Tense Famous Quotes

I have to admit that humans waste a lot of their time - almost all of it - with hypothetical stuff. I could be rich. I could be famous. I could have been hit by that bus. I could have been born with fewer moles and bigger breasts. I could have spent more of my youth learning foreign languages. They must exercise the conditional tense more than any other known life form.

Even if you are not a religious person by nature or training—even if you are an out-and-out skeptic—prayer can help you much more than you believe, for it is a practical thing. What do I mean, practical? I mean that prayer fulfills these three very basic psychological needs which all people share, whether they believe in God or not: 1. Prayer helps us to put into words exactly what is troubling us. We saw in Chapter 4 that it is almost impossible to deal with a problem while it remains vague and nebulous. Praying, in a way, is very much like writing our problems down on paper. If we ask help for a problem—even from God—we must put it into words. 2. Prayer gives us a sense of sharing our burdens, of not being alone. Few of us are so strong that we can bear our heaviest burdens, our most agonizing troubles, all by ourselves. Sometimes our worries are of so ultimate a nature that we cannot discuss them even with our closest relatives or friends. Then prayer is the answer. Any psychiatrist will tell us that when we are pent-up and tense, and in an agony of spirit, it is therapeutically good to tell someone our troubles. When we can’t tell anyone else—we can always tell God. 3. Prayer puts into force an active principle of doing. It’s a first step toward action. I doubt if anyone can pray for some fulfillment, day after day, without benefiting from it—in other words, without taking some steps to bring it to pass. The world-famous scientist, Dr. Alexis Carrel, said: “Prayer is the most powerful form of energy one can generate.” So why not make use of it? Call it God or Allah or Spirit—why quarrel with definitions as long as the mysterious powers of nature take us in hand?

Marbury v. Madison, the Marshall Court’s best-known case, and one of the most famous in Supreme Court history, was decided early in the chief justice’s tenure, on February 24, 1803. It grew out of the tense and messy transition of power from the Adams Federalists to the Jeffersonian Republicans after the election of 1800.

Sigtryggr held out a hand to pull me from the ditch. His one eye was bright with the same joy I had seen on Ceaster’s ramparts. ‘I would not want you as an enemy, Lord Uhtred,’ he said. ‘Then don’t come back, Jarl Sigtryggr,’ I said, clasping his forearm as he clasped mine. ‘I will be back,’ he said, ‘because you will want me to come back.’ ‘I will?’ He turned his head to gaze at his ships. One ship was close to the shore, held there by a mooring line tied to a stake. The prow of the ship had a great dragon painted white and in the dragon’s claw was a red axe. The ship waited for Sigtryggr, but close to it, standing where the grass turned to the river bank’s mud, was Stiorra. Her maid, Hella, was already aboard the dragon-ship. Æthelflaed had been watching Eardwulf’s death, but now saw Stiorra by the grounded ship. She frowned, not sure she understood what she saw. ‘Lord Uhtred?’ ‘My lady?’ ‘Your daughter,’ she began, but did not know what to say. ‘I will deal with my daughter,’ I said grimly. ‘Finan?’ My son and Finan were both staring at me, wondering what I would do. ‘Finan?’ I called. ‘Lord?’ ‘Kill that scum,’ I jerked my head towards Eardwulf’s followers, then I took Sigtryggr by the elbow and walked him towards his ship. ‘Lord Uhtred!’ Æthelflaed called again, sharper this time. I waved a dismissive hand, and otherwise ignored her. ‘I thought she disliked you,’ I said to Sigtryggr. ‘We meant you to think that.’ ‘You don’t know her,’ I said. ‘You knew her mother when you met her?’ ‘This is madness,’ I said. ‘And you are famous for your good sense, lord.’ Stiorra waited for us. She was tense. She stared at me defiantly and said nothing. I felt a lump in my throat and a sting in my eyes. I told myself it was the small smoke drifting from the Norsemen’s abandoned campfires. ‘You’re a fool,’ I told her harshly. ‘I saw,’ she said simply, ‘and I was stricken.’ ‘And so was he?’ I asked, and she just nodded. ‘And the last two nights,’ I asked, ‘after the feasting was over?’ I did not finish the question, but she answered it anyway by nodding again. ‘You are your mother’s daughter,’ I said, and I embraced her, holding her close. ‘But it is my choice whom you marry,’ I went on. I felt her stiffen in my arms, ‘And Lord Æthelhelm wants to marry you.’ I thought she was sobbing, but when I pulled back from the embrace I saw she was laughing. ‘Lord Æthelhelm?’ she asked. ‘You’ll be the richest widow in all Britain,’ I promised her. She still held me, looking up into my face. She smiled, that same smile that had been her mother’s. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘I swear on my life that I will accept the man you choose to be my husband.’ She knew me. She had seen my tears and knew they were not caused by smoke. I leaned forward and kissed her forehead. ‘You will be a peace cow,’ I said, ‘between me and the Norse. And you’re a fool. So am I. And your dowry,’ I spoke louder as I stepped back, ‘is Eardwulf’s money.’ I saw I had smeared her pale linen dress with Eardwulf’s blood. I looked at Sigtryggr. ‘I give her to you,’ I said, ‘so don’t disappoint me.

