B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But although life is not energy, any more than it is matter, yet it directs energy and thereby controls arrangements of matter.”
Source: Raymond Revised: A New Abbreviated Edition of
“But although my body constantly reminded me that it was starving, the voices inside my mind never gave me permission to satisfy my hunger. At times, I would get affected when people passed statements like, “Why can’t you just eat?”
However, I convinced myself that the only person who could understand anorexia was someone who had been through the eating disorder. I chose to remain quiet.”
Source: Imperfect Mortals : A Collection of Short Stories
“But although she was with family and friends, she'd never felt more alone. She felt as if she'd lost a vital part of herself and she had - her heart.”
“But although the attractive virtue of the earth extends upwards, as has been said, so very far, yet if any stone should be at a distance great enough to become sensible compared with the earth's diameter, it is true that on the motion of the earth such a stone would not follow altogether; its own force of resistance would be combined with the attractive force of the earth, and thus it would extricate itself in some degree from the motion of the earth.”
“But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary.”
Source: The Passage of Power
“But although we have noticed the ark as being the first ship, we cannot with propriety place it in the front of the history of navigation. After the flood the ark seems to have been soon forgotten, or at least imperfectly remembered, and men reverted to their little canoes and clumsy boats, which sufficed for all their limited wants. It was not until about a thousand years later in the world”
“But always and sometimes questioning the old modes
And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,
Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual
Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,
Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.”
Source: A Wave: Poems
“But always, at moments when his mind was like a blind octopus, squirming in an agony of knife-cuts, she would drop in that accusation.”
Source: No More Parades
“But always I regarded myself as one who was born in Jerusalem.”
“But always I was a private citizen whose activities in government or political party were appointive.”
“But always think this: do not be afraid of failure. Do not be afraid of falling. In the art of walking, what is important is not avoiding the fall but not remaining fallen.”
“But always when I was without a book, my soul at once became disturbed, and my thoughts wandered.”
“But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that.”
Source: So Big
“But am I clever and right or clever and wrong?”
Source: Clockwork Prince
“But am I satisfied to know merely the structure of the rainbow and how it came to be? Is that why I gaze upon it; with thoughts of refraction and wave frequency? Am I better off, now that I know this celestial arch isn’t divinely inspired – that there isn’t some meaningful purpose to it? Is that truly the answer I wanted when I asked myself where this spectacle came from? Do I stare up at the night sky because I search for the elements that comprise the star? Do we rationalize the tears that are shed at the birth of a child and the death of a loved-one? Do we ask ourselves why we dance? Do we contemplate that question before we allow the music to stir us? Do we allow it at all, or does it allow us? Not a single note, by itself, compels a couple to gracefully embrace, yet, this is how they would have us understand it - music, merely a series of connected notes and nothing more.”
Source: Liberty and the Will to Power: A Manifesto for the Amoral Libertarian
“But ambition is a funny thing: it creeps in when you least expect it and keeps you moving, even when you think you want to stay put.”
Source: Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's
“But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.”
Source: The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788
“But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six-the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow... Like a Coach and six - the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.”
Source: John Adams
“But America isn't a country of family values; Mexico is a country of family values. This is a country of people who leave home.”
“But America was built by optimists. Optimists like my friend Amanda, who recently started a small business. When she went to buy her website address-her first and last name-she found that someone already owned it, but wasn't using it. So my friend emailed the owner of the site to ask if she could buy it. The owner wrote back.”
“But America was founded on the principle that every person has God-given rights. That power belongs to the people. That government exists to protect our rights and serve our interests. That we shouldn’t be trapped in the circumstances of our birth. That we should be free to go as far as our talents and work can take us.”
“But American journalists, female journalists in particular, created a narrative for the war on terror that reaffirmed it as one fought by a feminist America, against anti-feminist, primitive, patriarchial and pre-modern countries that were too apathetic or too weak or too traitorous to fight terror in their homelands themselves.”
Source: Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption
“But Americans are different from everyone else in the world - except the Canadians, and Americans are more different from the Canadians than they often think.”
“But Americans find me bizarre and always ask me why I eat so many carbs. I tell them I don't get full otherwise.”
“But amid much elegance and precision, the details of life and the Universe also exhibit haphazard, jury-rigged arrangements and much poor planning. What shall we make of this: an edifice abandoned early in construction by the architect?”
Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
“But Amory, being on the spot, leaned over quickly and kissed Myra’s cheek. He had never kissed a girl before, and he tasted his lips curiously, as if he had munched some new fruit. Then their lips brushed like young wild flowers in the wind.
‘We’re Awful,’ rejoiced Myra gently. she slipped her hand into his, her dead drooped against his shoulder. Sudden revulsion seized Amory, disgust, loathing for the whole incident. He desired frantically to be away, never to see Myra again, never to kiss anyone; he became conscious of his face and hers, of their clinging hands, and he wanted to creep out of his body and hide somewhere safe out of sight, up in the corner of his mind.”
