B Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with B. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“But this discontent was still latent in 1954. At that time both Negroes and whites accepted the well-established patterns of segregation as a matter of fact. Hardly anyone challenged the system. Montgomery was an easy-going town; it could even have been described as a peaceful town. But the peace was achieved at the cost of human servitude.”
Source: Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
“But this distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus. He says nothing about that. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty. He is the Lord of all life, and demands undivided allegiance.”
Source: The Cost of Discipleship
“But this element of failure is a very condition of his life; one can never dream of eliminating it without immediately dreaming of death. This does not mean that one should consent to failure, but rather one must consent to struggle against it without respite.”
Source: The Ethics of Ambiguity
“But this fella, he a old man. Got heavy wrinkled hands. Seventy years a worry done put so many lines in his face, he like a roadmap.”
Source: The Help
“But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story, no one could be told. Pretending in words was too tentative, too vulnerable, too embarrassing to let anyone know. Even writing out the she saids, the and thens, made her wince, and she felt foolish, appearing to know about the emotions of an imaginary being. Self-exposure was inevitable the moment she described a character's weakness; the reader was bound to speculate that she was describing herself. What other authority could she have?”
Source: Atonement
“But this girl...she doesn’t feel pointless. She’s real and she’s beautiful and she fits perfectly when she’s in my arms. She makes me want to feel.”
Source: One Week Girlfriend
“But this gives no proper idea of my feelings at all; and no one that has not lived such a retired stationary life as mine, can possibly imagine what they were: hardly even if he has known what it is to awake some morning, and find himself in Port Nelson, in New Zealand, with a world of waters between himself and all that knew him.”
Source: Agnes Grey
“But this grub came through the wormhole.”
Source: Drive: An Old Castle Novel
“But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.”
Source: The Scarlet Letter & A Scarlet Stigma: Romance and The Adapted Play (Illustrated Edition): A Romantic Tale of Sin and Redemption - The Magnum Opus of the Renowned American Author of
“But this Hemingway stuff is what really has me down."
"A gag," I said. "An old, old gag."
"Who is this Hemingway person at all?"
"A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you begin to believe it must be good."
"That must take a hell of a long time," the big man said.”
Source: Farewell, my lovely
“But this house felt strange. Dave asked what was going on, and John explained that the name on the eviction order belonged to the mother of several of the children. She had died two months earlier, and the children had simply gone on living in the house, by themselves.
As the movers swept through the rooms, Gray Eyes took charge, giving orders to the other children; the youngest was a boy of about eight or nine. Upstairs, the movers found ratty mattresses on the floor and empty liquor bottles displayed like trophies. In the damp basement, clothes were flung everywhere. The house and the yard were littered with trash. “Disgusting,” Tim said to the roaches scaling the kitchen wall.
As the landlord changed the locks with a power drill and the movers pushed the contents of the house onto the wet curb, the children began to run around and laugh.
When the move was done, the crew gathered by the trucks, instinctively stomping the ground to shake loose any stowaway roaches. Those who smoked reached for their packs. They didn’t know where the children would go, and they didn’t ask.”
Source: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
“But this hunch is all we have to go on, and every time I question him about feasibility, he smiles at me like he's Yoda and I'm just a dumbass without the Force.”
Source: Girl of Nightmares
“But this hurdle -- the ocean between what's asked of me and what I can answer.”
Source: Redwood Court
“But this I have lived five thousand years to learn. Power is as cold as forgotten ashes. Only my love can keep alive the memory of my daughter, the stories of Ray, Arturo, Yaksha, and most of all the grace of Krishna.”
Source: Creatures of Forever
“But this I know: if all mankind were to take their troubles to market with the idea of exchanging them, anyone seeing what his neighbor's troubles were like would be glad to go home with his own.”
“But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master--something that at times strangely wills and works for itself. He may lay down rules and devise principles, and to rules and principles it will perhaps for years lie in subjection; and then, haply without any warning of revolt, there comes a time when it will no longer consent.”
