L Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with L. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Long ago I learned nothing gets done by just wishing it. You have to do it.”
Source: Hanging Woman Creek
“Long ago I left heroics to the heroes”
Source: Marat/Sade ; The Investigation ; and The Shadow of the Body of the Coachman
“Long ago I lost the joy in living. The only joy I have is in my giving.”
“Long ago I realized that no other person would be to me what you are.”
“Long ago, I stopped buying- let alone reading, books that talk about organizational success but fail to emphasize the importance of TRUST”
Source: The 9 Cardinal Building Blocks: For continued success in leadership
“Long ago I thought I knew myself, now my knowledge about myself is nothing but a empty shell…”
Source: Peruvian Nights
“Long ago, I would’ve laughed at the idea of not killing someone as my first option, but here I am.
It’s strange, the ease of falling so far from who I once was, but does it not take falling to learn how to stand?”
“Long ago I yearned to be a hero without knowing, in truth, what a hero was. Now, perhaps, I understand it a little better. A grower of turnips or a shaper of clay, a Commot farmer or a king--every man is a hero if he strives more for others than for himself alone. Once you told me that the seeking counts more than the finding. So, too, must the striving count more than the gain.”
Source: The High King: The Chronicles of Prydain
“Long ago I'd said that I am "fascinated by the phantasmagoria of human personality" - this is perhaps even truer now than years ago.”
“Long ago, in a big castle floating in the clouds, a boy who dreamed of being a warrior and a girl who loved to cook met and fell in love. Those two are gone, but after a long, long journey, their hearts met again.”
“Long ago in China, knot-makers tied string into buttons and frogs, and rope into bell pulls. There was one knot so complicated that it blinded the knot-maker. Finally an emperor outlawed this cruel knot, and the nobles could not order it anymore. If I had lived in China, I would have been an outlaw knot-maker.”
“Long ago it was said that 'one half of the world does not know how the other half lives.' That was true then. It did not know because it did not care. The half that was on top cared little for the struggles, and less for the fate, of those who were underneath, so long as it was able to hold them there and keep its own seat.”
Source: How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York
“Long ago life was clean, sex was bad and obscene, and the rich were so mean. Stately homes for the Lords, croquet lawns, village greens, Victoria was my queen.”
“Long ago man formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods... Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself.”
Source: Civilization and Its Discontents
“Long ago Mars was an oasis of running water.Today the Martiansurfaceis a sterile,barren desert. Here on Earth, who knows what climactic knobs we unwittingly turn,which might one day render Earth as dry and lifeless as Mars. (From the cover of Old Poison by Joan Francis)”
“Long ago, our ancestors realized that the natural world was not the only wellspring of resources essential to our survival. The mind was just as rich. Humans possess a wealth of psychological resources necessary for survival: empathy, loyalty, commitment, and goodwill. Just as material resources must be processed and managed, so too with psychological resources.”
Source: Ritual in Human Evolution and Religion: Psychological and Ritual Resources
“Long ago she'd clamped an iron shell around her heart and nothing and no one could pry it lose, but deep inside the tender flesh still beat.”
Source: A Memory Between Us
“Long ago the accusations had begun,
And suddenly knew by whom it had been judged”
“Long ago the country bore the country-town and nourished it with her best blood. Now the giant city sucks the country dry, insatiably and incessantly demanding and devouring fresh streams of men, till it wearies and dies in the midst of an almost uninhabited waste of country.”
Source: The decline of the West
“Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one. To be all one meant to be wholly one, to be in oneness, either essentially or temporarily. That is precisely the goal of solitude, to be all one.”
“Long ago they lowered insane persons into snake pits; they thought that an experience that might drive a sane person out of his wits might send an insane person back into sanity.”
Source: The snake pit
“Long ago they lowered insane persons into snake pits; they thought that an experience that might drive a sane person out of his wits might send an insane person back to sanity.”
Source: The snake pit
“Long ago we conquered our passions looking at ourselves in the mirror of eternity.”
“Long ago, we existed as a nomadic people who thrived on hunting and gathering. How does that match humanity today?”
“Long ago, we had both realized that the only constructive conversation possible between us was sex. Neither of us could hear normal words. We each spoke our minds and listened only to ourselves. Only during sex did we share sensations and truly be present together. How long could that last? Probably forever. Would we have been happy for eternity? Why not? Sex wasn’t about interests or cultural differences; it was self-sufficient.”
Source: Clochard
“Long ago when a child lay in a manger, a special star appeared. It didn't just show up that evening. It had to have been placed in its orbit centuries before in a trajectory that would make it appear at that special moment of time to announce the birth of a special child. Just as there is divine design in the universe, so each of us has been placed in our own orbits in this life to love, to serve, to help light the world.”
“Long ago, when faeries and men still wandered the earth as brothers, the MacLeod chief fell in love with a beautiful faery woman. They had no sooner married and borne a child when she was summoned to return to her people. Husband and wife said a tearful goodbye and parted ways at Fairy Bridge, which you can still visit today. Despite the grieving chief, a celebration was held to honor the birth of the newborn boy, the next great chief of the MacLeods. In all the excitement of the celebration, the baby boy was left in his cradle and the blanket slipped off. In the cold Highland night he began to cry. The baby’s cry tore at his mother, even in another dimension, and so she went to him, wrapping him in her shawl. When the nursemaid arrived, she found the young chief in the arms of his mother, and the faery woman gave her a song she insisted must be sung to the little boy each night. The song became known as “The Dunvegan Cradle Song,” and it has been sung to little chieflings ever since. The shawl, too, she left as a gift: if the clan were ever in dire need, all they would have to do was wave the flag she’d wrapped around her son, and the faery people would come to their aid. Use the gift wisely, she instructed. The magic of the flag will work three times and no more.
