A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“An unaspiring person believes according to what he achieves. An aspiring person achieves according to what he believes.”
“An unattended husband is always a bad thing...”
Source: Mother Land
“An unattended mind is the breeding ground of self-defeat.”
“An unauthentic word, one which is unable to transform reality, results when dichotomy is imposed upon its constitutive elements. When a word is deprived of its dimension of action, reflection automatically suffers as well; and the word is changed into idle chatter, into verbalism, into an alienated and alienating “blah.” It becomes an empty word, one which cannot denounce the world, for denunciation is impossible without a commitment to transform, and there is no transformation without action.”
“An unawakened person sees only his mind, which is merely a reflection of the light of pure consciousness arising from the Heart.”
“An unbalanced soul seeks equilibrium. I seek a constitutional form to gather my thoughts. I wish to form a flexible personality. I desire to be gentle and fluid of mind. I wish to summon hidden personal powers, but I lack the knowledge and wisdom to do so. I lack a cohesive unifying spirit. I have yet to claim the authenticity of my life. I failed to accept that what anyone else thinks of me would not stave off an inevitable death. I have not claimed a purpose for living. I have not found a basic truth that I can live and die supporting. I failed to exert the resolute will to become who I aspire to be. I rejected abstract concepts and failed to endorse the systematic reasoning of philosophical studies. I indulged in the type of obsessive excessive self-analysis, which leads to the brink of personal destruction through self-objectification and artificial triumphs. Echoing the words of Romanian philosopher and writer E.M. Cioran (1911-1995), ‘I’ve invented nothing; I’ve simply been the secretary of my sensations.”
Source: Dead Toad Scrolls
“An unbearable reality, combined with the impossibility to change it, tends to lead to abstractions for abstraction's sake, and unreality becomes more realistic than reality itself, more true, more convincing, simply because it looks at you with the eyes of justice.”
Source: White Dog
“An unbearable smug look came over his usually impassive face."Uh-huh. You just keep telling youself that. You looove me." I took a swing at him, but he jumped back nimbly, and all I did was jar my left arm, making it hurt. He laughed at me, then pointed at the woods ouside the window."Pick a tree. I'll go carve our initials in it.”
“An unbearable unhappiness can make a young person unbelievably mature! Pain is a yeast; anyone whose soul is injected with this yeast transforms into something hard, just like a milk turning into a cheese!”
“an unbearably tense and disorienting paradox that underscores everyday life in a working-class environment—on the one hand it’s an abrasive and in-your-face world, yet, at the same time, much of it seems extrinsic and is perpetually uninvolving. One is relentlessly overwhelmed and understimulated all at the same time.”
Source: Checkout 19
“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.”
Source: East of Eden
“An unbending and absolute acceptance of any idea is a sure sign of a small mind, no matter the greatness of intellect possesed by the one accepting that idea.”
“An unborn baby in the mother’s womb is the pinnacle of all the arts. And when that baby enters the world, a living masterpiece is born—before whom even the finest creations appear mediocre.”
“An unbreakable mask and cunning are the keys for executing a plan flawlessly.”
Source: Eyes
“An Unbreakable Vow?" said Ron, looking stunned. "Nah, he can’t have.... Are you sure?" "Yes I’m sure," said Harry. "Why, what does it mean?" "Well, you can’t break an Unbreakable Vow..." "I’d worked that much out for myself, funnily enough.”
“An unbroken horse erects his mane, paws the ground and starts back impetuously at the sight of the bridle; while one which is properly trained suffers patiently even whip and spur: so savage man will not bend his neck to the yoke to which civilised man submits without a murmur, but prefers the most turbulent state of liberty to the most peaceful slavery. We cannot therefore, from the servility of nations already enslaved, judge of the natural disposition of mankind for or against slavery; we should go by the prodigious efforts of every free people to save itself from oppression. I know that the former are for ever holding forth in praise of the tranquillity they enjoy in their chains, and that they call a state of wretched servitude a state of peace: miserrimam servitutem pacem appellant. But when I observe the latter sacrificing pleasure, peace, wealth, power and life itself to the preservation of that one treasure, which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see free-born animals dash their brains out against the bars of their cage, from an innate impatience of captivity; when I behold numbers of naked savages, that despise European pleasures, braving hunger, fire, the sword and death, to preserve nothing but their independence, I feel that it is not for slaves to argue about liberty.”
“An unbroken series of short-term successes can still amount to a long-term failure.”
“An unceasing interrogation of the stories told to us by the schools now felt essential. It felt wrong not to ask why, and then to ask it again. I took these questions to my father, who very often refused to offer an answer, and instead referred me to more books. My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers—even the answers they themselves believed. I don’t know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers of my own. But every time I ask it, the question is refined. That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being “politically conscious”—as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty.”
Source: Between the World and Me
“An unceasingly grateful life can easily heal from the wounds of hurt and setback. It can also easily shed resentment, hate, and bitterness…”
Source: The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For continued success in leadership
“An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.”
Source: Contempt
“An uncertain warrior is no warrior at all.”
