A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Among all the many great transitions that have marked the evolution of Western civilisation ... there has been only one-the triumph of Christianity -that can be called in the fullest sense a "revolution": a truly massive and epochal revision of humanity's prevailing vision of reality, so pervasive in its influence and so vast in its consequences as to actually have created a new conception of the world, of history, of human nature, of time, and of the moral good.”
“Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide.”
Source: Silas Marner, and Scenes of Clerical Life
“Among all the methods, non-violence is most successful, and I strongly believe that only non-violence can set the true mood of peace and harmony among the nuclear nations. Our experiments with non-violence should be more wide, more engaging and more humble.”
Source: Nuclear Weapons Free World - Peace on the Earth
“Among all the miracles in Kildare, none appears to me more wonderful than th marvellous book which they say was written in the time of the Virgin [ie. St. Bridgit] at the dictation of an angel. It contains the Four Gospels according to St. Jerome, and almost every page is illustrated by drawings illuminated with a variety of brilliant colours. In one page you see the countenance of the Divine Majesty supernaturally pictured; in another, the mystic forms of the evangelists, with either six, four, or two wings: here are depicted the eagle, there the calf; here the face of man, there of a lion; with other figures in almost endless variety. If you observe them superficially, and in the usual careless manner, you would imagine them to be daubs, rather than careful compositions; expecting to find nothing exquisite. But if you apply yourself to a more close examination, and are able to penetrate the secrets of the art displayed in these pictures, you will find them so delicate and exquisite, so finely drawn, and the work of interlacing so elaborate, while the colours with which they are illuminated are so blended, and still so fresh, that you will be ready to assert that all this is the work of angelic, and not human skill.”
Source: The History and Topography of Ireland
“Among all the modernized aspects of the most luxurious of industries, the model, a vestige of voluptuous barbarianism, is like some plunder-laden prey. She is the object of unbridled regard, a living bait, the passive realization of an ideal. No other female occupation contains such potent impulses to moral disintegration as this one, applying as it does the outward signs of riches to a poor and beautiful girl.”
“Among all the modes by which love is brought into being, among all the agents which disseminate that blessed bane, there are few so efficacious as this gust of feverish agitation that sweeps over us from time to time. For then the die is cast, the person whose company we enjoy at that moment is the person we shall henceforward love. It is not even necessary for that person to have attracted us, up till then, more than or even as much as others. All that was needed was that our predilection should become exclusive. And that condition is fulfilled when — in this moment of deprivation — the quest for the pleasures we enjoyed in his or her company is suddenly replaced by an anxious, torturing need, whose object is the person alone, an absurd, irrational need which the laws of this world make it impossible to satisfy and difficult to assuage — the insensate, agonising need to possess exclusively.”
Source: Swann’s Way
“Among all the nonsense, mistakes, and bad ideas we come up with, maybe some truth will sneak in.”
Source: Sidetracked
“Among all the occurrences possible in the universe the a priori probability of any particular one of them verges upon zero. Yet the universe exists; particular events must take place in it, the probability of which (before the event) was infinitesimal. At the present time we have no legitimate grounds for either asserting or denying that life got off to but a single start on earth, and that, as a consequence, before it appeared its chances of occurring were next to nil. ... Destiny is written concurrently with the event, not prior to it... The universe was not pregnant with life nor the biosphere with man. Our number came up in the Monte Carlo game. Is it surprising that, like the person who has just made a million at the casino, we should feel strange and a little unreal?”
Source: Chance and necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology
“Among all the occurrences possible in the universe the a priori probability of any particular one of them verges upon zero. Yet the universe exists; particular events must take place in it, the probability of which (before the event) was infinitesimal. At the present time we have no legitimate grounds for either asserting or denying that life got off to but a single start on earth, and that, as a consequence, before it appeared its chances of occurring were next to nil. ... Destiny is written concurrently with the event, not prior to it.”
“Among all the public worthies whom the approach of Majesty called into action, as the return of spring does the busy bees, none were more alert and alive to the dignity and importance of their office than the worshipful municipality of Leith. Some unknown power, which deemed itself appalling to the whole Magistracy of the ancient and loyal town, ordained that the King should land on the odiferous shores of the fishing village of Newhaven. But Bailie Macfie, as he sat at the head of the Council board with his valient peers, the intrepid Bailie Reoch and Bailie Newton, snapped his fingers at the huge bugbear, and it fled wailing away, discomfited like the spirit of Loda from the spear of Fingal, and was visible no more.”
