B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But belief in a system cannot be sustained for ever. Empires based solely on power and domination, while allowing their subjects to do as they will, can last for centuries. Those that try to control the everyday lives of their people are much harder to sustain.”
Source: Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization
“But believe me, just because the human mind can't imagine something happening...doesn't mean it won't.”
Source: Inferno: Special Illustrated Edition (Enhanced): Featuring Robert Langdon
“But believe me, there's a lot I'd like to say - but I don't think the time is right now.”
“But belonging meant denying who he was. Living as something he wasn't had nearly torn him part from the inside out. But he also loved his family, and his community. It was bad enough being an outsider; what would happen if they just couldn't--or wouldn't--accept him for who he was?”
Source: Cemetery Boys
“But beneath it all, there's the Prince of England kissing him under a linden tree in the garden, moonlight in his hair, and Alex's insides feel positively molten, and he wants to throw himself down the presidential stairs.”
Source: Red, White & Royal Blue
“But beneath it all will run that Sicilian understanding that the underside of joy is grief, that the face of sacrifice and suffering is the dark mirror image of pleasure and enjoyment, that every moment of arrival is to be treasured and enjoyed in the full knowledge that it has brought us a moment closer to the moment of departure.”
Source: Sicilian Odyssey
“But beneath that weight lay us, [...] the lines that connected a woman named Rachel to a man named Wick. There was a secret shape to it all that lived inside us, a map that slowly circled within our minds like a personal cosmology.”
Source: Borne
“But berries are berries. They don’t speak any language i can’t understand.”
Source: Blue Horses
“But besides that I was of an unforgiving disposition from my birth, slow to take offense, slower to forget it, and now incensed both against my companion and myself.”
Source: Kidnapped
“But besides this, my father, though a Borderer, transacted business for many Highland Lairds, and particularly for one old man called Stuart of Invernahyle, who had been out both in 1715 and '45, and whose tales were the absolute delight of my childhood. I believe there never was a man who united the ardour of soldier and tale-teller - a man of "talk" as they call it in Gaelic - in such an excellent degree, and he was as fond of telling as I was of hearing. I became a valliant Jacobite at the age of ten years, and ever since reason and reading came to my assistance I have never quite got rid of the impression which the gallantry of Prince Charles made on my imagination.”
“But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.”
Source: Women in Love
“But better far it is to speak
One simple word, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men.”
Source: The poetical works of James Russell Lowell
“But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
Source: The Complete Khaled Hosseini: Digital box set
“But between now and then, there was Life; and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open.”
Source: The Graveyard Book
“But between sets I'd sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places.”
“But between the founding and the actual PayPal, it was just this tug-of-war where it was like, 'We're trying this, this week." Every week you go to investors and say, "We're doing this, exactly this. We're really focused. We're going to be huge." The next week you're like, "That was a lie.”
“But between the images, we are privy to the real-life action being played out on the set. Peeta's attempt to continue speaking. The camera knocked down to record the white tiled floor. The scuffle of boots. The impact of the blow that's inseparable from Peeta's cry of pain. And his blood as it splatters the tiles.”
Source: The Hunger Games Trilogy
“But between the plan and the operation, there is always an unknown. That unknown spells victory or defeat. ... Some people call it getting the breaks. I call it God. God has His part in everything. That's where prayer comes in.”
“But beware of this about callings: they may not lead us where we intended to go or even where we want to go. If we choose to follow, we may have to be willing to let go of the life we already planned and accept whatever is waiting for us. And if the calling is true, though we may not have gone where we intended, we will surely end up where we need to be.”
“But beware, dear reader. For we go out into the wide, wild world, looking to change, looking to grow, looking for wisdom. But wisdom is hard to come by, and once achieved, it is very easily lost. Especially when one is leaving the wide, wild world - and returning to the place you once fled.”
Source: In a Glass Grimmly
“But beyond all that, the question that is continually begged is why isn't America leading the way toward total abolition of nuclear weapons.”
“But beyond any biological information, there is love. Something that defies all science and reason. And that I am most fortunate to have been given. It maybe the most defining factor in anyone’s life. Surely an artist greatest muse. And there is no love like a mother’s love. It is life’s greatest song. We are all indebted to the women who has given us life. For without them, there would be no music.”
Source: The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music
“But beyond numbers, it is the deep chasm between reality and representation that is most bewildering in the case of Palestine. It is indeed hard to understand, and for that matter to explain, why a crime that was perpetrated in modern times and at a juncture in history that called for foreign reporters and UN observers to be present, should have been so totally ignored.”
Source: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
“But beyond the bright searchlights of science,
Out of sight of the windows of sense,
Old riddles still bid us defiance,
Old questions of Why and of Whence.”
“But beyond the hysteria of phantom death panels, where is the abomination? Show me the provisions that will hurt consumers, because if you think a $110 billion a year tax break for working-class Americans to buy private health insurance is a government takeover, I welcome the debate.”
“But beyond the mind, beyond our thoughts, there is something we call the 'nature of the mind', the mind's true condition, which is beyond all limits. If it is beyond the mind, though, how can we approach an understanding of it?
Let's take the example of a mirror. When we look into a mirror we see in it the reflected images of any objects that are in front of it; we don't see the nature of the mirror. But what do we mean by this 'nature of the mirror'? We mean its capacity to reflect, definable as its clarity, its purity, and its limpidity, which are indispensable conditions for the manifestation of reflections. This 'nature of the mirror' is not something visible, and the only way we can conceive of it is through the images reflected in the mirror. In the same way, we only know and have concrete experience of that which is relative to our condition of body, voice, and mind. But this itself is the way to understand their true nature.”
