A Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with A. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Archaic societies have lasted so long because they know nothing of the desire to innovate, to grovel before ever-new simulacra. If you change images with each generation, you cannot anticipate historical longevity. Classical Greece and modern Europe typify civilisations stricken by a precocious death, following a greed for metamorphosis and an excessive consumption of gods, and of the surrogates for gods. Ancient China and Egypt wallowed for millennia in a magnificent sclerosis. As did African societies, before contact with the West. They too are threatened, because they have adopted another rhythm. Having lost the monopoly on stagnation, they grow increasingly frantic and will inevitably topple like their models, like those feverish civilisations incapable of lasting more than a dozen centuries. In the future, the peoples who accede to hegemony will enjoy it even less: history in slow motion has inexorably been replaced by history out of breath. Who can help regretting the pharaohs and their Chinese colleagues?
Institutions, societies, civilisations differ in duration and significance, yet all are subject to one and the same law, which decrees that the invincible impulse, the factor of their rise, must sag and settle after a certain time, this decadence corresponding to a slackening of that energiser which is . . . delirium. Compared with periods of expansion, of dementia really, those of decline seem sane and are so, are too much so—which makes them almost as deadly as the others.
A nation that has fulfilled itself, that has expended its talents and exploited the last resources of its genius, expiates such success by producing nothing thereafter. It has done its duty, it aspires to vegetate, but to its cost it will not have the latitude to do so. When the Romans—or what remained of them—sought repose, the Barbarians got under way, en masse. We read in a history of the invasions that the German tribes serving in the Empire’s army and administration assumed Latin names until the middle of the fifth century. After which, Germanic names became a requirement. Exhausted, in retreat on every front, the masters were no longer feared, no longer respected. What was the use of bearing their names? “A fatal somnolence reigned everywhere,” observed Salvian, bittersweet censor of the ancient deliquescence in its final stages.”
“Archbishop - A Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.”
“Archbishop Lefebvre's detractors frequently accuse him of rejecting or defying a General Council of the Church. Such a claim requires a great deal of clarification before it can be proved true or false. Is it claimed, for example, that Mgr. Lefebvre has denied that Vatican II really was a general council; that its documents were not approved by a majority of the Council Fathers and confirmed and promulgated by the Pope? What Archbishop Lefebvre has claimed in fact is that the reforms imposed in the name of the Council constitute an inexcusable breach with Tradition and are destroying the Church. He insists further that the seeds of this process of self-destruction can be found within the Council itself. If what he claims is true, then he is right to reject the post-conciliar reforms and to urge the Faithful to do so; indeed, it would be his duty in conscience to take this step even if it meant, as it has done, that he should decline to accept the clearly expressed wishes of the Pope.”
Source: Archbishop Lefebvre: The truth
“Archbishop Milingo is a good Bishop and his contention that there are satanists in Rome is completely correct. Anybody who is acquainted with the state of affairs in the Vatican in the last 35 years is well aware that the prince of darkness has had and still has his surrogates in the court of St. Peter in Rome.”
“Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated.”
Source: Dirty Truths
“Archduke Franz Ferdinand Found Alive! First World War a Mistake!”
“Arched pillars held up a very high ceiling that echoed with the sounds of footsteps as everyone bustled about their business. They all seemed to know exactly what to do and where to go...”
Source: A Dog in King Arthur’s Court
“Archeology and ecology can go hand in hand.”
“Archeology gives me the chance to see where man has been and lets me question where man is headed.”
“Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people's lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.”
Source: The Age of Innocence
“Archer Hale had taught himself an entire language, but hadn’t had a single person to talk to.
Until me.”
Source: Archer's Voice
“Archer hizo un intento de bajar, pero yo lo detuve.
- Yo voy primero. Si bajo detrás de ti, seguro que te quedarás mirándome las bragas.”
Source: Spell Bound
“Archer?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. Hey, you might be able to take away my magical powers, but the power of sarcasm was still at my disposal. “Is your last name Newport or Vanderbilt? Maybe followed by some numbers? Ooh!” I said, widening my eyes, “or maybe even Esquire!”
I’d hoped to hurt his feelings or, at the very least, make him angry, but he just kept smiling at me. “Actually, it’s Archer Cross, and I’m the first one. Now what about you?” He squinted. “Let’s see . . . brown hair, freckles, whole girl-next-door vibe going on . . . Allie? Lacie? Definitely something cutesy ending in ie.”
You know those times when your mouth moves but no sound actually comes out? Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened. And then, of course, my mom took that opportunity to end her conversation with Justin’s parents and call out, “Sophie! Wait up.”
“I knew it.” Archer laughed. “See you, Sophie,” he called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the house.”
Source: Hex Hall
“Archer is it hot anymore," I'd fired back. "He tried to kill me, and his girlfriend is Satan.”
“Archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock if it were left undisturbed.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)
“Archer turned back to me, and that familiar grin flashed over his face. “Come on, Mercer. Me, you, the cellar. What could go wrong?”
Source: Spell Bound
“Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)
“Archer wouldn't consider her allowance of the guard to be evidence of the powers of rational argument. He'd take it as proof that she was in love with whichever of her guards was the most handsome.”
Source: Fire
“Archer, is there a servant girl in my fortress you haven't taken to bed? I announce you're leaving and within minutes two of them are at each other's throats, and another is crying her eyes out in the scullery. Honestly. You've been here all of nine days." - Roen, "Fire”
Source: Fire
“Archers are pretty focused.”
“Archers ever Have two strings to bow; and shall great Cupid (Archer of archers both in men and women), Be worse provided than a common archer?”
Source: The Works of George Chapman: Plays
“Archery is something that I took up later and didn't know I had a natural aptitude for.”
“Archery, fencing, spear fighting, all of the martial arts, tea ceremony, flower arranging...in all of these, correct breathing, correct balance, and correct stillness help to remake the individual. The basic aim is always the same: by tirelessly practicing a given skill, the student finally sheds the ego with its fears, worldly ambitions, and reliance on objective scrutiny - sheds it so completely that he becomes the instrument of a deeper power, from which mastery falls instinctively, without further effort on his part, like a ripe fruit.”
“Archetypes are always [in my film-making]. It's sometimes interesting to just flip them a little bit and see the underside.”
“Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.”
“Archetypes resemble the beds of rivers: dried up because the water has deserted them, though it may return at any time. An archetype is something like an old watercourse along which the water of life flowed for a time, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it flowed the deeper the channel, and the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return.”
“Archetypes, in spite of their conservative nature, are not static but in a continuous dramatic flux. Thus the self as a monad or continuous unit would be dead. But it lives inasmuch as it splits and unites again. There is no energy without opposites!”
“Archie asked me if I knew Dante's definition of hell..."Proximity without intimacy," he said.”
Source: The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing
“Archie became absolutely still, afraid that the rapid beating of his heart might betray his sudden knowledge, the proof of what he'd always suspected, not only of Brother Leon but most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion.”
Source: The Chocolate War
“Archie Bunker used to call me 'the laziest white kid he'd ever met.'”
“Archie Henderson has won no awards, written no books and never played any representative sport. He was an under-11 tournament-winning tennis player as a boy, but left the game when he discovered rugby where he was one of the worst flyhalves he can remember. This did not prevent him from having opinions on most things in sport.
His moment of glory came in 1970 when he predicted—correctly as it turned out—that Griquas would beat the Blue Bulls (then still the meekly named Noord-Transvaal) in the Currie Cup final. It is something for which he has never been forgiven by the powers-that-be at Loftus. Archie has played cricket in South Africa and India and gave the bowling term military medium a new and more pacifist interpretation. His greatest ambition was to score a century on Llandudno beach before the tide came in.”
“Archie says books are our best lovers and our most provoking friends.”
Source: Lost For Words
“Archie was an expert at dividing the affairs of life into men's business and women's business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man's business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman.”
Source: The Shipping News: A Novel
“Archie wasn't waiting for her at the attic. She didn't consider that. He was
probably giving her time to set and collect a trap, about a week or so as she guessed, a testing period. He couldn't trust her just yet, but she could tell that there was also more to it. He needed to distance himself, from her, because he was afraid to love her. That was it. Loving her was his flaw, weakness, and he could not have a weakness, not while at war. He wouldn't show up, not for some time. She knew that. The longer it would take for him to come back, the more he loved her.”
Source: Presence
“Archimedes constructing his circle pays with his life for his defective biological adaptation to immediate circumstances.”
Source: Knowledge and Error: Sketches on the Psychology of Enquiry
“Archimedes had stated, that given the force, any given weight might be moved; and even boasted that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this.”
Source: Plutarch's Lives
“Archimedes once said that 'Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth.' There is a much more difficult task than this: To try to lift an ignorant up from where he stands, because he is heavily chained to the stupidity!”
“Archimedes said Eureka, Cos in English he weren't too aversed in, when he discovered that the volume of a body in the bath, is equal to the stuff it is immersed in, That is the law of displacement, Thats why ships don't sink, Its a shame he weren't around in 1912, The Titanic would have made him think.”
“Archimedes to Eratosthenes greeting. ... certain things first became clear to me by a mechanical method, although they had to be demonstrated by geometry afterwards because their investigation by the said method did not furnish an actual demonstration. But it is of course easier, when we have previously acquired by the method, some knowledge of the questions, to supply the proof than it is to find it without any previous knowledge.”
“Archimedes was my ideal. I admired the works of artists, but to my mind, they were only shadows and semblances. The inventor, I thought, gives to the world creations which are palpable, which live and work.”
Source: Simpozij Nikola Tesla: u okviru programa proslave 120. obljetnice rođenja Nikole Tesle : Zagreb, Smiljan, Gospić, 7-10. jula 1976
“Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. "Immortality" may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean.”
“Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, these three, are in a class by
themselves among the great mathematicians, and it is not for
ordinary mortals to attempt to range them in order of merit.”
Source: Men of Mathematics
“Archimedes, that he might transport the entire globe ... demanded only a point that was firm and immovable; so also, I shall be entitled to entertain the highest expectations, if I am fortunate enough to discover only one thing that is certain and indubitable.”
Source: Discourse On Method, Meditations And Principles: Descartes : Discourse On Method
“Architect is the father of all artists”
“Architect of imagination, it's a mental elevation for all around us is physical creation of a delicate thought.”
Source: The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey
“Architect's designs must refer to the unquestionable perfection of the body's symmetry and proportions. If a building is to create a sense of eurythmia, it is essential that it mirrors these natural laws of harmony and beauty”
“Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.”
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
“Architect: Someone who knows the difference between that which could be done and that which should be done.”
“Architects and engineers are among the most fortunate of men since they build their own monuments with public consent, public approval and often public money.”
Source: Disaster at Dundee
“Architects and painters know precisely what they are about as long as they deal with material phenomena.... But when they come to the aesthetics of their work, when they aim at a particular effect on the mind or on the senses, the rules dissolve into nothing but vague ideas.”
Source: On War