B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable.
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.”
Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale
“But if the feelings are mutual, I open my heart without restriction. I’m not afraid to say 'I love you'.”
“But if the Final Girl is an exception to the female rule, she can’t be our avatar. Most of us, by definition, are not exceptional. It’s when we shift out focus to the margins, and all the non-Final, ordinary, disposable girls who are stripped and splayed and stabbed and ripped apart, that the next part of our story becomes clear.”
Source: Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
“But if the gods do not exist at all - then we are lost,' I said. On the contrary - we are found!' said Aesop. But when we are afraid, who can we turn to, if not the gods?' Ourselves. We turn to ourselves anyway. We only pretend there are gods and that they care about us. It is a comforting falsehood.”
Source: Sappho's Leap: A Novel
“But if the gradualness of this process misled the Romans there were other and equally potent reasons for their blindness. Most potent of all was the fact that they mistook entirely the very nature of civilization itself. All of them were making the same mistake. People who thought that Rome could swallow barbarism and absorb it into her life without diluting her own civilization; the people who ran about busily saying that the barbarians were not such bad fellows after all, finding good points in their regime with which to castigate the Romans and crying that except ye become as little barbarians ye shall not attain salvation; the people who did not observe in 476 that one half of the Respublica Romanorum had ceased to exist and nourished themselves on the fiction that the barbarian kings were exercising a power delegated from the Emperor. All these people were deluded by the same error, the belief that Rome (the civilization of their age) was not a mere historical fact with a beginning and an end, but a condition of nature like the air they breathed and the earth they tread Ave Roma immortalis, most magnificent most disastrous of creeds!”
Source: Medieval People
“But if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government, and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter.”
Source: The Life of General Washington: First President of the United States
“But if the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps-who works in a foreign land-will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace.”
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1961
“But if the longing for the achievement of the goal is powerfully alive within us, then shall we not lack the strength to find the means for reaching the goal and for translating it into deeds.”
Source: Out of My Later Years: The Scientist, Philosopher, and Man Portrayed Through His Own Words
“But if the rooster crows, this is not for the farmer. (Mais si le coq a chanté, - Ce n'est pas pour le fermier.)”
“But if the strength ain't real, I recall thinking the very last thing that day, before I finally passed out, then the weakness sure enough is. Weakness is true and real. I used to accuse the kid of faking his weakness. But faking proves the weakness is real. Or you wouldn't be so weak as to fake it. No, you can't ever fake being weak. You can only fake being strong. . .”
Source: Sometimes a Great Notion
“But if the system is the problem, the truth is that there will not be satisfactory answers in the here and now for lots of people.
That is one of the (painful) ways you know that the problem is systemic.
Which means that either you build forward no matter what, or you lose. Period.”
Source: What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk about the Next American Revolution
“But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will.”
“But if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would, indeed be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather, through the instrumentality of the men of science soften the asperities of national hostility. Davy's remarks to Thomas Poole on accepting Napoleon's prize for the best experiment on Galvanism.”
“But if the U.S. were to leave now and abandon Iraq without establishing the grounds for a united country, that would definitely be a second mistake.”
“But if the UN cannot or will not revise its rules in ways that establish beyond question the legality of the measures the United States must take to protect the American people, then we should unashamedly and explicitly reject the jurisdiction of these rules.”
Source: An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror
“But if the vision is strong enough, and your goals are steady, and you believe, pretty soon you bring other people with you.”
“But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.”
Source: Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux
“But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end.”
“But if the world is watching, we might as well tell the truth. And the truth is, the church doesn't offer a cure. It doesn't offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation.”
Source: Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
“But if the world measures a refugee according to the worst story, we will always excuse human suffering, saying it is not yet as bad as someone else's.”
“But if the young are never tired of erring in conduct, neither are the older in erring of judgment.”
Source: Complete Works of Frances Burney (Delphi Classics)
“But if there be an hereafter,And that there is, conscience, uninfluenc'dAnd suffer'd to speak out, tells every man,Then must it be an awful thing to die;More horrid yet to die by one's own hand.”
“But if there has been on this earth no real, perfect human life, no love that never cooled, no faith that never failed, which may shine as a loadstar across the darkness of our experience, a light to light amidst all convictions of our own meanness and all suspicions of other's littleness, why, we may have a religion, but we have not a Christianity. For if we lose Him as a Brother, we cannot feel Him as a Saviour.”
Source: Sermons Preached at Brighton
“But if there is a just God, there is ultimate justice.”
“But if there is one thing clearly and plainly laid down about election, it is this: that elect men and women may be known and distinguished by holy lives.”
