A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Antireligious bigotry is not confined to the classroom.”
“Antisappointment. Anticipation colliding head-on with the certainty of its own doom.”
“Antisemitism is just another form of racism. It's the same sickness, whether it's about Christians, about Islamophobia, which is horrible. It's all wrong. It's all the same.”
“Antisemitism is unique among religious hatreds. It is a racist conspiracy theory fashioned for the needs of messianic and brutal rulers, as dictators from the Tsars to the Islamists via the Nazis have shown. Many other alleged religious 'hatreds' are not hatreds in the true sense. If I criticise Islamic, Orthodox Jewish or Catholic attitudes towards women, for instance, and I'm accused of being a bigot, I shrug and say it is not bigoted to oppose bigotry.”
“Antisemitism, for instance, is simply not the doctrine of a grown-up person.”
Source: The Complete Works of George Orwell: I have tried to tell the truth, 1943-1944
“Antiseptic Awakening by Stewart Stafford
See the rainbow spattered
With dark blood moon juice.
This creeping haemorrhage,
A lacerated spectrum merged.
Bruised trickles not halting,
Violations in crimson stealth.
Impotent, alleged lifeforms,
Ashen foot-dragging below.
Casually surrendered hues,
The arterial strain's zenith.
No colour in cheek nor sky,
Bleached by antiseptic snow.
© 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
“Antiseptic Human (Sonnet 2299)
Some faces, some names, some ideas,
instantly ruin a bigot's day.
I'm flattered, that the very thought of me
stings like antiseptic on fanatic skin.
I'm flattered to belong to a race,
that causes heartburn to the heartless.
I'm flattered to belong to a religion,
that causes brain-damage to the brainless.
What is my race, you ask -
what is my religion!
That is indeed a fair question,
yet palpable, the answer is not!
A race rooted in rights not ritual,
I belong to the Race called Human.
A faith centered on people not doctrine,
I belong to the Order of Integration.”
Source: Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
“Antisocial personality disorder does not equate to psychopathy. Although most individuals with psychopathy would qualify for an antisocial personality disorder diagnosis, the converse is not true. Many more individuals qualify for an antisocial personality disorder diagnosis than have psychopathy.”
Source: Psychopathy: A Very Short Introduction
“Antistatic devices (ASD) are commonly used in many industries and may present a health hazard to those who work with these.”
Source: Electrical Forensics
“Antisthenes' learning from Socrates came to an end in the spring of 399 B.C., when Socrates was tried and executed. The charge was irreligiosity, which implied, as pointed out earlier, a lack of respect or fearlessness. He did not have the fear, respect, and reverential awe ( crif3ac;) toward the laws and their foundation-the gods-that were expected of law-abiding citizens. At least in word, he had challenged the structure of the State and, worse still, had taught others to do like-wise, according to the affidavit submitted by the prosecutors. He had stood apart from the people and had seldom taken part in their political affairs. He had shown little respect for Homer and other epic poets, from whom people learned their moral values. He had set up himself as a monarch and had claimed access to a secret voice that guided his conduct. For this, the Athenians found him guilty and sentenced him to die by hemlock poisoning. To make things worse, he had defended himself in what was an unusual way, neither asking for mercy nor producing his family before the jurors nor giving any indications of wanting to reach an accommodation nor showing consternation at the prospect of death.
Socrates' execution must have had a profound impact on his associates. From Plato's seventh letter, for instance, we learn how it affected his assessment of the Athenian polity and, in fact, of every other polity. All human political and social arrangements, Plato concluded (Epist. 7.325d-326a), were almost beyond repair and could not be helped except by some miraculous plan and a streak of good luck. Later on, he would insist on the necessity of casting aside all existing political and social arrangements in order to undertake the task of reforming them as if on a new canvass, because those used hitherto were useless. Like an artist bent on correcting a painting full of flaws, who eventually decides to discard it, Plato envisioned the possibility of recreating society on a new foundation. His political dialogues, the Republic and the Laws, are the literary testament of his aspirations.
Antisthenes, however, appears not to have sheltered such aspirations. The human world, which according to Plato was "almost beyond repair," was for Antisthenes truly beyond repair and there was nothing to do about it, except to tear it down, and Socrates' execution provided irrefutable evidence for this. Socrates had practiced what the Athenians regarded as an inviolable right-n:appfJ”
Source: Antisthenes of Athens: Setting the World Aright
“Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.”
“Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.”
“Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust. Envy of others comes from comparing what they have with what the envious person has, rather than the envious person realising they have more than what they could have and certainly more than some others and being grateful. It is really just an inability to get a correct perspective on their lives.”
