A Quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Only the first swath cut by the scythe is difficult. — © Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Only the first swath cut by the scythe is difficult.
Recreation is intended to the mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, which otherwise would grow dull and blunt,--as good no scythe as no edge.
For my first movie, I think my first cut was like three hours, because when you first direct a movie, you want to keep everything. But I'm not one of those directors who falls in love with the stuff they've done. Already when I'm doing my first cut, I'm willing to cut out everything that is necessary.
You talk of the scythe of Time, and the tooth of Time: I tell you, Time is scytheless and toothless; it is we who gnaw like the worm - we who smite like the scythe. It is ourselves who abolish - ourselves who consume: we are the mildew, and the flame.
The only idea man can affix to the name of God, is that of a first cause, the cause of all things. And, incomprehensibly difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it, from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time.
First of all, the first cut of the movie was like three and a half hours and I walked away going, 'Wow, I know there's like twenty minutes that I can cut - ' when I first saw it 'But I don't know after that.' The first time I put up then in front of people I was like, 'Oh, my God, I can take that out and that out and that out.'
Ultraconservatism is, to me, so illogical. Everywhere you go, conservatives want to cut, cut, cut, cut - cut money for powerless people. So, that's the biggest problem I have with them.
At a time when we're having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.
Let us award a just, a brilliant homage to those rare men whom nature has endowed with the precious privilege of arranging a thousand isolated facts, of making seductive theories spring from them; but let us not forget to state, that the scythe of the reaper had cut the stalks before one had thought of uniting them into sheaves!
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
I think you still have a problem here when you're going and you're looking not just that Trump is winning, but he's winning in a broad swath of voters. It's not just that he's got this one lane, oh, he only wins when there's low turnout, he only wins when conservatives, he only wins in these kinds of states. He wins enough across a broad array.
You first do the assembly cut, which is basically the cut that mirrors the script. You've got to start with that.
Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into the enemy’s strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don’t allow him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit." -Richard Rahl
The only way to make something good is if you make it difficult for yourself on every conceivable level. You can't cut corners; you can't rest on your laurels.
My first cut is always pretty similar to the final cut.
I try to do things in one take, but doubling rhythm parts is always difficult, especially if you want things to cut the way I want them to cut.
First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.
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