Felix.” She let go, suddenly shy to speak. But that tense, tickly sensation running from her throat to her belly was giving her some kind of superhuman nerve. And besides, he wasn’t really Felix Callahan anymore, not in that ethereal, big-screen sense. So. She cleared her throat. “Felix, will you be my friend?” He did laugh at her, though he didn’t seem to mean it. “Yes, we’ll get matching lockets holding strands of each other’s hair.” “I wish the English language gave us a better option. ‘Pals,’ ‘chums,’ ‘buddies’ . . . but a word that implies the sudden and unusual nature—like ‘metabuddies.’ ” “ ‘Metabuddies.’ Wow. This is getting serious.” “So?” “So. Yes. Let’s be friends. That would solve some of this confused muss. Do we spit in our palms and shake?” “I think this calls for a pinky pledge.” She hooked her pinky around his. “I, Becky Jack, agree to be Felix Callahan’s pal, even though he’s way overrated as an actor and screen hunk and can be such a brat.” Felix cleared his throat. “I, world-famous and fabulously wealthy Felix Paul Callahan, agree to be mates with Becky, even though she wears grandmother shoes and insists on popping out children with reckless abandon and shows no remorse for her vicious right hook.” “That was very nice. I almost shed a tear.” “Apparently all it takes to make you weep is a singing puppet.” “Hey, don’t sell me short. I also cry at talking socks and animated washcloths.” “You cry in terror.” “Well, yeah, that’s true.

Sumone Yiden Smiff was a businessman of note. Was, past tense. Through years of sweat and swearing and amazingly smart (or lucky) deals he’d built up a mining empire that spanned the sum of known space. At 74 years, he had reached the apex of a career stretching half a century. His companies mined precious commodities like Impervium, Obstinatium and Bitanium. He wasn’t really famous, or ostentatious. In fact he only ever made the cover of Fortune One Billion once, twenty-five years ago. He’d never married, had lots of children – light-years apart, apparently.

(I have to admit that humans waste a lot of their time—almost all of it—with hypothetical stuff. I could be rich. I could be famous. I could have been hit by that bus. I could have been born with fewer moles and bigger breasts. I could have spent more of my youth learning foreign languages. They must exercise the conditional tense more than any other known life-form.)

All told, the French made seven dives in Archimède during the first part of Project FAMOUS. When I returned home, I hunkered down for a final 10-month push to finish writing my dissertation, “The Nature of Triassic Continental Rift Structures in the Gulf of Maine.” My oral defense was another tense moment, with several faculty members tossing their toughest questions at me. But all the sacrifice paid off. I passed. I had my Ph.D. degree, and for the rest of my life, nobody could tell me that I couldn’t do it.

Charles Proteus Steinmetz famously asked, “Where does this heat go”? This heat “freezes” the possible into reality and creates what we collectively call “the past.” For humans, the Past is singular tense and the Future gets pluralized.

So it seems we both have reputations," he said, "which means that we are similar creatures. Except that you are famous for being virtuous, and I am famous for... Well, quite the opposite." Evelyn tensed. "And I thought you were famous because of all your sailing trophies," she replied. "Foolish me." He smiled again, and it reached his eyes. "You? Foolish? I don't think so." But she felt very foolish at this moment, responding with lavish desire to the sensation of his hot breath on her face and the intoxicating nearness of his body. Heart pounding, she drew in a slow, deep breath, and remembered to whom she was speaking. Martin Langdon. Charmer. Thrill seeker. Heartbreaker. And she was Evelyn Wheaton. Pious churchgoer. Shy mouse. Ugly duckling.