“Antisthenes was not the first to differ significantly from the Hesiodic assessment of work. Rather, his proposition that ponos is a good rather than an unwelcome punishment was preceded by the emergence of an "industrious optimism" especially after the late fifth century. Optimistic man sets himself above environmental forces and asserts himself in the world as an indomitable force. Rather than accepting a god-given lot, he dares to "take fate by the throat." Rather than plodding the old furrows, he strikes out in a new direction, gives himself new tasks, implements his own plans, accepts his own failures. Some are more driven than others. The most ambitious impose upon themselves the greatest tasks and work incessantly for success. Some terrible restlessness goads these imperialists on, and as they hunt victory relentlessly they stamp down the weak and scoff at talk of justice. What do they want? It is hard to tell, since no success seems to satisfy them. Each triumph inspires new undertakings, each disaster resilient hope. They seem to toil on without end, as if human desire itself were infinite.”
Source: The Greek Praise of Poverty: Origins of Ancient Cynicism
“Antithesis is the narrow gateway through which error most prefers to worm its way towards truth.”
“Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root. CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon; Or, Many Things in a Few Words Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer; for it prevents those disorders which other remedies sometimes cure, but sometimes confirm.”
“Antitrust has become a legal backwater in recent decades. But the curse of bigness is back, and antitrust enforcement must come back with it, updated to perform its original, republican function: protecting the independence of the American people from oligarchic control.”
“Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.”
“Antitrust law isn't about protecting competing businesses from each other, it's about protecting competition itself on behalf of the public.”
“Antitrust laws ought to be deployed, not against business, but to bust this two-party monopoly, which subverts competition in government and rewards the colluding quislings with sinecures in perpetuity.”
“Antiwar protestors actually sabotaged and caused a huge amount of damage to military installations and military property during the war. I'm related to someone who caused some of that damage. I mean, it was real. I mean, there was a reason. I'm not defending it, but I'm saying it was not because they didn't like the politics of the protesters. The protesters were violent in a lot of cases.”
“Antiwhite racism is developing in sections of our cities where individuals - some of whom have French nationality - contemptuously designate French people as gaulois on the pretext they don't share the same religion, color or origins.”
“Antoine knows it is imperative that he wins. But he cannot remember why. Everything before this fight has faded into a distant and irretrievable past.”
Source: Undercard
“Antoine St. Exupery once mourned the loss of a man and the secret treasures that he held inside him. I loved Exupery; I will read him again, and he will talk to me, not being dead, or gone. Is that life after death — mind living on paper and flesh living in offspring? Maybe. I do not know.”
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“Anton brings the camera. I'll bring a tuba, wear black, not shave, and take us to a burned-down Chinese restaurant. (On being photographed by his longtime photo collaborator Anton Corbijn)”
“Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed.”
Source: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
“Anton does not have a need to give our home a touch of anything British. This British man living in this house, with his blind devotion to—his love affair with—not the Orient, but his idea of the Orient, colored by its history, its culture, its underdog-now-having-its-revenge role in world affairs, is all the British this house ever needs.”
Source: Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official
“Anton Pannekoek didn't encourage radical workers and other activists of the anti-Bolshevik left to see revolutionary potential in his work in astronomy, for the simple reason that he was honest, and knew there was none to speak of.”
“Antonia, por supuesto, es una firme creyente en el ateísmo. Que es otra forma de religión, sólo que más barata”
Source: Reina roja
“Antonia Valleau cast the first shovelful of dirt onto her husband’s fur-shrouded body, lying in the grave she’d dug in their garden plot, the only place where the soil wasn’t still rock hard. I won’t be breakin’ down. For the sake of my children, I must be strong. Pain squeezed her chest like a steel trap. She had to force herself to take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of loam and pine. I must be doing this.
She drove the shovel into the soil heaped next to the grave, hefted the laden blade, and dumped the earth over Jean-Claude, trying to block out the thumping sound the soil made as it covered him. Even as Antonia scooped and tossed, her muscles aching from the effort, her heart stayed numb, and her mind kept playing out the last sight of her husband. The memory haunting her, she paused to catch her breath and wipe the sweat off her brow, her face hot from exertion in spite of the cool spring air.
Antonia touched the tips of her dirty fingers to her lips. She could still feel the pressure of Jean-Claude’s mouth on hers as he’d kissed her before striding out the door for a day of hunting. She’d held up baby Jacques, and Jean-Claude had tapped his son’s nose. Jacques had let out a belly laugh that made his father respond in kind. Her heart had filled with so much love and pride in her family that she’d chuckled, too.
