O Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with O. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Of the mental hazards, being scared is the worst. When you get scared, you get tense.”
“Of the modern critics, although I disagree with almost everything she says, I admire Mary McCarthy's eloquence and social observation in 'Sights and Spectacles'; she thinks in print, but she doesn't have a real feel for the stage.”
“Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character ofthe speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.”
“Of the neighbouring princes, Syphax had been alienated after his interview with Scipio, and Masinissa had openly thrown off his allegiance and was now their bitterest enemy; Mago in Gaul was neither causing a rising against Rome nor attempting to join Hannibal, and Hannibal himself was no longer the man he was either in reputation or in strength.”
Source: The History of Rome, Books 21-30: The War with Hannibal
“Of the nine red cards this season we probably deserved half of them.”
“Of the nude pictures: Sure I posed. I needed the money.”
“Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth, came Habraham, Moyses, Aron and the profettys; and also the kyng of the right line of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne.”
“Of the One O'Clock Lab Band after hearing their performance, and sitting in with them at the White House: "I wish it were mine".”
“Of the opinions of philosophy I most gladly embrace those that are most solid, that is to say, most human and most our own; my opinions, in conformity with my conduct, are low and humble.”
Source: Complete Essays
“Of the original phenomena, light is the most enthralling.”
“Of the over 100,000 wildfires that happen in the U.S. each year, not a single one would get started without the fire triangle: Oxygen, heat and fuel. Fire needs all three to exist. It's like the three branches of our government: Legislative, judicial and executive. The fewer there are, the safer we are.”
“Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.”
Source: What Every Person Should Know About War
“Of the people who cook on television, I have admired people like Jacques Pepin, Julia Child, Mario Batali, Jamie Oliver and a few others because they are free of drama, display good taste and masterful technique, and use clear exposition to bring you up to speed.”
“Of the people, by the people, for the people.”
“Of the Phoenix kids, the one Derek got along best with was Daniel. In him, Daniel had found a good sparring partner. And a plotting partner, too. Derek wasn’t just the biggest and strongest in our group. He was also the smartest. Scary, off-the-charts smart. That intimidated Daniel a little at first—he’s bright, but he needs to work for his grades. But Derek wasn’t a show-off or a know-it-all, so they got past that and we would hang out together, the two guys, Chloe, and I planning and plotting our future, bouncing ideas off one another.”
Source: The Rising
“Of the possible shades of indigo dyeing, a deep navy blue was employed most frequently. As a result, ko-ya, the name of the dyers who used it, became a kind of synonym for the whole hand-dyeing industry. The demand for navy blue kept ko-ya so busy that they hardly had time to dye their own clothing; this gave rise to the phrase “a ko-ya who wears white,” which referred in general to anyone too busy attending to the needs of others to attend to his own.”
Source: The Colors of Japan: Background, Characteristics and Creation
“Of the potatoes, I demand nothing; of the foolish ones like you, who think I could teach them something, I demand everything.”
Source: Arrowsmith
“Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery; yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.”
Source: Rasselas
“Of the primary emotions, fear is the one that bears most directly on survival. Children show fear. Adults try not to, maybe because it's shameful, or, in some circumstances, dangerous. The fear response is automatic, though, and your body runs through its reflexes whether you want it to or not.”
“Of the properties of mathematics, as a language, the most peculiar one is that by playing formal games with an input mathematical text, one can get an output text which seemingly carries new knowledge. The basic examples are furnished by scientific or technological calculations: general laws plus initial conditions produce predictions, often only after time-consuming and computer-aided work. One can say that the input contains an implicit knowledge which is thereby made explicit.”
“Of the quaking recruit, three pitched battles make a grim grenadier; and he who shrank from the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready to yield his mustache for a sponge.”
Source: Mardi: And a Voyage Thither
“Of the rest some we know to be dead though they walk among us; some are not yet born though they go through the forms of life; others are hundreds of years old though they call themselves thirty-six.”