Source: Holiness: It's Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots
“But if there is such a thing as social commitment in literature, I think it must manifest itself in a reader's awareness of the human condition, in the writer's touching some common nerve ending. I think this kind of social commitment, like a lady's slip, should be there but it must not show.”
“But if there must be an end, let it be loud. Let it be bloody. Better to burn than to wither away in the dark.”
“But if there's anything I've learned, it's that life will explode one land mine after another, even when all you're trying to do is walk from the couch to the refrigerator.”
Source: Ambush
“But if there's one thing I learned from my mother, it's that losing everything is not the end of the story. She taught me that lost civilizations can be rebuilt from zero, even if the task will require many generations of work.”
Source: Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes
“But if there's one thing to learn from corporate execs, it's this: even if they aren't about to claim Anonymous's imagery for their next advertising campaign, it doesn't mean they can't, or won't, find some way of appropriating *something* about Anonymous. If someone can find an uncapitalized, exploitable, futurescanned, innovative, disruptive idea that can flourish in corporate boardrooms, they will.”
Source: Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous
“But if there was a mood of paranoia amongst the counterculture, the spies appeared to be gripped by their own fantasies of the 'reds under the beds' variety. Keith Locke, son of communists Elsie and Jack Locke, discovers that the SIS had a file on him when he was eleven years old. In it it had been noted such suspicious activities as attending a Christchurch performance of the Moscow Circus.”
Source: Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand
“But if there was a protocol for how to say goodbye to your newly ex-boyfriend's brother, right after you kissed him and probably sent your ex into the arms of his willing ex-girlfriend, I didn't know what it was.”
Source: Soul Screamers Volume Three: If I Die\Never to Sleep\Before I Wake
“But if there was embellishment, it only had to do with the facts.”
Source: The Plague of Doves: Deluxe Modern Classic
“But if there was no Barcelona why would you get out of bed in the morning?”
“But if there was one thing I'd been learning these last years, it was that there were big gaps between what people taught and the desires they affirmed, and how they applied these things in reality.”
Source: The Sunset Emperor
“But if there were two dogs left in the universe and it were up to us as to whether they were allowed to breed so that we could continue to live with dogs, and even if we could guarantee that all dogs would have homes as loving as the one that we provide, we would not hesitate for a second to bring the whole institution of 'pet' ownership to an end.”
“But if there's an erosion at home, you know, Thomas Jefferson warned about a tyranny of an oligarchy and if we surrender our democracy to the tyranny of an oligarchy, we've made a terrible mistake.”
“But if there's love, dear... those are the ties that bind, and you'll have a family in your heart, forever.”
“But if these beings guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers.”
“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.”
Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“But if they are shown to be, and are the works not of men but of God, why are the unbelievers so irreligious as not to recognize the Master Who did them?”
Source: On the Incarnation
“But if they are well-founded and just, they can be no less than the high requirements of heaven, addressed by the voice of God to the reason and understanding of man, concerning things deeply affecting his relations to his sovereign, and essential to the formation of his character and of course to his destiny, both for this life and for the life.”
Source: The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence
“But if they did really refer to some kind of a "personal relationship," it would in effect be a case of channeling. I suspect this is why fundamentalists who condemn New Age channelers do not dismiss it as a fraud..., but instead think that Ramtha and the others are channeling demons. If they said it was sheer delusion, they know where the other four fingers would wind up pointing!”
“But if they don't exist, how can a man see them?”
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
“But if they ever saw a sunrise on a mountain morning/Watched those cotton candy clouds roll by/They'd know why I live beneath these Western Skies.”
“But if they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera
“But if they have a flashlight, it means they're human and not some kind of monsters from the surface,' objected Artyom.
"I don't know what's worse," said Melnik, cutting off Artyom.”
Source: Metro 2033
“but if they were right for you, if they were good for your heart… then it would break their heart open to see you hurt in the very way they hurt you.”
Source: wild spirit, soft heart
“But if they're so successful, why haven't parasites taken over the world? The answer is simple: they have. We just haven't noticed. That's because successful parasites don't kill us; they become part of us, making us perform all the work to keep them alive and help them reproduce.”
Source: Daemon
“But if those coming forward with elaborate plans for the “reformation” of society are not really interested in the cause of humanity, what does motivate them? Simply the desire for power: On this point Lewis is in emphatic agreement with both Hayek and Mises. Hayek: “[T]he desire to organize social life according to a single plan itself springs largely from a desire for power.” Mises: “Every dictator plans to rear, raise, feed and train his fellow citizens as the breeder does his cattle. His aim is not to make them happy but to bring them into a condition which renders him, the dictator, happy.”