Source: Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey: In Two Volumes
“But this imputation—this self—is a product of a scene that comes off, and is not a cause of it," Goffman writes. The self is not a fixed, organic thing, but a dramatic effect that emerges from a performance. This effect can be believed or disbelieved at will.”
Source: Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
“But this inestimable privilege was soon violated: with the knowledge of truth the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation.”
Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
“But this is a little different. This is the adult acting. This is a different crowd. It's more work and more good work. That's it. People will have their opinion regardless.”
“But this is a remarkable egg, an egg worth talking about, an egg worth crossing the street for, an egg worth writing about.”
“But this is a story, and in a story there is always someone beautiful enough." - 'The Girl with Two Skins' from A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects”
“But this is a thing that I know--to live with fear is not to live at all. A man will die every moment he is afraid.”
Source: A Spear of Summer Grass
“But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless.”
“But this is also why Jesus calls us to come to HIm. By coming to Jesus, we remember who we are and who we are not. By coming to Him, we come face to face with God and with ourselves. "It is only in our encounter with a personal God," writes philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, "that we become fully aware of our condition as creatures, and fling from us the last particle of self-glory.”
Source: Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul
“But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in your power whenever you choose to retire into yourself.”
“But this is called show business, not show family.”
“But this is certain, that on the broken rocks of the foreground in the crystalline groups the mosses seem to set themselves consentfully and deliberately to the task of producing the most exquisite harmonies of color in their power. They will not conceal the form of the rock, but will gather over it in little brown bosses, like small cushions of velvet made of mixed threads of dark ruby silk and gold, rounded over more subdued films of white and grey, with lightly crisped and curled edges like hoar frost on fallen leaves, and minute clusters of upright orange stalks with pointed caps, and fibres of deep green, and gold, and faint purple passing into black, all woven together, and following with unimaginable fineness of gentle growth the undulation of the stone they cherish, until it is charged with color so that it can receive no more; and instead of looking rugged, or cold, or stern, as anything that a rock is held to be at heart, it seems to be clothed with a soft, dark leopard skin, embroidered with arabesque of purple and silver.”
Source: Modern Painters: Volume 4. Of Mountain Beauty
“But this is exactly why I read--and don't belong to a book group--because reading is the most individual thing there is. Why collectivize it? Didn't we have enough bad English teachers in school? Crowd sourcing and literature shouldn't mix.”
“But this is how he is: easygoing, which means tough going for everyone else. 65”
Source: The Imperfectionists
“But this is how men like Trump and those who model themselves on him operate. Despite insisting that it is women who cannot rein in our emotions and maintain rational perspective, it's the furious guardians of power who froth and spit at anyone they perceive to be a threat, whether actual or just ideological.”
Source: Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship
“But this is how you walk to the end of the world.
This is how you live forever.
Here is one day, and here is the next, and the next, and you take what you can, savor every stolen second, cling to every moment, until it’s gone.”
“But this is inaccurate. A runaway train is an accident. Me, I'll jump in front of the tracks. I'll even tie myself down in front of the speeding engine. There's some illogical part of me hat still believes if you want Superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.”
“But this is just how the Lord delights to work--taking the sidelined and the overlooked and giving them quietly pivotal roles in the unfolding of redemptive history.”
Source: Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers
“But this is me, telling you now, that it's all just play. It's just a sexy game, and we can all have fun with it. Feel things in a... a sort of safe place, where we can hurt or feel good or hate or be afraid, and it's all okay because we all know we're just playing together.”
Source: Daddy's Other Boy
“But this is Miami, you can't come to Miami and not show any skin. You gotta show something. If you're all covered up in this heat, you're gonna make me pass out out just to look at you. It's sweaty in Miami - but the diamonds will keep me cool.”
“But this is my fucking life! My mom died and some reporter wanted a story.” I heaved for air. “And all I cared about was playing in some game. Like that was what mattered. She was dying, and I was mad. I’m still fucking pissed. Criminals survive every day. Murderers and rapists and lunatics. But not her.”
“Life, in all the years I’ve been living it, son, doesn’t make a lick of sense where that’s concerned.”
