B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands.”
Source: Madame Bovary - Interactive Bilingual Edition (English / French): A Classic of French Literature from the prolific French writer, known for Salammbô, Sentimental Education, Bouvard et Pécuchet, November and Three Tales
“But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.”
Source: The Rambler
“But the distinction is important and must be made: the highest virtue is not to give or to take. It is to share. And what I didn’t understand most of my life is that sharing includes serving oneself. It is a subtle distinction, one too subtle for most adults, though most children understand it.”
“But the division in him was a sorrow and a torment, and he became accustomed to it only as one gets used to an unhealed and frequently reopened wound.”
“But the doctors in the past, as the review of the evidence showed, branded Jenner, Semmelweis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Pasteur, Lister, Koch and Keen as charlatans...Napoleon said that war is too important to be left to the generals. We go on the assumption in the Senate that foreign relations are too important to be left to the diplomats...this question (on a novel cancer cure) is too important to leave purely to doctors.”
“But the dollars spent on economic incentives and new investment strategies are wasted unless we seriously address the two most important economic issues in Kansas: education and health care”
“But the dominant note left ringing in our ears after reading the Gospels, the most vivid and arresting element of the portrait, is the way the Holy Son of God moves toward, touches, heals, embraces, and forgives those who least deserve it yet truly desire it.”
“But the downside of being con artist is that it very hard to con. Even if the lies you tell are to yourself.”
Source: Heist Society
“But the dragon was asleep under the whirlpools, and when he woke up from being asleep he found he was drowned, so there was an end of him.”
Source: The Book of Dragons
“But the dream is never forgotten, only put aside and never out of reach: Where once the dream connected boys with the world of men, now it reconnects men with the spirit of boys.”
“But the dream of something unlikely has its own special name. We call it hope.”
Source: The Orange Girl
“But the dreams of designing diplomats do not always prosper, and we must trust the future .”
Source: The Economic Consequences of the Peace
“But the drugs are kind of like taboo, at least among me and my friends and the people I've worked with.”
“But the dull and stupid masses will continue in their sluggish bustle.”
“But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and scholarly instincts were equally offended.”
“But the Dutch speak four languages and smoke marijuana!”
“But the dynamics of Mexican cartels have also developed in distinct ways from Colombia. Mexico has seven major cartels—Sinaloa, Juárez, Tijuana, La Familia, Beltrán Leyva, the Gulf, and the Zetas—so it is hard to decapitate them all at once. When leaders such as Osiel Cárdenas are taken out, their organizations have only become more violent, as rival lieutenants fight to become top dog. Groups such as the Zetas and Familia have also become powerful because of their brand names rather than the reputation of their capos. Even if Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano, the Executioner, is arrested, the Zetas will likely continue as a fearsome militia.
Whether the cartels will get weaker or not, everybody agrees that Mexico needs to clean up its police to move forward. Different corrupt cops firing at each other and working for rival capos is nobody’s vision of progress. Such police reform is of course easier said than done. Mexican presidents have talked about it for years, going through numerous cleanups and reorganization of forces, only to create new rotten units. A central problem is the sheer number of different agencies. Mexico has several federal law enforcement departments, thirty-one state authorities, and 2,438 municipal police forces.
However, in October 2010, Calderón sent a bill to be approved by Congress that could make a real difference to the police. His controversial proposal was to absorb all Mexico’s numerous police forces into one unified authority like the Colombians have. It is a colossal reform with a huge amount of technical problems. But such a reform could be a key factor in pulling Mexico away from the brink. Even if drugs are eventually legalized, a single police force would be a better mechanism to fight other elements of organized crime, such as kidnapping.
The approach has many critics. Some argue it would only streamline corruption. But even that would be a better thing for peace. At least corrupt cops could be on the same side instead of actively gunning each other down. Others argue an all-powerful force would be authoritarian. Maybe. But any such force would still be controlled by democratic government. The spiderweb of different police forces only worked because one party ran everything. In democracy, this arrangement needs reform. If a crucial cause of the breakdown in Mexico has been the fragmentation of government power, then a way forward could be to unify its police under one command. Some of the fundamental problems and core solutions lie in Mexico’s institutions.”
Source: El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency
“But the ear, let us not forget, starts operating on the forty-fifth day of the pregnancy of a woman. Seven and a half months advance over the eye...(but) what do we do in our society, in our civilisation, to continue this process?”
“But the Earth holds ghosts, even of entire nations.”
“But the economic meltdown should have undone, once and for all, the idea of poverty as a personal shortcoming or dysfunctional state of mind. The lines at unemployment offices and churches offering free food includes strivers as well as slackers, habitual optimists as well as the chronically depressed. When and if the economy recovers we can never allow ourselves to forget how widespread our vulnerability is, how easy it is to spiral down toward destitution.”
Source: Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
“But the [Eden] story takes a dramatically different turn: it tells of the couple succumbing to fear, blame, and the will to power, which from Cain and Lamech to today continues to engulf the world.”
Source: The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder
“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
Source: Middlemarch - A Study of Provincial Life -
“But the effort, the effort! And as the marrow is eaten out of a man's bones and the soul out of his belly, contending with the strange rapacity of savage life, the lower stage of creation, he cannot make the effort any more.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated)
“But the egoist has no ideals, for the knowledge that his ideals are only his ideals, frees him from their domination. He acts for his own interest, not for the interest of ideals.”
