I Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with I. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“It was not noisy prejudice that caused the work of Mendel to lie dead for thirty years, but the sheer inability of contemporary opinion to distinguish between a new idea and nonsense.”
“It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.”
Source: Emily Climbs
“It was not often that Flay approved of happiness in others.”
Source: The Gormenghast Trilogy
“It was not often that Flay approved of happiness in others. He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt. But on an occasion such as this it was different, for the spirit of convention was being rigorously adhered to, and in between his ribs Mr. Flay experienced twinges of pleasure.”
Source: Titus Groan
“It was not often that she was alone like this and she did not like it. When she was alone she had to think and, these days, thoughts were not so pleasant.”
Source: Gone with the wind
“It was not once upon a time, but a certain time in history, before anyone knew what was happening, that Walt Disney cast a spell on the fairy tale, and he has held it captive ever since.”
“It was not one folly that Shakespeare talked about. If Love truly is but a myriad of follies then I have committed them all, that can mean only one thing - I loved her truly, madly, deeply!”
“It was not only colored people who praised John, since they could not, John felt, in any case really know; but white people also said it, in fact had said it first and said it still. It was when John was five years old and in the first grade that he was first noticed; and since he was noticed by an eye altogether alien and impersonal, he began to perceive, in wild uneasiness, his individual existence.”
Source: Go Tell It on the Mountain
“It was not only desire.
It was recognition.”
Source: Fire Woman - In the Temple of Desire: A Sacred Journey through Surrender, Pleasure, and Devotion
“It was not only Odette's indifference, however, that he must take pains to circumvent; it was also, not infrequently, his own; feeling that, since Odette had had every facility for seeing him, she seemed no longer to have very much to say to him when they did meet, he was afraid lest the manner - at once trivial, monotonous, and seemingly unalterable - which she now adopted when they were together should ultimately destroy in him that romantic hope, that a day might come when she would make avowal of her passion, by which hope alone he had become and would remain her lover.”
Source: Swann’s Way
“It was not only okay to be my weird self, leading with my uniqueness might actually be the key to my success.”
Source: How to Be Everything
“It was not only that he was a great man, but, oh, there was such fun in being led by him.”
Source: The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War
“It was not our war, but it would be our disgrace, our shame. The West was filling to declare a war over the price of oil, but when it came to the wholesale slaughter of human beings we folded our hands across our chests and tapped our heels, with great anticipation that Sunday's sporting events would be wonderfully entertaining”
Source: Fools Rush In: A True Story of War and Redemption
“It was not perfect but I'm very happy. It could have been better, but I'm now looking forward to my second race of the season.”
“It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other.”
Source: The Godfather
“It was not polite for a Temujai general to allow his emotions to show.”
“It was not possible for us to produce the same optimism and the same kind of humour or irony. Actually, it was not irony. Lichtenstein is not ironic but he does have a special kind of humour. That's how I could describe it: humour and optimism. For Polke and me, everything was more fragmented. But how it was broken up is hard to describe.”
“It was not possible to broadcast any of that because of an agreement between Jackson and the family [of the child]. Our legal advice was that we could not broadcast it.”
“It was not possible to film in California, because all the areas are heavily built up now. Coming to Cape Town is an invitation to step into the past and recreate Los Angeles of the 1930s.”
“It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.”
Source: Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses
“It was not possible to think except with one’s brain, no one could stand outside himself in order to check the functioning of his inner processes.”
Source: Solaris
“It was not power that corrupted people, but fools who corrupted power.”
“It was not pre-arranged. It just happened that the driver made a demand and I just didn't feel like obeying his demand. I was quite tired after spending a full day working.”
“It was not Quoyle's chin she hated, but his cringing hesitancy, as though he waited for her anger, expected her to make him suffer.”
Source: The Shipping News
“It was not random that I was the one who was falling behind. Everything that had happened that night was a sign that I needed to try harder, or I would be alone for the rest of my life.
'I don't feel like a real teenager,' I said. 'I think I failed at it.”