“Of the Russian exiles, Lenin is the last I should have picked as a man of destiny. [Angelica] Balabanoff says that she cannot remember where she first met Lenin and that even when she became conscious of his existence he made no impression upon her. Many others would say the same, but I remember vividly my first meeting with him. It was at dinner in a small Greek restaurant in Soho, not far from the house which bears the tablet commemorating the fact that Karl Marx once lived there. I met him again at Stuttgart, [at the International Socialist Congress] in 1907. In the meantime he had acquired the reputation of being a brilliant student of Marxian economics, a dangerous antagonist in all intra-party controversies and a master of revolutionary tactics and sectarian conspiracies. At the conference he was usually surrounded by a small group of whispering disciples. …
Some of Lenin's enemies believed that he was a paid emissary of the Russian police. His tactics and the dissensions which he promoted among the Russian socialists aroused suspicion. He was a fanatic, a disorganizer, a sectarian, who gave no indication in pre-war days of having the qualities of a national leader. He won his battles but they were always directed against his comrades.”
Source: Revolution Why, How, When?
“Of the sayings of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels that can be compared to those in the fourth Gospel, there are one or two which I venture to think can only have been recorded on the authority of St. John.”
“Of the scaly tribe I may mention those suckers belonging to the body loaferish, that ever rise to the surface of respectability, but are always groveling in the mud of corruption, whose sole study appears to be how much they can get without the least physical exertion; and who would rather ride to hell in a hand-cart than walk to heaven supported by the staff of industry.”
Source: Short Patent Sermons Volume 1
“Of the second-rate leaders people speak respectfully saying, "He has done this, he has done that." Of the first-rate leaders, they do not say this. They say, "We have done it all ourselves."”
“Of the seminal moments in my life, Careers Day in the autumn of Year 5 is my favorite. Everyone had to dress as whatever they wanted to be once they grew up. I had gone in a tweed jacket and a bow tie, and when Miss Weston asked me what I wanted to be, I told her that I wanted to be the Doctor.
'Shouldn't you be wearing a lab coat and stethoscope like Paul?' She pointed to Paul Black, who was trying to strangle everyone with the stethoscope in question.
Before I could answer, a boy I didn't know from the other class spoke up.
'Paul's *a* doctor,' he explained, giving me a look of approval. 'He wants to be *the* Doctor.'
'Who?'
'Exactly,' we said at the same time, relieved that she understood.
She didn't. We were sent to the quiet table to reflect on why cheeking teachers was wrong.”
Source: Trouble
“Of the seven billion people who reside on planet Earth, only 25% could, in the broadest sense of the word, be classified as "Christian" (and the percentage who have personally trusted in Christ for salvation is much smaller), meaning that over five billion people in the world are destined to hell if indeed Christ offers the exclusive path for salvation. To many people, such a claim is offensive.”
“Of the seven days God gave to us in a week, He said to take six, and use them for our business. Yet we think that we must have the seventh as well. It is like someone who, while traveling, comes upon a poor man in distress. Having but seven shillings, the generous person gives the poor man six, but when the wretch scrambles to his feet, he follows his benefactor to knock him down and steal the seventh shilling from him.”
“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
“Of the seven deadly sins, lust is definitely the pick of the litter.”
Source: Skinny Legs and All
“Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.”
“Of the seven deadly sins, surely it is pride that most commonly afflicts the gardener.”
Source: Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
“Of the Seven Dwarfs, the only one who shaved was Dopey. That should tell us something about the wisdom of shaving.”
Source: Skinny Legs and All
“Of the seven experiments, the ones that have been most investigated so far have been the pets. The dogs who know when their masters for coming home, and the sense of being stared at.”
“Of the seven million Americans living abroad, one million are military, and not all of them are Republicans. The other six million are overwhelmingly Democrat because people who live in foreign countries have a much different perspective as to what is happening in our country.”
“Of the significant and pleasurable experiences of life only the simplest are open indiscriminately to all. The rest cannot be had except by those who have undergone a suitable training.”