“But the Egotist is stuck somewhere between his hidden triad of pride, fear, and insecurity; he is forever fighting to prove himself, instigating battles the Humbleman has unwittingly conquered, already sealed some time ago. Yes, the day he finally accepts face-to-face such an irony as humility - the irony that humility is indeed the mother of giants, that great men, having life so large, as needed, can afford to appear small - the world will then know peace.”
Source: Healology
“But the eighteenth century, on the whole, loathed melancholy.”
Source: The English Novel
“But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained shape long at a time.”
Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. ILLUSTRATED. : Illustrated by True Williams (Mobi Classics)
“But the Elves were not so lightly to be caught. As soon as Sauron set the One Ring upon his finger they were aware of him; and they knew him, and perceived that he would be master of them, and of an that they wrought. Then in anger and fear they took off their rings. But he, finding that he was betrayed and that the Elves were not deceived, was filled with wrath; and he came against them with open war, demanding that all the rings should be delivered to him, since the Elven-smiths could not have attained to their making without his lore and counsel. But the Elves fled from him; and three of their rings they saved, and bore them away, and hid them.
Now these were the Three that had last been made, and they possessed the greatest powers. Narya, Nenya, and Vilya, they were named, the Rings of Fire, and of Water, and of Air, set with ruby and adamant and sapphire; and of all the Elven-rings Sauron most desired to possess them, for those who had them in their keeping could ward off the decays of time and postpone the weariness of the world. But Sauron could not discover them, for they were given into the hands of the Wise, who concealed them and never again used them openly while Sauron kept the Ruling Ring.
Therefore the Three remained unsullied, for they were forged by Celebrimbor alone, and the hand of Sauron had never touched them; yet they also were subject to the One.”
Source: The Silmarillion
“But the end of history is not the last word on history.
For, against this background of perpetual non-events, there looms another species of event. Ruptural events, unforeseeable events, unclassifiable in terms of history, outside of historical reason, events which occur against their own image, against their own simulacrum. Events that break the tedious sequence of current events as relayed by the media, but which are not, for all that, a reappearance of history or a Real irrupting in the heart of the Virtual (as has been said of 11 September). They do not constitute events in history, but beyond history, beyond its end; they constitute events in a system that has put an end to history. They are the internal convulsion of history. And, as a result, they appear inspired by some power of evil, appear no longer the bearers of a constructive disorder, but of an absolute disorder.
Indecipherable in their singularity, they are the equivalent in excess of a system that is itself indecipherable in its extension and its headlong charge.”
Source: The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact
“But the enemy has the move, and he is about to open his full game. And pawns are as likely to see as much of it as any. Sharpen your blade!”
Source: The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings
“But the English are different, and they don't know how to be other than different.”
Source: The Last Kind Words Saloon
“But the English do not know what surprise is. No one ever turns his head to look at anyone else in the street.”
Source: The Little Virtues
“But the enthusiast of separations, seeking paths unhaunted by the hordes, withdraws to the extreme margin and follows the rim of the circle, which (s)he cannot cross so long as (s)he is subject to the body.”
Source: A short history of decay
“But the equipment to protect the players hasn't developed along with that, so now you have more players out with worse injuries, for longer periods of time.”
“But the essence of the process at its best is basically the same: women and men join together as equals, they get deeply honest with each other about their experiences, and through this process they heal past wounds, awaken to new realisations together, reach a place of reconciliation and forgiveness, and are thereby mutually transformed.”
Source: Divine Duality: The Power of Reconciliation Between Women and Men
“But the existence of a cult does not mean that images appropriate to it automatically follow.”
Source: The Spectacle of Skill: New and Selected Writings of Robert Hughes
“But the experience that I had, which was basically just feeling loved and taken care of in a room full of thousands of people I didn't know, seemed to be a pretty strong sign that what I was doing was a good thing.”
“But the explanations fell apart in her hands. Everything true was too hard to write--he was too much to lose. Everything she felt for him was too hot to touch.”
Source: The Rainbow Rowell YA Collection
“But the extraordinary insight which some persons are able to gain of others from indications so slight that it is difficult to ascertain what they are, is certainly rendered more comprehensible by the view here taken.”
Source: Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce
“But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses nor fine furniture.”
Source: The Political Thought of Benjamin Franklin
“But the face on the pillow, rosy in the firelight, is certainly that of Clarice Starling, and she sleeps deeply, sweetly, in the silence of the lambs.”
“But the face she had just washed, looking back at her in the mirror...
It wasn't beautiful. Not a hint of dignity.
Nothing to save her.”
Source: The Decagon House Murders
“But the fact a person denies that he is theorising is no reason for taking him at his word and failing to investigate what implicit theory is involved in his statements.”
Source: Structure of Social Action
“But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty.”
Source: Jefferson: Political Writings
“But the fact is, as one grows close to death, the only thing that matters is family. I hope you can see that.”
Source: Day of Doom
“But the fact is, dreams catch us with our armor off.”
Source: The Unbound
“But the fact is, like my mom, most Filipinos prefer to keep history in the dark or, in these days, sold to the highest bidder.
Who can blame them.
It's kind of painful to remember.”
Source: La Tercera
“But the fact is that I wouldn't have won even a single Tour de France without the lesson of illness. What it teaches is this: pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”
“But the fact is that the gospel demands everything of all of us. If someone thinks the gospel has slotted into their life quite easily, without causing any major adjustments to their lifestyle or aspirations, it is likely that they have not really started following Jesus at all.”
Source: Is God Anti-gay?: And Other Questions About Homosexuality, the Bible, and Same-Sex Attraction
“But the fact is that the vast majority of Republicans support the Sinn Fein leadership.”