O Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with O. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Of no mortal say, 'That man is happy,' till vexed by no grievous ill he pass Life's goal.”
Source: Dramas of Sophocles
“Of nothing but me I sing, lacking another song.”
“Of nothing comes nothing: springs rise not above Their source in the far-hidden heart of the mountains: Whence then have descended the Wisdom and Love That in man leap to light in intelligent fountains?”
Source: The Emigrant's Story: And Other Poems
“Of offering more than what I can deliver, I have a bad habit, it is true. But I have to offer more than I can deliver, To be able to deliver what I do.”
“Of old sat Freedom on the heights
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights;
She heard the torrents meet.”
Source: Fifty Poems
“Of old the expert in battle would first make himself invincible and then wait for his enemy to expose his vulnerability.”
“Of old when folk lay sick and sorely tried The doctors gave them physic, and they died. But here's a happier age: for now we know Both how to make men sick and keep them so.”
Source: The Verse of Hilaire Belloc
“Of old, the demagogue was also a general, and then democracies changed into tyrannies. Most of the ancient tyrants were originally demagogues. They are not so now, but they were then; and the reason is that they were generals and not orators, for oratory had not yet come into fashion.”
Source: Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume 2: The Revised Oxford Translation
“of one hundred movies there's one that is fair, one that's good and ninety eight that are very bad. most movies start badly and steadily get worse”
“Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic… It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or antireligious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest. The very last thing an intelligent and self-respecting member of a democratic community should do is to reward any public man because that public man says that he will get the private citizen something to which this private citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some emotion or animosity which this private citizen ought not to possess… If a public man tries to get your vote by saying that he will do something wrong in your interest, you can be absolutely certain that if ever it becomes worth his while he will do something wrong against your interest.”
Source: The Duties of American Citizenship
“Of one man in especial, beyond anyone else, the citizens of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure for those who elect him, in one shape or another, profit at the expense of other citizens of the republic. It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to religious or anti-religious prejudice. The man who makes such an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake of furthering his own interest.”
“Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well.”
Source: Othello: Ignatius Critical Editions
“Of one thing alone I am very sure: it is a law of our nature that the memory of longing should survive the more fugitive memory of fulfillment.”
“Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked.”
“Of one thing I am certain: No single people, tradition, religion, governmental form, ethical program, moral code, or civilization has had sufficient wisdom and goodness to set the pattern and govern he world in the was of peace, decency and mutual respect. I do not believe God ever intended it to be that way. He wants us to reach out and learn from the wisdom he has given to humanity over broad sweeps of time and place and personality.”
“Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing, peace is the measure.”
“Of one thing I am perfectly sure: God's story never ends with 'ashes.”
“Of one thing the executive may be sure: that the majority want more of the good things of life, and if they can get them without undue personal effort, so much the better. So the executive naturally tends to promise material gain, contingent of course on his remaining in power. The impetus to personal rule is obvious.”
“Of one thing the investor can be certain: A large company's need to bring in a new chief executive from the outside is a damning sign of something basically wrong with the existing management - no matter how good the surface signs may have been as indicated by the most recent earnings statement.”
“Of one thing the reader can be certain: the more easily anything reads, the harder it has been to write.”
Source: Writing is Work
“Of one thing there is no doubt: if Paris makes demands of the heart, then Munich makes demands of the stomach.”
“Of one thing we can be certain: every person we see - no matter the race, religion, political beliefs, body type, or appearance - is family.”
“Of one thing we can be sure: our own future is inseparable from the larger community that brought us into being and which sustains us in every expression of our human quality of life, in our aesthetic and emotional sensitivities, our intellectual perceptions, our sense of the divine, as well as in our physical nourishment and bodily healing.”
Source: The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
“Of one thing we may be sure, we can never escape the external stimuli that cause vexation. The world is full of them, and though we were to retreat to a cave and live the remainder of our days alone, we still could not lose them. The rough floor of the cave would chafe us, the weather would irritate us and the very silence would cause us to fret”
“Of Orson Welles: It's like meeting God without dying.”
“Of our 49 billion, we haven't moved any to Bitcoin”
“Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.”
“Of our political revolution of '76, we all are justly proud. It has given us a degree of political freedom, far exceeding that of any other nation of the earth. In it the world has found a solution of the long mooted problem, as to the capability of man to govern himself. In it was the germ which has vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind.”
Source: Lincoln Speeches
“Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.”
Source: Autobiography of J.S. Mill & on Liberty; Characteristics, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh & Sir Walter Scott
“Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.”
Source: 1984
“Of particular importance to us is the recognition... that what we want is a Europe of nations, not a federal super-state.”