Stepping outside, she’d watched Jean-Claude ruffle the dark hair of their six-year-old, Henri. Then he strode off, whistling, with his rifle carried over his shoulder. She’d thought it would be a good day—a normal day. She assumed her husband would return to their mountain home in the afternoon before dusk as he always did, unless he had a longer hunt planned.
As Antonia filled the grave, she denied she was burying her husband. Jean-Claude be gone a checkin’ the trap line, she told herself, flipping the dirt onto his shroud.
She moved through the nightmare with leaden limbs, a knotted stomach, burning dry eyes, and a throat that felt as though a log had lodged there. While Antonia shoveled, she kept glancing at her little house, where, inside, Henri watched over the sleeping baby. From the garden, she couldn’t see the doorway.
She worried about her son—what the glimpse of his father’s bloody body had done to the boy. Mon Dieu, she couldn’t stop to comfort him. Not yet. Henri had promised to stay inside with the baby, but she didn’t know how long she had before Jacques woke up.
Once she finished burying Jean-Claude, Antonia would have to put her sons on a mule and trek to where she’d found her husband’s body clutched in the great arms of the dead grizzly. She wasn’t about to let his last kill lie there for the animals and the elements to claim. Her family needed that meat and the fur.
She heard a sleepy wail that meant Jacques had awakened. Just a few more shovelfuls. Antonia forced herself to hurry, despite how her arms, shoulders, and back screamed in pain.
When she finished the last shovelful of earth, exhausted, Antonia sank to her knees, facing the cabin, her back to the grave, placing herself between her sons and where their father lay. She should go to them, but she was too depleted to move.”
Source: Healing Montana Sky
“Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realise how widespread envy was.”
Source: Love Over Scotland
“Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realize how widespread envy was.”
Source: Love Over Scotland
“Antonin Artaud wrote on one of his drawings, "Never real and always true," and that is how depression feels. You know that it is not real, that you are someone else, and yet you know that it is absolutely true.”
Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas Of Depression
“Antonin Scalia and Donald Trump both. They love the country. They do not understand people who don't. They would love that everybody else loved the country. But it's not gonna happen.”
“Antonin Scalia knows that freedom of speech has consequences. And the consequences of freedom of speech are speech you don't like, that you don't want to hear, that you don't want to listen to.”
“Antonin Scalia was saying, and Donald Trump knows this as well, the answer to it is not to punish people, to shut 'em up, to put 'em in jail. The answer is more speech. If there's some clown burning the flag, drape yourself in the flag and go run around right in the guy's face and start telling him how much you love America. Donald Trump's not gonna put anybody in jail. He's not gonna strip their citizenship. This is how Donald Trump tells people what he thinks about it.”
“Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”
Source: The Modern Library Essential World History 4-Book Bundle: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged); Montcalm and Wolfe; History of the Conquest of Mexico; The Naval War of 1812
“Antonio Bolivar Salvador has an incredible story because he's one of the last Ocaina people left. The Ocaina people are - and the Ocaina language is basically about to disappear in this generation. You know, there are very few people that speak it. And he's one of them.”
“Antonio Gramsci said that social reformers should have pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will. This means that one must have the intellectual ability to see how bad things are and the emotional ability to look forward with hope. It's a hard combination to sustain, but if you can do it, you can change the world.”
“Antonio looked down, silent, as Shillitoni kept talking. There he was, among cold-blooded killers, talking to a gangster. A much different picture than a year prior.
“Can’t trust priests, can’t trust cops either. Can’t trust nobody! Whaddaya say?”
“I am not like you,” Antonio said. “I’m not like them, either. That’s what I say. I am not a cold-blooded killer!”
“Ya killed, you a killa! There’s not’ng more to it!” Shillitoni said.”
Source: Antonio's Will
“Antonio
Olalla, me has dado indicio
que tienes de bronce el alma
y el blanco pecho de risco.
Mas allá entre tus reproches
y honestísimos desvíos,
tal vez la esperanza muestra
la orilla de su vestido.
Abalánzase al señuelo
mi fe, que nunca ha podido,
ni menguar por no llamado,
ni crecer por escogido.
Si el amor es cortesía,
de la que tienes colijo
que el fin de mis esperanzas
ha de ser cual imagino.
Y si son servicios parte
de hacer un pecho benigno,
algunos de los que he hecho
fortalecen mi partido.
Porque si has mirado en ello,
más de una vez habrás visto
que me he vestido en los lunes
lo que me honraba el domingo.
Como el amor y la gala
andan un mesmo camino,
en todo tiempo a tus ojos
quise mostrarme polido.
Dejo el bailar por tu causa,
ni las músicas te pinto
que has escuchado a deshoras
y al canto del gallo primo.