Source: The Ayrshire Legatees, The Steam-Boat, The Gathering of the West
“Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every page of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for violation of what Government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar train of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our Government the power of defining the divine law.”
“Among all the sutras I have expounded,
Lotus Sutra is the first and foremost!
If you are able to uphold the Lotus Sutra,
it means you are able to uphold the body of a Buddha!”
(LS 11: 3.35)
Lotus Sutra, Chapter 11, Section 3, Paragraph 35”
Source: The Lotus Sutra
“Among all the tests President Obama faced in his first term, his biggest failure was climate change.”
“Among all the viruses on the Earth, the more hazardous virus is human than the coronavirus”
“Among all the viruses on the Earth, the more vulnerable virus is human than the coronavirus”
“Among all the wisdom and facts I learned from Giannon, I also learned the loneliness of incarnation, in which there is inevitably a separation of souls because of the uniqueness of our faces and our experiences. And I learned also the moments when the current of my life joins the current of another life, and I can glimpse for a moment the one flowing body of water we all compose.”
Source: Confessions of a Pagan Nun: A Novel
“Among all the wonderful things we have, we don't seem to have a time to love. And to me that's the fuel, that's the fuel we need to make the engine go.”
“Among all the world's races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.”
“Among all these passionate hearts and all these undoubting minds there was one skeptic. How did he happen to be there? From juxtaposition. The name of this skeptic was Grantaire, and he usually signed with this rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in anything.”
Source: Les Misérables
“Among American citizens, there should be no forgotten men and no forgotten races.”
“Among animals, one has a sense of humor. Humor saves a few steps, it saves years.”
Source: Complete Poems
“Among [Applewhite's] other teachings was the classic cult specialty of developing disdain for anyone outside of the Heaven's Gate commune. Applewhite flattered his would-be alien flock that they were an elite elect far superior to the non-initiated humans whom he considered to be deluded zombies.[...]Applewhite effectively fed his paranoid persecution complex to his followers to ensure blind loyalty to the group and himself while fostering alienation from the mundane world. This paradoxical superior/fearful attitude towards “Them” (i.e., anyone who is not one of “Us”) is one of the simplest means of hooking even the most skeptical curiosity seeker into the solipsistic netherworld of a [mentally unbalanced] leader's insecure and threatened worldview.”
Source: Straight to Hell: 20th Century Suicides
“Among archetypal images, the Sacred Tree is one of the most widely know symbols on Earth. There are few cultures in which the Sacred Tree does not figure: as an image of the cosmos, as a dwelling place of gods or spirits, as a medium of prophecy and knowledge, and as an agent of metamorphoses when the tree is transformed into human or divine form or when it bears a divine or human image as its fruit or flowers.”
“Among artists without talent Marxism will always be popular, since it enables them to blame society for the fact that nobody wants to hear what they have to say.”
Source: The Crystal Bucket
“Among austere men intimacy involves shame--and is something precious.”
“Among Chinese Singaporeans and Malaysians, many hold the belief that when Admiral Cheng Ho landed in Nanyang, he relieved himself in the jungle, and the steaming puddle of shit and piss evolved into the durian tree. To put it less elegantly, the mounds of flesh inside the durian resemble a row of little turds, resting neatly in a boat-shaped husk.”
Source: Durians Are Not the Only Fruit
“Among civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do no labor at all, many of whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times more labour than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so great, that all are often abundantly supplied, and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.”
“Among civilized peoples, especially the very wealthy population of the United States of America, women have become objects of luxury who consume but do not produce.”
Source: Manual of political economy
“Among connoisseurs of chocolate, Cioccolata Savoia was famous. From Torino to Amalfi, experts lauded the family's legendary chocolatiers for fusing the smooth, delicate flavor of Criollo chocolate with Sorrentino and Amalfitano lemons.”
Source: The Chocolatier
“Among creatures born into chaos, a majority will imagine an order, a minority will question the order, and the rest will be pronounced insane.”
“Among curious rubbish you will find sound sense if you look for it. You will find the creed of the people, as shewn in their stories, to be, that wisdom and courage, though weak, may overcome strength, and ignorance, and pride: that the most despised is often the most worthy; that small beginnings lead to great results. You will find perseverance, frugality, and filial piety rewarded; pride, greed and laziness punished... That you may go on acquiring knowledge, selecting the good, and rejecting the evil; that you, like Conal in the story, may gather gold, and escape unharmed from the giant's land, is the earnest wish of your affectionate Kinsman.”