Source: Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State
“But Big Oil and Big Coal have always been as skilled at propaganda as they are at mining and drilling. Like the tobacco industry before them, their success depends on keeping Americans stupid.”
“But big people’s illnesses are always made to sound big. The simple shutting and opening of the royal arse-hole was made to sound as if the world was coming to an end.”
Source: Delhi
“But biology and computer science - life and computation - are related. I am confident that at their interface great discoveries await those who seek them.”
“But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.”
“But black night wreathes his brow
With dolorous shadow.”
Source: Aeneid Book VI
“But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.”
“But Black women and our children know the fabric of our lives is stitched with violence and with hatred, that there is no rest.”
Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
“But Blake's voices returned to dictate revisions.”
Source: Breakfast Served Any Time All Day: Essays on Poetry New and Selected
“But blaming Islam is a simple answer, easier and less controversial than re-examining the core political issues and grievances that resonate in much of the Muslim world: the failures of many Muslim governments and societies, some aspects of U.S. foreign policy representing intervention and dominance, Western support for authoritarian regimes, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, or support for Israel's military battles with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. (p. 136-137)”
Source: Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think
“But blast the man, with curses loud and deep, Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station, Who first invented, and went round advising, That artificial cut-off, Early Rising!”
Source: The Poems of John Godfrey Saxe
“But blessing and protecting someone because they abide by your rules or love you back isn’t agape love. It’s merely insurance protecting our own investments. And Jesus said even the pagans know how to do that. When it comes to the foundational way Jesus called us to follow through, we don’t get a safety net. Love costs us. And sometimes the cost of love is pain, grief, and heartbreak. Love means laying down our lives:”
Source: En(d)titlement: Trade a Culture of Shame for a Life Marked by Grace
“But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?”
Source: The works of Alexander Pope; with a memoir of the author, notes [&c.] by G. Croly
“But books were full of stories and stories were full of lies and lies hurt Jesus's feelings, so I didn't know what to think. I blamed my family. They were the ones who taught me so much about telling stories, and how not to do it, and then, in inspired moments of surprise, how to tell one so good you forgot what day it was, and I liked forgetting what day it was, so I made certain life choices that would allow me to get paid to forget what day it was and teach others to forget what day it was, which is, after all, what I think heaven probably is: the whole world, forgetting what day it is. You have to, I bet, with an endless supply of them.”
Source: The World's Largest Man
“But "borderland" can also mean the antithesis of fecundity; it often signifies a lonely outpost and carries with it an end-of-the-world connotation. The thick web of a dynamic civilization wears thin as it disperses into the hinterlands. Not much happens where the waning edge of one civilization meets the waxing edge of another. Borders are nonproductive.”
Source: Into the Deep
“But borrowing strength builds weakness.”
Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change Interactive Edition
“But…” Both men looked over inquiringly when Maximus spoke. “But I never asked you to help me with Noakes.”
Makepeace nodded, his expression grave. “You didn’t have to.”
“You never had to,” St. John concurred.”
Source: Duke of Midnight
“But both of these good intentions can become crooked. If on the one hand "Traditionalists" seek to please the world by using ambiguity, the classic start of abandoning Truth, they may please men (especially journalists) but they will certainly not please God, who "hates a double tongue" (Proverbs VIII, 13). On the other hand if Benedict XVI is seeking to re-incorporate the Society of St. Pius X in the mainstream Church as though Tradition were merely one option amongst many, then he too will be displeasing God by his refusal to see how absolute the demands of Catholic Truth. (Eleison Comments letter #110)”
Source: Eleison Comments Volume 1
“But boy do I miss proposing, nothing so romantic. Make sure you try it, at least once, Len – it’s skydiving with your feet on the ground.”
Source: The Sky Is Everywhere
“But boy, right away it is fun to play around with the Paintbox program.”
“But boys and girls, pale from the imagined love
Of solitary beds, knew what they were,
That passion could bring character enough
And pressed at midnighht in some public place
Live lips upon a plummet-measured face.”
“But boys will be boys, even the ones who are only girls dressed up: That's one of the rules of the world.”
Source: Here Lies Arthur
“But Brandoch Daha laughed, and answered him, “To nought else may I liken thee, O Juss, but to the sparrow-camel. To whom they said, ‘Fly,’ and it answered, ‘I cannot, for I am a camel’; and when they said, ‘Carry,’ it answered, ‘I cannot, for I am a bird.’ ”
“Wilt thou egg me on so much?” said Juss.
“Ay,” said Brandoch Daha, “if thou wilt be assish.”
“Wilt thou quarrel?” said Juss.
“Thou knowest me,” said Brandoch Daha.
“Well,” said Juss, “thy counsel hath been right once and saved us, for nine times that it hath been wrong, and my counsel saved thee from an evil end. If ill behap us, it shall be set down that it had from thy peevish will original.”
Source: The worm Ouroboros
“But Brawndo has what plants crave! It's got electrolytes! '...Okay - what are electrolytes? Do you know? Yeah. It's what they use to make Brawndo.' But why do they use them in Brawndo? What do they do?''They're part of what plants crave.'But why do plants crave them?'Because plants crave Brawndo, and Brawndo has electrolytes.”
“But bread is different. I come from Czechoslovakia, where we eat lots of it, so it's hard to say no. I can't even have one piece, because when I start, I don't stop.”