Source: Chasing Headlines
“But this is my old game, isn’t it? Comparing, judging, evaluating, liking and disliking, approving and disapproving. There are, I sense, inseparable strengths and weaknesses in whatever way you go, and the point ultimately is just to go.”
“But this is my truth; I who am Morgaine tell you these things, Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay.”
Source: The Mists of Avalon
“But this is neither here nor there why do I mention it? Ask my pen, it governs me, I govern not it.”
Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“But this is not a ‘women’s issue’ and it is not for women to solve.”
Source: On Reckoning
“But this is not a world of free freights. One pays according to an iron schedule--for every strength the balanced weakness; for every high a corresponding low; for every fictitious god-like moment an equivalent time in reptilian slime. For every feat of telescoping long days and weeks of life into mad magnificent instants, one must pay with shortened life, and, oft-times, with savage usury added.”
Source: John Barleycorn
“But this is not difficult, O Athenians! to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence, and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best.”
Source: Apology, Crito and Phaedo of Socrates
“But this is one of the things that makes rap at its best so human. It doesn't force you to pretend to be only one thing or another, to be a saint or a sinner. It recognizes that you can be true to yourself and still have unexpected dimensions and opposing ideas. Having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is the most common thing in the world. The real bullshit is when you act like you don't have contradictions inside you, that you're so dull and unimaginative that your mind never changes or wanders into strange, unexpected places.”
“But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.”
Source: Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia
“But this is pretty new for me, both songwriting and singing.”
“But this is ruin! New waves breaking in
To wreck us, ere we are righted from the old!”
Source: Medea
“But this is so no longer, and never will be again, since man's inventions have eliminated so much distance and time; for better, for worse, we are now each of us part of the surge and swell of great economic and political movements, and whatever we do, as individuals or as nations, deeply affects everyone else.”
“But this is something quite new!" said Mrs. Munt, who collected new ideas as a squirrel collects nuts, and was especially attracted by those that are portable.
"New for me; sensible people have acknowledged it for years. You and I and the Wilcoxes stand upon money as upon islands. It is so firm beneath our feet that we forget its very existence. It's only when we see someone near us tottering that we realize all that an independent income means. Last night, when we were talking up here round the fire, I began to think that the very soul of the world is economic, and that the lowest abyss is not the absence of love, but the absence of coin."
"I call that rather cynical."
"So do I. But Helen and I, we ought to remember, when we are tempted to criticize others, that we are standing on these islands, and that most of the others are down below the surface of the sea. The poor cannot always reach those whom they want to love, and they can hardly ever escape from those whom they love no longer. We rich can. Imagine the tragedy last June if Helen and Paul Wilcox had been poor people and could not invoke railways and motor-cars to part them."
"That's more like Socialism," said Mrs. Munt suspiciously.
"Call it what you like. I call it going through life with one's hand spread open on the table. I'm tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed—from the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don't want to steal umbrellas ourselves, we forget that below the sea people do want to steal them, and do steal them sometimes, and that what's a joke up here is down there reality—”
Source: Howards End
“But this is something you need to know: when you find a place that suits you, where you decide to go back to often, to meet your pals there, if you want to feel at home and not discover some snag at the wrong moment, sit yourself in a corner, write letters, read, try and eat there, and watch what goes on for a whole day. At least twice during the day, and three times if the place is open at night, there’s that moment of “temporal void”. It happens every day, at the very same hour, at the very same minute, but it varies from place to place. People are talking, letting their hair down, having a drink together, and all of a sudden, the moment of silence: everyone turns stock still, with their glasses in the air, their eyes fixed. Immediately afterwards the hubbub resumes. But that moment when nothing’s happening - it can last five, ten minutes. And during that time, outside and everywhere else, for other people life goes on, faster, much faster, like an avalanche. If you’re prepared for it, and take advantage of that moment not to be fazed and to have your say, you’re certain to be heard, and if necessary even obeyed. Try it. You’ll see.”
Source: Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City
“But this is such a "Wheel" moment. That song rocks. The best part is where John Mayer says how our connections are permanent, how if you drift apart from someone there's always a chance you can be part of their life again. How everything comes back around again.”
Source: Waiting For You