Source: Loveless
“It was not really a career choice that I had to make. It was something I knew right from the beginning. I had to be an actress... period.”
“It was not really a dancing song but, rather, the kind of music that made you want to nestle into the arms of someone wonderful and stay there forever.
Through the music's swells, they swayed, and they knew, and they held each other, and they knew, and they melted, and they knew, and they knew, and they knew. Everything would be different and difficult soon.”
Source: Shark Heart
“It was not really possible to understand oneself, let alone another human being.”
Source: Timebends: A Life
“It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did it.”
Source: Peter Pan
“It was not really the external influences that made me a singer. Music was within me. I was full of it.”
“It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.”
Source: The Novels and Tales of the Right Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P.
“It was not right, thought Han Fei-tzu, for his wife to die before him: her ancestor-of-the-heart had outlived her husband. Besides, wives should live longer than husbands. Women were more complete inside themselves. They were also better at living in their children. They were never as solitary as a man alone.”
Source: Xenocide
“It was not right to believe anything you couldn't see or hold in your hands or test with your teeth.”
Source: Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise blood, The violent bear it away, Everything that rises must converge
“It was not,' said Jutta, reaching the limits of her French, 'very easy to be good then.”
Source: All the Light We Cannot See
“It was not seen that woman's place was in the home until she began to go out of it; the statement was a reply to an unspoken challenge, it was attempted resistance to irresistible change.”
Source: Old Home Town
“It was not simply energy that was doing the work, but the specific information the syllables conveyed.”
Source: Resonance Alchemy: Awakening the Tree of Life
“It was not simply out of a spirit of contradiction that I exposed a light source to magnetic forces. The idea came to me during an investigation of the effect discovered by Kerr on light reflected by magnetic mirrors.”
“It was not so much that he had anything against people in general, more that he saw no purpose in deliberately setting up occasions on which you stood around trying to think of something to say. Moreover, the whole process was self-perpetuating; the guest became the host in an act of social revenge and thus it was on for ever. The only sensible course was never to start it in the first place.”
Source: Passing On
“It was not so much that he was shut out, but that she was trapped inside.”
Source: Secrets
“It was not so much that I was doing mathematics, but rather that mathematics had taken possession of me.”
“It was not so very long ago that people thought that semiconductors were part-time orchestra leaders and microchips were very small snack foods.”
Source: Ferraro: My Story
“It was not something a woman would do, lay money on a bar like that. I am very interested in the ways that men are different from women.”
Source: In the Cut
“It was not Soviet people who formed the American Communist Party.”
“It was not supposed to happen like this, not like a malicious surprise..”
Source: Notes on Grief
“It was not surprising ....that [my father] should seldom have long seasons of agonizing prayer such as some have experienced, for His closeness to God was not limited to special seasons, but was a continuous and uninterrupted service.”
“It was not sympathy in the ordinary sense which he [Adolf Hitler] felt for the disinherited. That would not have been sufficient. He not only suffered with them, he lived for them and devoted all his thoughts to the salvation of those people from distress and poverty... his noble and grandiose work, which was intended 'for everybody'...”
Source: The Young Hitler I Knew
“It was not that Adam ate the apple for the apple's sake, but because it was forbidden. It would have been better for us-oh infinitely better for us-if the serpent had been forbidden”
Source: Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations
“It was not that donors had no loyalty to each other, but they were not ashamed to betray a fellow donor. In its wisdom the Alliance promulgated the moral rules—the main one being one’s duty to the Alliance. The Alliance was sacred—all else secondary. But not all donors—or citizens—bought into that. Many knew in their hearts there was more to life.”
Source: Donor 23
“It was not that he had never felt so alone in his life.
It was that this was the fist time he cared.”
Source: A Sanctuary for Soulden
“It was not that I disliked people; some of them were interesting and kind. But even the nice ones were no more compelling or important to me than other creatures. Then, as now, to me humans are but one species among billions of other equally vivid and thrilling lives. I was never drawn to other children simply because they were human. Humans seemed to me a rather bullying species, and I was on the side of the underdog.”
Source: The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood