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B Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All B Quotes

“Before the Second World War I believed in the perfectibility of social man; that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill; and that therefore you could remove all social ills by a reorganisation of society. .... but after the war I did not because I was unable to. I had discovered what one man could do to another... I must say that anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head...”

“Before the Tigers, or the other clans, or the eras before, the algorithms, the megacorps, the nations, the empires, all the way back to the first city-states--- no ruler has looked after our people, they have had to look out for one another. It is why Shantiport continues to exist, against all logic, and that's the spirit that we have to find a way to channel. No system works, no authority is benevolent, no promise is kept. When the megastorms and floods come, when the genocides come, and the famines and diseases, the rest of the world will not even bother to look, let alone help. If they know about us it is a a symbol of poverty, or decay, or despair. But despite all this, sometimes clusters of people emerge, however flawed, who build institutions and culturewaves larger than themselves.”

“Before the twentieth century, to be a widow was perhaps to be in the most potent of a woman's life stages. For the first time, a widow was answerable to no one. For the first time, she could own property. For all women other than the queen, a woman's worldly goods, and even her children, had up to that point been not hers but her father's or husband's.”

“Before the ubiquity of the traditional schooling system, it was the families that fulfilled this role. The nuclear family and single parents that stay in smaller households was the exception rather than the norm. Family members tended to stay together in one area. This meant in one homestead there were grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts and so on. This in turn created a strong supportive environment”

“Before the United States, there wasn't really anyplace anybody could go. They had to seek refuge in other ways. After the United States was founded, it became the place you go, and the people who came assimilated into a single culture that was shared in a way. Everything the left claims to want is exactly what this country started out doing. It was multicultural, we had the Italians, we had the Irish, we had everybody.”

“Before the war it had seemed incredible that such terrors and slaughters, even if they began, could last more than a few months. After the first two years it was difficult to believe that they would ever end.”

“Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark and the eyes more bright and the lips more scarlet, or ask if all be right from mirror after mirror, no vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had before the world was made. What if I look upon a man as though on my beloved, and my blood be cold the while and my heart unmoved? Why should he think me cruel or that he is betrayed? I'd have him love the thing that was before the world was made.”

“Before the world was made, when it was only darkness and mist and waters, God was well aware of Lake Wobegon, my family, our house, and He had me all sketched out down to what size my feet would be (big), which bike I would ride (Schwinn), and the five ears of corn I'd eat for supper that night.”