Source: Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Volume 1
“Among DID individuals, the sharing of conscious awareness between alters exists in varying degrees. I have seen cases where there has appeared to be no amnestic barriers between individual alters, where the host and alters appeared to be fully cognizant of each other. On the other hand, I have seen cases where the host was absolutely unaware of any alters despite clear evidence of their presence. In those cases, while the host was not aware of the alters, there were alters with an awareness of the host as well as having some limited awareness of at least a few other alters. So, according to my experience, there is a spectrum of shared consciousness in DID patients. From a therapeutic point of view, while treatment of patients without amnestic barriers differs in some ways from treatment of those with such barriers, the fundamental goal of therapy is the same: to support the healing of the early childhood trauma that gave rise to the dissociation and its attendant alters.
Good DID therapy involves promoting co-consciousness. With co-consciousness, it is possible to begin teaching the patient’s system the value of cooperation among the alters. Enjoin them to emulate the spirit of a champion football team, with each member utilizing their full potential and working together to achieve a common goal.
Returning to the patients that seemed to lack amnestic barriers, it is important to understand that such co-consciousness did not mean that the host and alters were well-coordinated or living in harmony. If they were all in harmony, there would be no “disease.” There would be little likelihood of a need or even desire for psychiatric intervention. It is when there is conflict between the host and/or among alters that treatment is needed.”
“Among doctors in general, I think more than half support what I'm doing.”
“Among doctors, there are also criminals!”
“Among environmentalists sharing two or three beers, the notion is quite common that if only some calamity could wipe out the entire human race, other species might once again have a chance.”
“Among Evangelical Christians, all of whom await the Second Coming of Jesus, there are historically two camps: postmillennialists and premillennialists. For most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most were of the "post" variety, meaning that they expected the Messiah's return after the thousand-year reign of peace. In order to hasten His arrival, they set out to create that harmonious world here and now, fighting for the abolition of slavery, prohibition of alcohol, public education, and women's literacy.
The chaos of the Civil War and industrialization caused many evangelicals to rethink their optimism. They determined that Jesus would actually arrive before the final judgment. Therefore any efforts toward a just society here on earth were futile; what mattered was perfecting one's faith. As historian Randall Balmer writes, these believers "retreated into a theology of despair, one that essentially ceded the temporal world to Satan and his minions.”
Source: The Man Who Quit Money
“Among even the happiest married couples there are always moments of regret.”
“Among famous traitors of history one might mention the weather.”
Source: The varied airs of spring
“Among fifty percent of your married couples, the husband worries very little about what his wife is doing, provided she is doing all he wishes.”
“Among frail, elderly patients, C. diff can be fatal in approximately 5-10%. Some patients with severe C. diff end up losing their colon and have a permanent bag on their side to catch bodily waste, via a procedure known as an ileostomy.”
“Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.”
Source: The collected works of Abraham Lincoln
“Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing; the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear; and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.”
Source: T. S. Eliot: The Man and His Work
“Among friends one remains the same age and in the same place where the friendship began.”
Source: The Hole in the Flag: A Romanian Exile's Story of Return & Revolution
“Among gardeners, enthusiasm and experience rarely exist in equal measures. The beginner dreams of home-grown bouquets and baskets of ripe fruit, the veteran of many seasons has learned to expect slugs, mildew, and frost.”
“Among German historians, there's really not much debate about whether or not Hitler was a social Darwinist. He clearly was drawing on Darwinian ideas.”
“Among giants, try and be a dwarf; among dwarfs, try and be a giant; but among equals, try and be an equal”
“Among God's creatures two, the dog and the guitar, have taken all the sizes and all the shapes, in order not to be separated from the man.”
“Among her other talents were forgetting what she did not like and ignoring what she preferred not to see.”
Source: Beautiful Days
“Among Hindu groups, none has made as great an impact on America as the Vedanta Society.”
Source: The Encyclopedia of American Religions
“Among Hispanics, there is little change in popularity from a grade point average of 1 through 2.5. After 2.5, the gradient turns sharply negative. A Hispanic student with a 4.0 grade point average is the least popular of all Hispanic students, and has 3 fewer friends than a typical white student with a 4.0 grade point average.”