No cuento las alabanzas
que de tu belleza he dicho;
que, aunque verdaderas, hacen
ser yo de algunas malquisto.
Teresa del Berrocal,
yo alabándote, me dijo:
\'\'Tal piensa que adora a un ángel,
y viene a adorar a un jimio;
merced a los muchos dijes
87
y a los cabellos postizos,
y a hipócritas hermosuras,
que engañan al Amor mismo\'\'.
Desmentíla y enojóse;
volvió por ella su primo:
desafióme, y ya sabes
lo que yo hice y él hizo.
No te quiero yo a montón,
ni te pretendo y te sirvo
por lo de barraganía;
que más bueno es mi designio.
Coyundas tiene la Iglesia
que son lazadas de sirgo;
pon tú el cuello en la gamella;
verás como pongo el mío.
Donde no, desde aquí juro,
por el santo más bendito,
de no salir destas sierras
sino para capuchino.”
Source: Don Quixote
“Antonio se incorporó entonces del suelo, y acercó despacio sus labios a los de Julie; esperaba que le diera permiso ella para besarla. Al no apartarse de él, introdujo su lengua en su boca, acariciándola delicadamente, y sus manos rebuscaron debajo del camisón hasta que encontró lo que buscaba entre sus piernas. Ella estaba desconcertada, y a pesar de haber disfrutado con su marido de los placeres del sexo, en ninguna de esas ocasiones le había causado tal efecto en su ser. Pensó por un momento que debía ser el diablo quién le estaba tentando, pero le resultaba muy difícil resistirse.”
Source: Un viaje al pasado
“Antonio spotted the owner, Signora DelAbate, who was coating the sides of a Trionfo di Gola cake with chopped pistachios. Trionfo di Gola, or Triumph of Gluttony was a very old cake recipe passed down from nuns over the centuries. The batter was divided among three different-sized round cake pans. After the individual cakes were baked, filling was spread on top of each layer, and then they were stacked one on top of the other. Once the cake was assembled, it was then frosted with marzipan paste, and the finishing touch was the coating of the chopped pistachios around the cake. The cake's tall, pyramid shape gave it a unique, impressive appearance. Rosalia had wanted to make a cake that was more elaborate than a typical wedding cake.”
Source: Rosalia's Bittersweet Pastry Shop
“Antonio was fascinated by Isabel's razor-sharp knives from Japan. He made 'kia' sounds like a karate expert as he sliced the tomatoes and added them to the pan. there were some unexpected ingredients, things Tess would never dream of putting in tomato sauce- whole star anise, a vanilla bean split down the middle, a sprinkling of sugar, a sprig of thyme and bay leaves from the herb garden.”
Source: The Apple Orchard
“Antonio- "Just in time, Pete. Five more minutes of reading this and she'd have been in a coma." Peter- "Are we such bad company that you'd rather hide out in here reading that old thing?”
Source: Bitten
“Antonio: Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you? Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.”
Source: Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will
“Antray (obstacles) are created by speaking completely negatively; and 'positive' does not create obstacles.”
Source: Simple & Effective Science for Self Realization
“Antropologlar, yaşam biçimlerimizin, inandığımız değerlerin, mümkün olan yegâne yaşam biçimleri ve değerler olmadığını; başka yaşam tarzlarının, başka değer sistemlerinin de insan topluluklarının mutluluğa ulaşmasına imkân vermiş olduğunu ve hâlâ da vermeye devam ettiğini kanıtlamaya çalışırlar. Dolayısıyla antropoloji, böbürlenmelerimize gem vurmaya, başka yaşam tarzlarına saygı duymaya, bizi şaşırtan, şoke eden ya da tiksindiren başka usulleri öğrenmek suretiyle kendimizi sorgulamaya çağırır bizleri.
...
Antropoloğun kendine özgü kültürler arasındaki farklara gösterdiği dikkat ve duyduğu saygı, yaklaşımının özünü oluşturur.”
Source: Antropologia si problemele lumii moderne
“Antropoloji başka hiçbir bilim dalının olmadığı kadar karşılaştırmaya dayalı ve holistik (bütüncül) bir bilimdir. Holizm insan olmayı her yönüyle incelemeye karşılık gelen bir tabirdir: geçmiş, şu an ve gelecek; biyoloji, toplum, dil ve kültür.
(...)
Diğer sosyal bilimler, genellikle Birleşik Devletler veya Kanada gibi tek bir sanayileşmiş topluma odaklanırlar. Antropoloji ise devamlı olarak bir toplumun âdetlerini bir başka toplumla karşılaştırarak eşsiz bir kültürlerarası bakış açısı sağlar.”
Source: Anthropology: Appreciating Human Diversity