Source: This Side of Paradise
“But Amy Pond. Oh! The Sea had briefly been able to touch her mind — it knew that the Doctor was the most important thing in the world to her, and it had given a copy of him to her. If they spent enough time together, the copy would become every bit as good as the real Doctor. It stood there now, wheeling her down to the beach, one hand resting lightly on her shoulders, drawing all it could from her.”
Source: Doctor Who: Dead of Winter
“But an Adrian also knew that an Adrian's lies were real: they were lived and felt and acted out as thoroughly as another man's truths - if other men had truths - and he believed it possible that this last lie might see him through to the grave.”
Source: The Liar
“But an adult if he is to provide proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.”
“But an advantage of more prolonged encounters with Proust or Homer is that worlds that had seemed threateningly alien reveal themselves to be essentially much like our own, expanding the range of places we feel at home.”
Source: How Proust Can Change Your Life
“But an apology too — you think you’re giving something, but you’re not. You’re really asking for something. You’re asking for forgiveness, you’re asking for the other injured person to make it okay for you. Apologies were harder work for the person getting one than the person giving one.”
Source: The Story of Us
“But an artist, he realized. Or rather so-called artist. Bohemian. That's closer to it. The artistic life without the talent.”
Source: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
“But an attentive researcher--like you--might be able to see something that all the experts can't see. If she asks the right questions.”
Source: Conversion
“But an escape less self-depreciating was taken by Lord Westbury, who, it is said, rebuffed a barrister's reliance upon an earlier opinion of his Lordship: "I can only say that I am amazed that a man of my intelligence should have been guilty of giving such an opinion". If there are other ways of gracefully and good-naturedly surrendering former views to a better considered position, I invoke them all.”
“But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.”
“But an inferior talent can only be graceful when it's carrying inferior ideas. And the more narrowly you can look at a thing the more entertaining you can be about it.”
Source: The Beautiful and Damned
“But an infinity of passions can be contained in a minute, like a crowd in a tiny space.”
“But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music.”
“But an intelligent man like you would know that to live in an unrealistic hope is a very foolish way to spend a life." - Lena Gray”
Source: The Glass Lake
“But an old age serene and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night, shall lead thee to thy grave.”
“But an opinion that it is possible for the present generation to seize and use the property of future generations has produced to both parties concerned, effects of the same complexion with the usual fruits of national errour. The present age is cajoled to tax and enslave itself, by the errour of believing that it taxes and enslaves future ages to enrich itself.”
“But Ana, how could I have been such a lousy judge of character?" I groaned.
"Because you don't much care to judge people's characters," she answered after a moment's thought. "It's a strength, you know, as well as weakness."
It was small consolation.”
“But Anatole said suddenly, 'Don't expect God's protection in places beyond God's dominion. It will only make you feel punished. I'm warning you. When things go bad, you will blame yourself.' 'What are you telling me?' 'I am telling you what I'm telling you. Don't try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you are good, bad things can still happen. And if you are bad, you can still be lucky.”
“But, and here comes the rub, all of us feel that we are in complete control of our desire for things. We would never admit to an ungovernable spirit of covetousness. The problem is that we, like the alcoholic, are unable to recognize the disease once we have been engulfed by it. Only by the help of others are we able to detect the inner spirit that places wealth about God. And we must come to fear the idolatrous state of covetousness because the moment things have priority, radical obedience becomes impossible.”
Source: Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World
“But, and I think we can all agree, it’s where few men have gone before, into the bowels of humanity.”
Jay Felson, US Marine, commenting on war”
Source: Justice Gone
“But and so things are slow, and like you they have this irritating suspicion that any real satisfaction is still way, way off, and it’s frustrating; but like basically decent kids they suck it up, bite the foil, because what’s going on is just plain real; and no matter what we want, the real world is pretty slow, at present, for kids our age. It probably gets less slow as you get older and more of the world is behind you, and less ahead, but very few people of our generation are going to find this exchange attractive, I’ll bet.”
Source: Girl With Curious Hair
“But, Andromeda-" Peri exclaimed. "You are the 'most' important person in this scheme!"
"I- what?" she said. "You must be joking!"
Peri shook his massive head. "On the contrary. You are the only person here who has actually been inside the Palace. You know everything there is to know about it. Without that, we can't even begin to mount an attack, now, can we?"
"At least not the kind of attack we can manage with as few people as we have, and as untrained or half trained," Adam agreed. "You are the key to our plan."
Of all the things she had heard today this was the most astonishing. She was important. She was vital. She who had never been anything to anyone-
"Besides," Gina said with a grin, "I can teach you to use something that you won't have to get in close to use. A sling. Believe me, I've seen a good sling-man take down seasoned fighters many a time."
Andie raised her chin and looked into Peri's eyes. "Then you have me," she said, but could not help adding, "for what it's worth.”
Source: One Good Knight
“But Angela had at least 30% more viewers on the same night at the same time. I mean, she wiped everybody out. But the sponsors don't care when she had the most people. They only care about if there was only a handful of young viewers on the other one.”
“But angels come to lead frail minds to rest in chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound. You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within; you stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak.”
Source: Poetical works