T Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with T. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Tolstoy’s accounts of Borodino and Austerlitz show us what real war is like: no one knows what the orders are or who is winning. No one has any idea what to do. Soldiers are permitted to kill each other and are maddened, sooner or later, by the realization that someone else, somewhere relatively comfortable, thinks this is the right thing for them to do. And we are not so far from that kind of chaos in everyday life, really. I walk down the street towards the Infirmary, every Wednesday, and I go in and wait and sit down and everyone is quite polite, and I am played with by the law and turned into a sexless person. The most extraordinary thing is done behind a nice white screen. And the nurse who injects me does it with a good will, because she has been told that it is her job. She doubtless thinks of herself as a freely choosing agent. She likes to think she does her job well, but at the same time she is just doing her job. (One hears this a lot.) That means she does not take ultimate responsibility for her actions, because those kinds of decisions are taken, or absorbed, by more powerful persons, like Tolstoy’s generals, who know what they are doing. She sees no contradiction between this and her own intuitive sense of agency.”
Source: Murmur
“Tolstoy's novels are about the planet Earth and Solzhenitsyn's are about Pluto. Tolstoy is writing about a society and Solzhenitsyn is writing about the lack of one... surely there is something wilfully unhistorical about being disappointed that Pierre Bezhukov or Andrey Bolkonsky or Natasha Rostov find no equivalents in Cancer Ward. Characterization in such wealthy detail has become, in Solzhenitsyn's Russia, a thing of the past, and to expect it is like expecting the fur-lined brocades and gold-threaded silks of the Florentine Renaissance to crop up in Goya's visions of the horrors of war. Solzhenitsyn's contemporary novels- I mean the novels set in the Soviet Union- are not really concerned with society. They are concerned with what happens after society has been destroyed.”
Source: Cultural Cohesion: The Essential Essays
“Tolstoy said, 'The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed either by a change of life or by a change of conscience.' Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell.”
“Tolstoy to Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Me and You”
“Tolstoy was not associated with any revolutionary group but his writings had a tremendous influence. A continuous stream of Utopians, rebels and cranks passed in and out of his doors. When I was a guest at Yasnaya Polyana, his country estate, I was shocked by the depth of his despondency, and after he had forecast, with a foresight given only to genius, the bloody upheavals to come, I left his presence deeply regretting that age, moral distress and spiritual loneliness rendered him incapable of looking joyfully forward to what many believed would be the birth of a great and enduring democratic Russian Republic.”
Source: Revolution Why, How, When?
“Tolstoy was the greatest apostle of nonviolence that the present age has produced.”
Source: All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections
“Tolstoy was the most gifted writer who ever lived. It's like he stuck a pen in his heart and it didn't even go through his mind on its way to the page.”
“Tolstoy's definition of art is the inverse of the truth; the task of art is to transform not perception into feeling, but feeling into perception.”
“Tolstoy's so-called inconsistencies were a sign of his development and his passionate regard for truth.”
Source: All Men Are Brothers
“Tolstói había comenzado a comportarse como una Iglesia de un solo hombre: como toda iglesia, había llegado a temer o detestar el sexo; como toda Iglesia, había llegado a la conclusión de que no hay vida posible fuera de la fe. También como toda Iglesia, había llegado a considerar la desgracia personal como una bendición, y a agradecerla.”
Source: Viajes con un mapa en blanco
“Toltosi il berretto, la salutò profondamente come una principessa e se n'andò col cuore oppresso; doveva lasciarla perire. Rimase a lungo turbato, non aveva voglia di parlare con nessuno. Per quanto poco si assomigliassero, quella fiera e povera israelita gli ricordava in certo modo Lidia, la figlia del cavaliere. Amare donne come quelle era fonte di dolore. Ma per qualche tempo gli parve di non aver mai amato altre che queste due, la povera, inquieta Lidia e l'ombrosa, amara israelita.”
