B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But once a fool always a fool, and the greater the power in his hands the more disastrous is likely to be the use he makes of it. The heaviest calamity in English history, the breach with America, might never have occurred if George the Third had not been an honest dullard.”
“But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within. You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.”
Source: Lightning
“But once an original book has been written - and no more than one or two appear in a century - men of letters imitate it, in other words, they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified phraseology. This should be able to be achieved by apes, who are essentially imitators, provided, of course, that they are able to make use of language.”
Source: Planet of the Apes
“But... once he did work hard, he discovered how wonderful it was to possess a positive outlook on life. Efforts may not necessarily lead to results, but making the effort itself can make a person shine.”
Source: Slow-Witted [天资愚钝]
“But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.”
“But once I could look back on it in a calmer frame of mind, it struck me that his motive was surely not so simple and straightforward. Had it resulted from a fatal collision between reality and ideals? Perhaps—but this was still not quite it. Eventually, I began to wonder whether it was not the same unbearable loneliness that I now felt that had brought K to his decision.”
Source: Kokoro
“But once I saw Fulvia Cardew crumple up a sheet of paper with just a couple of words written on it and you would’ve thought she’d murdered someone from the looks she got.”
Source: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)
“But once I saw them [Jackson 5 during audition], I rushed out with my video camera to start taping them because I knew that they were something so special, mainly because of the lead singer, nine-year-old Michael Jackson. And it was just so obvious to me that he was a star.”
“But once I'd come up with it, I realized it really was the perfect plan. Instead of waiting for Maria to come to me, I was simply going to go to her and, well... Send her back to where she came. Or reduce her to a mound of quivering gelatinous goo. Whichever came first.”
Source: Young Blood
“But once in a great while he remembered that he had felt pain, a terrible ache in his heart, and he swore he would never let himself feel love for a human again.”
Source: The Boggart
“But once in a while . . . I don't know. I feel so close, Rose. So close to the edge. Like if I allow myself one small misstep, I'll plunge away and never come back. It's like I'll lose myself.”
Source: Last Sacrifice: A Vampire Academy Novel
“But once in a while the odd thing happens
Once in a while the dream comes true
And the whole pattern of life is altered
Once in a while, the moon turns blue”
“But once in a while you might see me at In and Out Burger; they make the best fast food hamburgers around.”
“But once in a while, you pick the right thing, the exact best thing. Every day, the moment you open your eyes and pull off your blankets, that's what you hope for. The sunshine on your face,warm enough to make you heart sing.”
Source: Bittersweet
“But once, in his anger, Aidan had asked me whether I thought I had wasted my life, and I had told him no. No, I had not. But I had been wrong. And Tom Cardle has been right. For I had known everything, right from the start, and never acted on any of it. I had blocked it from my mind time and again, refused to recognize what was staring me in the face. I had said nothing when I should have spoken out, convincing myself that I was a man of higher character. I had been complicit in all their crimes, and people had suffered because of me. I had wasted my life. I had wasted every moment of my life. And the final irony was that it had taken a convicted pedophile to show me that in my silence, I was just as guilty as the rest of them.”
Source: A History of Loneliness
“But once that string gets cut, kid, you can't uncut it. Do you get what I'm saying?”
Source: Paper Towns
“But once the ants and termites jumped the high barrier that prevents the vast variety of evolving animal groups from becoming fully social, they dominated the world.”
“But once the person is selected, at that point that person is independent.”
“But once upon a time - that would be our time - a telephone cord seemed like nothing less than a lifeline.
It was your attachment to the outside world and, even more than that, your attachment to the people you loved, or wanted to love, or tried to love.
Everything about it was fitting - the way it curled in on itself, the way it got so easily tangled, the way you could pull it only so far before it kept you in place.
Twisted and knotted and essential.”
Source: Two Boys Kissing
“But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script.”
“But once we got them on its feet then they run themselves, unless there's corrections you have to make.”
“But once we have a practice for taming our Imposters, we’re able to get in touch with a much bigger star in the constellation of our lives: the Authentic Soul.”
“But once we realize that people have very different kinds of minds, different kinds of strengths -- some people are good in thinking spatially, some in thinking language, others are very logical, other people need to be hands on and explore actively and try things out -- then education, which treats everybody the same way, is actually the most unfair education.”
“But once we recognize that many ideas that are taken to be quintessentially Western have also flourished in other civilizations, we also see that these ideas are not as culture-specific as is sometimes claimed. We need not begin with pessimism, at least on this ground, about the prospects of reasoned humanism in the world.”
“But once, when she was singing his praises, her mother interrupted 'No, no, I've seen too many young people like that - both when I was a student in Petersburg and when I was in exile in Siberia. They just don't know how to reconcile love of humanity and love for an actual person.”
Source: Stalingrad
“But once you accept the fact that you have always been alone, and will always be, then your perspective can begin to change. You can become aware of the small kindnesses, the little comforts. Be grateful for them.”