Source: Forest Child
“An unchangeable colour rules over the melancholic: his dwelling is a space the colour of mourning. Nothing happens in it. No one intrudes. It is a bare stage where the inert I is assisted by the I suffering from that inertia. The latter wishes to free the former, but all efforts fail, as Theseus would have failed had he been not only himself but also the Minotaur; to kill him then, he would have had to kill himself”
“An unchurched christian is a grotesque anomaly. The New Testament knows nothing of such a person. For the church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought. It is not an accident of history. On the contrary, the church is God's new community.”
Source: The Living Church
“An uncle gave me a side drum and my mother decided I should have lessons.”
“An uncle of mine emigrated to Canada and couldn't take his guitar with him. When I found it in the attic, I'd found a friend for life.”
“An uncomfortable feeling is not an enemy. It's a gift that says, "Get honest; inquire." We reach out for alcohol, or television, or credit cards, so we can focus out there and not have to look at the feeling. And that's as it should be, because in our innocence we haven't known how. So now what we can do is reach out for a paper and a pencil, write thought down, and investigate.”
“An uncommon commoner. His knees imprint the floor with a sacred dance of surrender. As he bows before the Father, miracles render him a man of wonder.”
Source: A Man of Valour: Idioms and Epigrams
“An uncomplicated woman gets complicated when she finally says what she means.”
Source: The Do-Over
“An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment.”
“An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.”
Source: Moyers on Democracy
“An unconscious, gentle process whereby people who want to be loving attempt to be so by telling little white lies, by withholding some of the truth about themselves and their feelings in order to avoid conflict. Pseudocommunity is conflict-avoiding; true community is conflict-resolving.”
Source: The Different Drum: Community-making and peace
“An uncontrollable need to feed and pass along her infection had become her sole priority.”
Source: The Manhattanville Incident: An Undead Novel
“An uncontrolled imagination may become as surely intoxicated by overindulgence as a toper may do bodily with strong drink.”
“An uncontrolled sense of humor is often costly in business.”
“An undefined goal is unreachable.”
“An undemocratic government uses its weapon against its own people. Democratic governments do that to other nations.”
Source: The New Land
“An undeniable truth is that while Obama and Pelosi and George Soros and whoever else tell you and me to get off oil, they won't - they're the elites. They're smarter, they're running the world, and they have to be able to get to where they have to go.”
“An underachievement reversal plan is not just important; it's the backbone of the reversal process. It not only guides the direction but also establishes clear priorities.”
“An underachiever's potential is a melody waiting to be played; with the right notes of motivation and self-confidence, they can compose the symphony of their dreams.”
“An underachiever's potential is the unexplored landscape within; with the compass of encouragement and the map of self-belief, they can embark on a journey of self-discovery.”
“An underachieving person’s potential is sometimes like a sleeping seed, waiting for the right conditions to grow into the vibrant flower it can be.”
“An underachieving person’s potential is sometimes like an undiscovered gem that need to be found and polished to shine brightly.”
“An underestimated element in poetry, that reading aloud makes clear, is the pause. I mean especially the force of a pause or a couple of pauses close together, contrasted with a longer unit of grammar.”
“An undergraduate researching the "witch hunt" cases asked for evidence that there had been more than one hundred cases, noting that the major lists of such cases added up to about fifty. There was no reply that provided documentation to support the claim.[34] The members of the list were generally strong proponents of the witch-hunt narrative. They knew the answer to the question “Is there a child sex abuse witch hunt?” These “witch hunters,” as those on this list soon came to describe themselves, were increasingly activists who used the internet to exchange information and ideas. Jonathan Harris may have done more than anyone else to disseminate the witch-hunt narrative in the mid 1990s and beyond.[35]”
Source: The Witch-Hunt Narrative: Politics, Psychology, and the Sexual Abuse of Children
“An underground hit didn't make any money and it cost a dollar to get in.”
“An Underground Railroad story with a distinctive flavor. –Booklist”
Source: Running Out of Night
“An underlying question for many people is "what kind of person do you want to be" in their new expression of gender. There is a need for more diverse expressions of "manhood" and "womanhood," "girlhood" and "boyhood" for everyone in culture. Right now there is a story that to become a man or a woman you must act, talk, walk, and dress a certain way. The belief that people of certain genders have to behave in specific ways invalidates people as a whole, trans and non-trans alike.
This becomes a call for healthy gender expressions to be modeled for all children. Parents as well as other adults need to model and encourage everyone to be their best, healthiest, self. We get to move beyond our current culture that belittles girls for pursuing intellectual passions, or boys for expressing emotions; a culture that conflates masculinity with abusive behavior, and femininity with victimhood. Examining these issues creates an opportunity to craft a world where people of any gender expression to explore everything they are passionate about, engage with their emotions, and express themselves fully; a world transformed for our children to live without abuse, regardless of our path in life.”
Source: Traversing Gender: Understanding Transgender Realities
“An understandable hunger for potential clients tempts many [career counseling therapists] to overpromise, like creative writing teachers who, out of greed or sentimentality, sometimes imply that all of their students could one day produce worthwhile literature, rather than frankly acknowledging the troubling truth, anathema to a democratic society, that the great writer, like the contented worker, remains an erratic and anomalous event, immune to the methods of factory farming.”
“An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough.”
Source: The development of personality
“An understanding is perhaps better than an alliance, which may stereotype arrangements which cannot be regarded as permanent in view of the changing circumstances from day to day.”