As I stood there in Dunvegan Castle, gazing at the Fairy Flag beneath its layers of protective glass, it was hard to imagine the history behind it. The fabric was dated somewhere between the fourth and seventh centuries. The fibers had been analyzed and were believed to be from Syria or Rhodes. Some thought it was part of the robe of an early Christian saint. Others thought it was a part of the war banner for Harald Hardrada, king of Norway, who gave it to the clan as a gift. But there were still others who believed it had come from the shoulders of a beautiful faery maiden. And that faery blood had flowed through the MacLeod family veins ever since. Those people were the MacLeods themselves.”
Source: Faery Tale: One Woman's Search for Enchantment in a Modern World
“Long ago, when I was in my insecure twenties, I met a clever, independent, creative, and powerful woman in her mid-seventies, who offered me a superb piece of life wisdom.
She said: “We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we’re so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won’t be completely free until you reach your sixties and seventies, when you finally realize this liberating truth—nobody was ever thinking about you, anyhow.”
They aren’t. They weren’t. They never were.
People are mostly just thinking about themselves. People don’t have time to worry about what you’re doing, or how well you’re doing it, because they’re all caught up in their own dramas. People’s attention may be drawn to you for a moment (if you succeed or fail spectacularly and publicly, for instance), but that attention will soon enough revert right back to where it’s always been—on themselves. While it may seem lonely and horrible at first to imagine that you aren’t anyone else’s first order of business, there is also a great release to be found in this idea. You are free, because everyone is too busy fussing over themselves to worry all that much about you.
Go be whomever you want to be, then.
Do whatever you want to do.
Pursue whatever fascinates you and brings you to life.
Create whatever you want to create—and let it be stupendously imperfect, because it’s exceedingly likely that nobody will even notice.
And that’s awesome.”
Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
“Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf.”
“Long ago, when she was a girl in the group home, Eva discovered that big feelings made most people uncomfortable, and she learned how to use anger or sadness to turn up the pressure, to maneuver people into a position where their only desire was to make the emotion go away. To stop the tears. To fix the fear. To placate the anger.”
Source: The Last Flight
“Long ago you may have given up control of your brain and set it on autopilot either because it just felt like too much work. And it is work! But for me, this work was well worth it for the prospect of not waking up sad every day.”
Source: The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)
“Long ago you were a dream in your mother's sleep, and then she awoke to give you birth.”
Source: Sand and Foam
“Long ago, among other lies they were taught that silence was bravery.”
Source: The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected Poems 1951-1993
“Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that "Price is what you pay; value is what you get." Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.”
“Long ago, during my apprenticeship in the wine trade, I learned that wine is more than the sum of its parts, and more than an expression of its physical origin. The real significance of wine as the nexus of just about everything became clearer to me when I started writing about it. The more I read, the more I traveled, and the more questions I asked, the further I was pulled into the realms of history and economics, politics, literature, food, community, and all else that affects the way we live. Wine, I found, draws on everything and leads everywhere.”
Source: A Carafe of Red
“Long ago, I became more interested in the real world than in make-believe.”
“Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.”
“Long ago, I made up my mind that, when things were said involving only me, I would pay no attention to them, except when valid criticism was carried by which I could profit.”
“Long ago, I realized that success leaves clues, and that people who produce outstanding results do specific things to create those results. I believed that if I precisely duplicated the actions of others, I could reproduce the same quality of results that they had.”
Source: Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement
“Long ago, long ago. The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.”
Source: Let The Great World Spin
“Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?”
Source: The Time Traveler's Wife
“Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.”
“Long ago, there was a noble word, liberal, which derives from the word free. Now a strange thing happened to that word. A man named Hitler made it a term of abuse, a matter of suspicion, because those who were not with him were against him, and liberals had no use for Hitler. And then another man named McCarthy cast the same opprobrium on the word. ... We must cherish and honor the word free or it will cease to apply to us.”
“Long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.”
Source: Babylon Revisited and Other Stories (Fitzgerald’s Greatest Short Stories): A Collection of short stories from the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
“Long ago, when Harry had been left alone while the Dursley's went out to enjoy themselves, the hours of solitude had been a rare treat: Pausing only to sneak something tasty from the fridge, he had rushed upstairs to play on Dudley's computer, or put on the television and flicked through the channels to his heart's content. It gave him an odd empty feeling to remember those times; it was like remembering a younger brother whom he had lost.”
“Long ago, when I was a very young girl, I said that I wanted to go everywhere, see everything, taste everything. hear everything, touch everything, try everything before I died. There isn't anything you can name that a woman can do that I haven't done. I don't intend to stand by and be a spectator. I want to be right in there in the midst of it, right up to my nose - totally involved in the community, in the world, in the stream of history, in the human image.”
“Long and long has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round.”
Source: Leaves of Grass
“Long and white was his hair, like the mountains of the north, with a towering beard that had aged with time. Shrouded was his cloak, and of yew was his staff, and atop his head, a braided crown made of silver decorated it. Wrapped around his furrow neck, hung a horn, and perched high atop his olden shoulders, rested two ravens resembling the color of a wave’s crest. From the book Tundra: A Wanderer's Tale into Darkness”
“Long as I live
Long as I breathe
With every heartbeat
I'll need you near me”
“Long as I live large, life will be luxury,
Ladies in Lamborghinis...love is like luck to me.”