M Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with M. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Mere chance ... alone would never account for so habitual and large an amount of difference as that between varieties of the same species.”
Source: Evolutionary Writings: including the Autobiographies
“Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity there is no growth.”
Source: Selected Literary Essays
“Mere children, ha!" said Jane. "I say we tie up the knave and then discuss his fate."
Since everyone thought this a good idea, Batty and Hound donated Jeffrey's neckties, and soon Bug Man, aka Sock or Spock, aka Norman Birnbaum, was bound hand and foot. Jane, Batty, and Hound then took a few minutes to be Aztec priests calling for blood, until Rosalind quieted them down. Norman was slime, but that was no reason to terrify him.
Then came a long discussion about what they should do next... Jane's suggestion of throwing Norman into their basement so that he could dwell on his sins was rejected outright.”
Source: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
Source: The Best of Oscar Wilde: Selected Plays and Writings
“Mere combat skills do not make you an officer of the law, you must have a firm grip over your biases, assumptions and fears.”
Source: Bulldozer on Duty
“Mere communion with nature, mere contact with the free air, exercise a soothing yet comforting and strengthening influence on the wearied mind, calm the storm of passion, and soften the heart when shaken by sorrow to its inmost depths.”
“Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth.”
Source: Up from Slavery: Top Biography
“Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.”
“Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown.”
“Mere enthusiasm is the all in all.”
Source: The life of William Blake
“Mere enthusiasm is the all in all... / Passion and expression are beauty itself.”
“Mere exactitude, of which photography and moulage [life casting] are the lowest forms, does not inspire feelings.”
Source: In Rodin's studio: a photographic record of sculpture in the making
“Mere existence is already the result of incredible luck. Such was the case on Earth in the past, and such has always been the case in this cruel universe. But at some point, humanity began to develop the illusion that they’re entitled to life, that life can be taken for granted.”
Source: Death's End
“Mere experience, if it is not matched by deep concentration, does not translate into excellence.”
“Mere fact has no chance of being formally perfect. It will get in the way, it will be all elbows.”
“Mere flimflam stories, and nothing but shams and lies.”
Source: The History Of the Renowned Don Quixote De la Mancha
“Mere form without substance must collapse of its own weight.”
“Mere good governance is not enough; it has to be pro-people and pro-active. Good governance is putting people at the center of development process.”
“Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.”
Source: Hegel's Philosophy of right
“Mere heathen morality, and not Jesus Christ, is preached in most of our churches.”
Source: The Revived Puritan. Select Works of ... G. W., ... Containing a Memoir of His Life, Etc. [Edited by G. B.]
“Mere human beings cant afford to be fanatical about anything. Not even about justice or loyalty. The fanatic for justice ends by murdering a million helpless people to clear a space for his law-courts. If we are to survive on this planet, there must be compromises.”
“Mere imagination would indeed be mere trifling; only no imagination is mere .”
Source: Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce
“Mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people”
Source: Mere Christianity
“Mere inflation-that is, the mere issuance of more money, with the consequence of higher wages and prices-may look like the creation of more demand. But in terms of the actual production and exchange of real things it is not.”
Source: Economics in One Lesson
“Mere isolation in an enclosing idea is not a release from conflict.”
Source: The First and Last Freedom
“Mere lack of evidence, of course, is no reason to denounce a theory. Look at intelligent design. The fact that it is bollocks hasn’t stopped a good many people from believing in it. Darwinism itself is only supported by tons of evidence, which is a clear indication that Darwin didn’t write his books himself.”
“Mere lack of success does not discredit a method, for there are many things that determine and perpetuate our sanctified ways of doing things besides their success in reaching their proposed ends.”
Source: The Mind in the Making
“Mere language fails in times of intense grief, while poetry conquers by diving deep into that dense sadness, stirring the emotions, and finding that unstirred joy, the place of still deep where God resides.”
“Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing.”
“Mere mental assimilation of these truths cannot withstand temptation, however. The revelation of God is positively essential. The Spirit of God must reveal how we are in Christ and how we are united with Him in one.”
Source: The Finest of the Wheat, vol 2 - Hardcover: Selected Excerpts from the Published Works of Watchman Nee
“Mere mental, that is, intellectual labour, is for the soul and has its own satisfaction.”
Source: India of My Dreams
“Mere nails, though pounded deep, were not enough to keep Jesus on the cross. But love was... and love prevailed.”
“Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.”
“Mere numbers cannot bring out ... the intimate essence of the experiment. This conviction comes naturally when one watches a subject at work. ... What things can happen! What reflections, what remarks, what feelings, or, on the other hand, what blind automatism, what absence of ideas! ... The experimenter judges what may be going on in [the subject's] mind, and certainly feels difficulty in expressing all the oscillations of a thought in a simple, brutal number, which can have only a deceptive precision. How, in fact, could it sum up what would need several pages of description!”
“Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be.”
Source: Galapagos: A Novel
“Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be. So the Galapagos Islands could be hell in one moment and heaven in the next, and Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next, and Ecuadorian paper money could be traded for food, shelter, and clothing in one moment and line the bottom of a birdcage in the next, and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next--and on and on.”
Source: Galapagos: A Novel
“Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)
“Mere philosophy will not satisfy us. We cannot reach the goal by mere words alone. Without practice, nothing can be achieved. (3)”
“Mere physical growing up, mere mastery of the bare necessities of subsistence will not suffice to reproduce the life of the group. Deliberate effort and the taking of thoughtful pains are required.”
Source: Democracy And Education
“Mere physical sitting is not enough. You have to sit carefully and attentively. Let your body and breathing sit. Let your mind and emotions sit. Let your blood circulation sit. Let everything sit. Then your sitting becomes indestructible, immovable.”
“Mere pleasure cause pain.”
“Mere pleasure is at best but fleeting; happiness is abiding, for in the recollection thereof is renewed.”
Source: Jesus the Christ
“Mere pleasure is pleasant but the end is pain.”
“Mere pleasure leads to pain.”
“Mere pleasure lies in evil. Pure pleasure leads to good.”
“Mere poets are sottish as mere drunkards are, who live in a continual mist, without seeing or judging anything clearly. A man should be learned in several sciences, and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet.”
Source: The Works of John Dryden: Poetical works
“Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.”
“Mere praise of peace is easy and ineffective. What is needed is acitve participation in the fight against war and everything which leads to it.”
“Mere prattle without practice”
Source: Othello
“Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority.”
Source: Annual messages, veto messages, protest, &c. of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States