B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But the point you need to know is that no president at war cut taxes $1.5 trillion, like George W. Bush did.”
“But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.”
“But the pop-up suburb has an incomplete feel to it like something that just wasn't right, wasn't quite real, almost like a movie set. When people raised families in that sterile environment, it produced directionless children who became directionless teenagers, then directionless adults. With no roots, no past to stand on, you got hollow kids.”
Source: Hush
“But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the trees and on the fence rails and lawns, staring at you in ominous silence.”
Source: The Glass Castle: A Memoir
“But the possibility of abuse may be a good reason for leaving capabilities out of other computer languages, it's not a good reason for leaving capabilities out of Perl.”
“But the power of destiny is something awesome; neither wealth, nor Ares, nor a tower, nor dark-hulled ships might escape it.”
“But the power of God cannot be so determined and measured, for it is uncircumscribed and immeasurable, beyond and above all that is or may be. On the other hand, it must be essentially present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf.”
“But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.”
Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
“But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper.”
“But the powerful and respected party right, particularly Stalin, went so far in the direction of moderation as to support a merger of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks - the proposal of Irakli Tsereteli, the outstanding Menshevik intellect and orator, recently returned from Siberian exile and now in charge of the Petrograd Soviet.”
Source: October: The Story of the Russian Revolution
“But the present life should never be hated, except insofar as it subjects us to sin, although even that hatred should not properly be applied to life itself.”
Source: Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
“But the present world is also designed for something which has not yet happened. It is like a violin waiting to be played: beautiful to look at, graceful to hold - and yet if you'd never heard one in the hands of a musician, you wouldn't believe the new dimensions of beauty yet to be revealed.”
“But the primary reason for wanting the dollar to become more competitive in the near future is that we may need an increase in exports this year and in 2007 to sustain the economy's current pace of expansion.”
“But the princess had never seen the beautiful expression of her eyes; the expression that came into them when she was not thinking of herself. As is the case with everyone, her face assumed an affected, unnatural, ugly expression as soon as she looked in the looking glass.”
Source: War and Peace
“But the principles of laissez-faire have had other allies besides economic textbooks. It must be admitted that they have been confirmed in the minds of sound thinkers and the reasonable public by the poor quality of the opponent proposals - protectionism on one hand, and Marxian socialism on the other. Yet these doctrines are both characterised, not only or chiefly by their infringing the general presumption in favour of laissez-faire, but by mere logical fallacy. Both are examples of poor thinking, of inability to analyse a process and follow it out to its conclusion. The arguments against them, though reinforced by the principle of laissez-faire, do not strictly require it. Of the two, protectionism is at least plausible, and the forces making for its popularity are nothing to wonder at. But Marxian socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of opinion - how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men and, through them, the events of history. At any rate, the obvious scientific deficiencies of these two schools greatly contributed to the prestige and authority of nineteenth-century laissez-faire.”
Source: End of Laissez Faire
“But the prize for courage will surely be awarded most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.”
Source: The Landmark Thucydides
“But the problem is if you accept yourself the way you are at the age of 16 what the hell are you going to do in the next 60 years?”
“But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, 'How can I combine career and family?'”
“But the problem is to make the soul into a monster”
Source: Poems
“But the problem remains two fold: the need for recognition that low thyroid function very often can provoke menstrual problems, and the need for recognition, too, that hypothyroidism may be present despite laboratory tests suggesting it is not.”
“But the problem with coaching is that it is a full-time job. By that I mean for at least 40 weeks in a year you have to be with the player, either travelling or training. Right now I don't want to do that”
“But the problem with hope was also what made it so wonderful. Once a bit of hope had come to life, it was difficult to kill.”
Source: A Curse for True Love
“But the problem with looking back when you should be walking ahead is that you usually end up walking into something that hurts.”
“But the problem with losing your morality is that sometimes it takes other things with it. You don't realize the things that are important to you, in order to be the person you want to be, until you've already damaged them beyond repair.”
•pg.333 - Kovit”
Source: Not Even Bones
“But the problem with the marketplaces that it dissolves communities and replaces them with consumers. Going to school is not the same as going shopping. Parents should not be burdened with locating a suitable school for their child. They should be able to take their child to the neighborhood public school as a matter of course and expect that it has well-educated teachers and a sound educational program.”
Source: The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
“But the problem with wanting something you can't have or shouldn't have, is that the second it seems possible, all reason flees. Reason and wanting go well together only when the reason encourages a person to get what they want. Any reason opposed to this want becomes the enemy.”
Source: A Curse for True Love
“But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern.”
Source: The Complete Novels of George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four
“But the process of making a film is not glamorous. Certainly not my films.”
