically not the case at the very least for most of the nonhumans we routinely exploit who do have memories of the past and a sense of the future—they have, in each moment, an interest in continuing to exist. To say that this does not count morally is simply speciesist.Second, even if animals do not have an interest in continuing to live and only have interests in not suffering, the notion that, as a practical matter, we will ever be able to accord those interests the morally required weight is simply fantasy. The notion that we property owners are ever going to accord any sort of significant weight to the interests of property in not suffering is simply unrealistic. Is it possible in theory? Yes. Is it possible as a matter of practicality in the real world. Absolutely not. Welfarists often talk about treating “farmed animals” in the way that we treat dogs and cats whom we love and regard as members of our family. Does anyone really think that is practically possible? The fact that we would not think of eating our dogs and cats is some indication that it is not. "
― Gary L. Francione
15 " Whether you're the best lawyer...Or the greatest philosopher...There will alway be at least two people that you can never win any argument with...Your child...And your wife...So don't argue with them...Just love them... "
― NELSON M. LUBAO
16 " No matter how long it’s been or how far you’ve drifted, no matter how unknowable you might be, there were at least two people in the world whose job it was to see you, to find you, to recognize you and reel you back in. No matter what. "
― Jennifer E. Smith , This Is What Happy Looks Like (This is What Happy Looks Like, #1)
17 " W. H. Auden once suggested that to understand your own country you need to have lived in at least two others. One can say something similar for periods of time: to understand your own century you need to have come to terms with at least two others. The key to learning something about the past might be a ruin or an archive but the means whereby we may understand it is--and always will be--ourselves. "
― Ian Mortimer , The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
18 " A fight needs at least two fighters. Sometimes you can win straight away by not fighting. "
― S.A. Tawks , Misadventurous
19 " Everything in a science-fiction novel should be mentioned at least twice (in at least two different contexts). "
― Samuel R. Delany , Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia
20 " Putting some 'gray in play,' as Chad referred to it, always helped. HE said the act of rationalizing the pros and cons helped to cloud the issues enough to avoid a moral quandary. It allowed us to believe the ends justified the means. Seeing gray helped to remove the black-and-white, right and wrong ethical choices.. . Had I become so jaded in my life that I had actually forgotten the difference between right and wrong? Or had I simply tried to ignore the difference so I could sleep at least two or three hours a night? "
― Luke Lively