“Of particular universal significance, is art’s ability to encase hope within contexts that cannot be murdered with bullets, killer drones, or unjust authoritarian decrees. While the blossoms of its extraordinary gifts may wilt in one challenging season, it is their nature to return more numerous and vibrant than ever before in another.”
Source: Songbirds and Roses: The Unusual Life Story of an Unusual Poem
“Of people, of places, surfaces don't interest me. Depths do.”
Source: The Weight of Tender Things
“Of people that hold an opinion that is popular and that makes them look good: I cannot take your opinions seriously. If you are of a persuasion that is popular and that makes you look like a better person, then you hold that persuasion as a result of no inner convictions of your own; rather, you hold that persuasion as a result of self-consciousness. It takes courage and inner strength to hold convictions that go against popular opinion and that go against what would make you feel accepted in the eyes of most. There are three levels to this sort of consciousness: the first level dictates that you are simply unaware and you go about with daily life with no presumptions, simply going with the flow of everything. The second level is the one that the current generation mostly belongs to: the level of those who believe themselves to be enlightened, awakened. This second level belongs to those who would call those belonging to the first level as "sheep". This second level belongs to those who would believe that there are only two levels: one belonging to sheep and another belonging to them. They are unaware of the third level. But the third level of consciousness is the level that belongs not to what those on the lesser level would call as "sheep" and also not belonging to the second level of those who believe themselves to be free thinkers. At this third level, are those who see plainly that the free thinkers of today are simply a different herd of sheep, who all hold a shared opinion of what it means to be a better person, what it means to be an enlightened individual, what it means to be free. They are the herd that believe themselves to be free. At least the first herd at the first level do not care to go about with such thoughts in their minds: they are the ones who care only of working honestly, living honestly, and doing good deeds. Those on the second level, however, upon believing themselves to be set free of former persuasions, are convinced of their mental and spiritual superiority. But, alas, such individuals would not dare hold any personal conviction if it meant they would be seen in an unfavourable light by their peers, friends, by the masses. Their inner compasses are controlled not by the image they wish to see in the mirror; rather, their inner compasses are controlled by the image they wish others to see when looking at them. Now, at the third level, nothing controls these minds except for the desire to see in the mirror what is true, what is pure, what is better; regardless if anybody else can see it or not. At the third level of consciousness, we find those who have transcended the pleasures provided by the feelings of other people's acceptance, praise, and opinion of them. To be good, and to believe good, not because it is popular, but because it is true and good. At the third level, we will find those whose inner compasses are controlled by their reflections in the mirror, not by their peers, their friends, or the masses.”
“Of persons I will say this: it is difficult to tell when they are running aright but easy to see when something has gone awry.”
“Of plants tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot.”
Source: The Witches of Eastwick: A Novel
“Of pleasures, those which occur most rarely give the most delight.”
Source: Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Golden Sayings, Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion
“Of poets I put Virgil first - he was greatest.”
Source: I Await the Devil's Coming: Annotated & Unexpurgated
“Of possible quadruple algebras the one that had seemed to him by far the most beautiful and remarkable was practically identical with quaternions, and that he thought it most interesting that a calculus which so strongly appealed to the human mind by its intrinsic beauty and symmetry should prove to be especially adapted to the study of natural phenomena. The mind of man and that of Nature's God must work in the same channels.”
“Of power does Man possess no particle: Of knowledge-just so much as show that still It ends in ignorance on every side.”
Source: The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, La Saisiaz, Etc.
“Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.”
Source: Poetical works
“Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.”
“Of private differences personal to himself, my brother had none.”
Source: End of an Era: The Last Days of Traditional Southern Culture as Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Confederate Soldier
“Of prosperity mortals can never have enough.”
“Of publishing a book on religion, my dear sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. Of these there must be, at least, ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all wrong but his own.”
Source: Jefferson: Magnificent Populist
“Of puns it has been said that those who most dislike them are those who are least able to utter them.”
“Of pure poetry there are two kinds, that which mirrors the beauty of the world in which our bodies are, and that which builds the more mysterious kingdoms where geography ends and fairyland begins, with gods and heroes at war, and the sirens singing still, and Alph going down to the darkness from Xanadu.”
“Of religion I know nothing -- at least, in its favor.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Lord Byron (Illustrated)
“Of Rhetoric various definitions have been given by different writers; who, however, seem not so much to have disagreed in their conceptions of the nature of the same thing, as to have had different things in view while they employed the same term.”
Source: Elements of Rhetoric: Comprising an Analysis of the Laws of Moral Evidence and of Persuasion, with Rules for Argumentative Composition and Elocution
“of rhythm is image / of image is knowing / of knowing there is / a construct”
Source: Collected Prose