“But the process should not be confused with science. When tests are used as selections devices, they're not a neutral tool; they become a large factor int he very equation they purport to measure. For one thing, the tests tend to screen out - or repel - those who would upset the correlation. If a man can't get into the company in the first place because he isn't the company type, he can't very well get to be an executive and be tested in a study to find out what kind if profile subsequent executives should match. Long before personality tests were invented, of course, plenty of companies proved that if you only hire people of a certain type, then all your successful men will be people of that type. But no one confused this with the immutable laws of science.”
Source: The Organization Man
“But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it can not be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.”
Source: The collected works of Abraham Lincoln
“But the Progressive Conservative is very definitely liberal Republican. These are people who are moderately conservative on economic matters, and in the past have been moderately liberal, even sometimes quite liberal on social policy matters.”
“But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet --!”
Source: Animal Farm and 1984
“But the Promise showed their wildest dreams had simply not been wild enough.”
“But the prospects of designing chemical plants for industrial scale chemical processes seemed far less interesting than the chemical events that occur in biological systems.”
“But the public did not know the truth about what happened to the people in the trucks; they believed the stories from the government, who said that these people, known as Untermensch (non-people or ‘lower people’), were simply moved to open spaces in the east and settled on farms, away from Germany, so as not to ‘contaminate’ the German race. This is an example of people not wishing to know the facts behind the rumours in which were whispered between trusted friends. The general belief was that the rumours were rubbish anyway, for how could a civilized country do such things? Our leaders would never allow anything bad to happen to these people; after all, we were not barbarians! And so nothing was said, or done, and the public developed a collective blindness to the truth.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“But the purpose and nature are never clearly revealed. Human behaviour is a series of lunges, of which, it is sometimes sensed, the direction is inevitable.”
Source: Voss
“But the purpose of a story is to teach and to please at once, and what it teaches is how to recognize the snares of the world.”
Source: The Island of the Day Before
“But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.”
“But the quality of human beings is only one - and that is how much they love and forgive.”
“But the quality of writing in the series [game of Thrones] is paramount. That's probably why all of us are involved in this and all of us are quite so loyal to it, because we don't have to expend a lot of energy trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. The quality of the writing is really good, and that's what makes playing a character so enjoyable, whether he's heroic or villainous.”
“But the Queen Arwen said: 'A gift I will give you. For I am the daughter of Elrond. I shall not go with him now when he departs to the Havens; for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so I have chosen, both the sweet and the bitter. But in my stead you shall go, Ring-bearer, when the time comes, and if you then desire it. If your hurts grieve you still and the memory or your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed. But wear this now in memory of Elfstone and Evenstar with whom your life has been woven!'
And she took a white gem like a star that lay upon her breast hanging upon a silver chain, and she set the chain around Frodo's neck. 'When the memory of the fear and the darkness troubles you,' she said, 'this will bring you aid.”
Source: The Return of the King
“But the queen--too long she has suffered the pain of love,
hour by hour nursing the wound with her lifeblood,
consumed by the fire buried in her heart. [...]
His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling--
no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none.”
Source: The Aeneid
“But the question is - are we deporting a couple hundred people for show or are we actually making a serious effort to remove everybody who's got a final order of removal? When I say enforcement theater, what I mean is a kind of pretend enforcement.”
“But the question is a matter of the survival and the teaching. That's what our work comes down to. No matter where we key into it, it's the same work, just different pieces of ourselves doing it.”
Source: Conversations with Audre Lorde
“But the question is, historically, part of the group that you're a part of - whether it's racial, gender, religious, whatever - how has your group fared historically? The groups that you're a part of? Like, for me, as an atheist, Jew, I'm gonna go on, uh - oh and Emma Goldman is one of my great heroes and I really think that anarchism is a fantastic principle by which to fashion a utopian society even if we can't get there. Like historically, that does not go well.”
“But the question is to find and rear leaders that are really one with the masses. This can only be accomplished by the masses, the political parties and the Trade Unions, by means of the most severe struggle, also inwardly.”
“But the question is, do we care enough? Do we care enough to keep standing up for the country that we know is possible, even if it's hard, and even if it's politically uncomfortable? Do we care enough to sustain the passion and the pressure to make our communities safer and our country safer? Do we care enough to do everything we can to spare other families the pain that is felt here today?”
“But the question is, whether the animals who endure such sufferings of various kinds for the service and entertainment of man, would accept existence upon the terms on which they have it.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order; a Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published. The Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great-Britain, for Near Half a Century, During which He Flourished. In Two Volumes
“But the question that everyone wanted answered was whether I would have the nerve and the strength to start the whole process from scratch. I said yes; otherwise I would be someone who had no dream left, and without dreams I would not want to live.”
Source: Conquest of the useless: reflections from the making of Fitzcarraldo
“But the question to precede all others, which finally determines the course of our lives is What do I really want? Was it to love what God commands, in the words of the collect, and to desire what He promises? Did I want what I wanted, or did I want what He wanted, no matter what it might cost?”
Source: Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control