Source: Astrid and Veronika
“But once you allow yourself to recognize necessity, you find two things: One you find your options so restricted that the only course of action is obvious, and, two, that a great sense of freedom comes with the decision.”
Source: The Book of Taltos
“But once you are in that field, emotional intelligence emerges as a much stronger predictor of who will be most successful, because it is how we handle ourselves in our relationships that determines how well we do once we are in a given job.”
“But once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited and suddenly you realize you count.”
“But once you become successful, everyone has an idea of what you should do.”
“But once you describe something, you destroy it.”
Source: The Lava in My Bones
“But once you get down to reality, there's no one to play her and there's no movie. It would be ridiculous.”
“But once you have some success in one style, the business wants to lock you in that vein forever.”
“But once you publish a book, doesn’t it by definition become the realm of public discourse? Otherwise, wouldn’t we just write books and print them out ourselves, and give them to specific people we felt comfortable giving them to–like gifts? Isn’t publishing sort of a social contract?”
“But once you strip that down, you realize it's all about a voice, like a Norah Jones - that's inspiring to me.”
“But once you throw a stone, there are ripples in the pond, even if you remove the rock.”
Source: Vanishing Acts
“But once you were taught to reduce a person to just one piece of their identity, it took a long time to learn to fill in the other details, to make them whole again and see them as fully human. Once you sow this mystery seed, who knows what you will harvest centuries, years, or even months later?”
Source: Milk Teeth
“But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.”
“But one always returns to one's first loves.”
“But one can see exactly why Dr Ali is so successful - he seems to offer a solution within the individual's grasp: you may not be able to change deadlines and workloads, but you can make yourself more efficient. Ancient wisdoms can be adapted to speed up human beings: this is the kind of individualised response which fits neatly into a neo-liberal market ideology. It draws on Eastern contemplative traditions of yoga and meditation which place the emphasis on individual transformation, and questions the effectiveness of collective political or social activism. Reflexology, aromatherapy, acupuncture, massage - these alternative therapies are all booming as people seek to improve their sense of well-being and vitality. Much of it makes sense - although trips to the Himalayas are hardly within the reach of most workers and the complementary health movement plays an important role in raising people's under standing of their own health and how to look after themselves. But the philosophy of improving ‘personal performance' also plays into the hands of employers' rationale that well-being and coping with stress are the responsibility of the individual employee. It reinforces the tendency for individuals to search for 'biographic solutions to structural contradictions', as the sociologist Ulrich Beck put it: forget the barricades, it's revolution from within that matters. This cultural preoccupation with personal salvation stymies collective reform, and places an onerous burden on the individual. It effectively reinforces the anxieties and insecurities which it offers to assuage.”
Source: Willing Slaves: How the Overwork Culture Is Ruling Our Lives
“But one day I’ll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won’t ever really go away.
I’ll tell them how I survive it. I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play.”
Source: Mockingjay
“But one day I woke up and heard myself saying, I am a fork being used to eat cereal. I am not a spoon. I am a fork. And I can’t help people eat cereal any longer.”
Source: American Innovations: Stories
“But one day inexorably followed the next. The mongrels asked nothing of why they were there or why they even existed. The rain fell on the just and the unjust alike. The high and the low. And so without debate, seeking no excuses, they swallowed their delight and anger, sorrow and pleasure, and accepted things as they stood.”
Source: Ai no Kusabi Vol. 5: Darkness
“But one day we shall be rich, and the next poor. One day we shall dine in a palace and the next we'll sit in a forest and toast mushrooms on a hatpin.”
Source: KATHERINE MANSFIELD Premium Collection: 160+ Short Stories & Poems (Literature Classics Series): The Complete Short Stories and Poetry of Katherine Mansfield: Bliss, The Garden Party, The Dove’s Nest, Something Childish, In a German Pension, The Aloe, Poems at the Villa Pauline, Child Verses...
“But one day, when Toby is old enough, I will take down a shoe box from a shelf where it is kept, and I will tell him again the story of his sister, Isabel Margaret Cavendish, the girl who came before.”
Source: The Girl Before
“But one day, you will be faced with a choice, as we all are. One day you will have to choose between your own desires, your own darkest impulses, and what you know to be right . . . and it will harden you. You will understand that all of us are devils in the skins of men.”
“But one day, the things that make you free start to keep you down.”
“But one day, when I was still young, I was parted from my family and left my native country. I hunted and searched for music, and destiny turned me into the object of my hunt. The circumstances of life became my 'antlers' and prevented me from returning home.”
Source: Solti on Solti: a memoir
“But one did not do feminist theory, as such, in those days, not only because male academic discourse did not recognize such a term, but especially because the womens movement did not either.”
“But one discarded dreams and got dressed, and made what one could of the day.”
Source: Whip hand: Trial run ; Twice shy