Source: Complete Essays: 1936-1938
“Of the six men who have done most to make America the wonder and the joy she is to all of us, not one could be the citizen of a government so constituted; for Washington and Franklin and Jefferson, certainly the three mightiest leaders in our early history, were heretics in their day, Deists, as men called them; and Garrison and Lincoln and Sumner, certainly the three mightiest in these later times, would all be disfranchised by the proposed amendment. Lincoln could not have taken the oath of office had such a clause been in the Constitution.”
“Of the six people who started PayPal, four had built bombs in high school.”
Source: Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
“Of the small gifts of heaven, / It seems to me a more than equal share / At birth was given / To girls with curly hair.”
“Of the small number of things which I have liked and done well, drinking is by far the thing I have done best. Although I have read a lot, I have drunk more. I have written much less than most people who write; but I have drunk more than the majority of the people who drink.”
“Of the smells, bread; of the tastes, salt.”
“Of the sparkling wines, the most famous is Perth Pink. This is a bottle with a message in, and the message is "beware". This is not a wine for drinking; this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.”
“Of the Sun and the Moon, the Moon is plainly the more important, as it provides us with light when it is dark and most needed, whereas the Sun appears only in the daytime when it is light anyhow.”
“Of the Surface of Things In my room, the world is beyond my understanding; But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four Hills and a cloud.”
Source: The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens
“Of the tens of thousands of words spoken during the Nuremberg Nazi trial, the word "eugenics" was said only once.”
Source: From a "Race of Masters" to a "Master Race": 1948 to 1848
“Of the things I had not known when I started out, I think the most important was the degree to which the legacy of the McCarthy period still lived. It had been almost seven years since Joe McCarthy had been censured when John Kennedy took office, and most people believed that his hold on Washington was over. ... among the top Democrats, against whom the issue of being soft on Communism might be used, and among the Republicans, who might well use the charge, it was still live ammunition. ...
McCarthyism still lingered ... The real McCarthyism went deeper in the American grain than most people wanted to admit ... The Republicans’ long, arid period out of office [twenty years, ended by the Eisenhower administration], accentuated by Truman’s 1948 defeat of Dewey, had permitted the out-party in its desperation, to accuse the leaders of the governing party of treason. The Democrats, in the wake of the relentless sustained attacks on Truman and Acheson over their policies in Asia, came to believe that they had lost the White House when they lost China. Long after McCarthy himself was gone, the fear of being accused of being soft on Communism lingered among the Democratic leaders. The Republicans had, of course, offered no alternative policy on China (the last thing they had wanted to do was suggest sending American boys to fight for China) and indeed there was no policy to offer, for China was never ours, events there were well outside our control, and our feudal proxies had been swept away by the forces of history. But in the political darkness of the time it had been easy to blame the Democrats for the ebb and flow of history.
The fear generated in those days lasted a long time, and Vietnam was to be something of an instant replay after China. The memory of the fall of China and what it did to the Democrats, was, I think, more bitter for Lyndon Johnson than it was for John Kennedy. Johnson, taking over after Kennedy was murdered and after the Kennedy patched-up advisory commitment had failed, vowed that he was not going to be the President of the United States who lost the Great Society because he lost Saigon. In the end it would take the tragedy of the Vietnam War and the election of Richard Nixon (the only political figure who could probably go to China without being Red-baited by Richard Nixon) to exorcise those demons, and to open the door to China.”
Source: The Best and the Brightest
“Of the things I know to be true in life, right at the top of the list of irrefutable truths is, "No one ever listens to anyone." It might even be No. 1.”
“Of the things men give each other the greatest is loyalty.”
Source: A child of the century
“Of the things that followed I cannot at all say whether they were what men call real or what men call dream. And, for all I can tell, the only difference is that what many see we call a real thing, and what only one sees we call a dream. But things that many see may have no taste or moment in them at all, and things that are shown only to one may be spears and water-spouts of truth from the very depth of truth.”
Source: Till We Have Faces