Source: Narcissus and Goldmund
“Tolvar, the loudest, proclaimed he would break the next man's arm who touched Sloane.”
Source: The Befallen
“Tom [Cargil]s suggestion with a further idea: Propsers of new [C++] features should be required to donate a kidney. That would - Jim [Waldo] pointed out - make people think hard before proposing, and even people without any sense would propose at most two extensions.”
“Tom [Collins] was a great influence on me. He really pushed me...constantly demanded rewrites. And, as much as I despised them, it was the best thing that could have happened because he just wouldn't settle for less. It had to be right, and it had to be good.”
“Tom [Courtenay] and Albert Finney met Ron Harwood on the dresser, so that's how it started. It's a wonderful documentary. It's called Tosca's Kiss and Mr Hardwood told me about it when I asked him what the genesis was. It was made in 1983 and Verdi, who was rich and successful, toward the end of his life decided to build a mansion for himself in Milan, where he lived, and he stipulated that when he died opera singers and musicians - because he knew so many who were no longer playing at the Scala and some were poor - could live there.”
“Tom [Cruise] is a great producer himself. He's got great sense of story. It's always great to have the perspective of the person who's playing the character in your film.”
“Tom [Hentoff] - it started when he was the editor of the paper at Wesleyan and the - members of the staff. This was the first wave of political correctness. The editors of the staff members came and said he must - he must, from now on, stop using `freshmen' and - in-as part of the policy of the paper. It had to be `freshperson.' Therefore, you don't - you're not discriminating against males or females. They were very fervent about that, and he was equally fervent about not politicizing language. So until he left, `freshmen' stayed.”
“Tom [McCarthy] said to me, "Buddy, you got an Oscar nomination through that haircut! That's the real feat, man."”
“Tom always did anger well. Hid it well, but showed it even better”
“Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.”
“Tom Argent had once loved fairy tales. When he was very young, he had loved to read about princes, and kings, and queens, and fairies, and goblins, and magic. He even liked to pretend that he was the son of a fairy queen, or a pirate king, who had been adopted by humans, and one day would claim his kingdom.
His parents had grown concerned at this. They had never hidden the fact that Tom was adopted, and they knew that all children liked to pretend. But Tom's imagination was especially vivid. He loved his parents very much, but they were afraid that this daydreaming might lead him to reject them one day. And so, they had both gone out of their way to discourage his love of fairy tales.
Whenever they saw him with his books, they would tell him: 'Stories aren't real. Magic is just an illusion. Fairies don't exist, Tom. Only trust what you can see.'
Then, on his seventh birthday, they had given Tom a camera, and the books of fairy tales had vanished swiftly and silently overnight, to be replaced by magazines devoted to different types of lens, in which the young Tom Argent had found another kind of magic. But looking at these images of the mysterious girl, he felt as if he had returned to the world of those long-ago storybooks, and it felt both exciting and wonderful, and deeply, darkly dangerous.”
Source: The Moonlight Market
“Tom Arnold and I, we have a huge firefight scene on top of a German tank. I get to shoot 50 caliber rounds. We shoot a helicopter out of the sky. That's the only fight I'm in.”
“Tom began screaming, and I wondered if the baby's soft brain was, in this moment, changing shape in response to the violent stimuli. I tried to intellectualize the noise to protect the baby's psyche. I whispered: Isn't that interesting to hear a man scream? Doesn't that challenge our stereotypes of what men can do? And then I tried, Shhhhhhhhh.”
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Tom Brady is good, real good...but he plays in same league as I do.”
“Tom Brady rises up to the occasion and plays well. That is just who he is.”
“Tom Brady says he wants to give the truck he was given as the Super Bowl MVP to the guy who won the Super Bowl for the Patriots. So Brady's giving his truck toSeahawks coach Pete Carroll.”
“Tom Brady was suspended 4 games for hiding evidence. Hillary should have to sit out first 4 primaries.”
“Tom Browkaw said it best. He said NBC could survive without him or the rest of the news division, but not Nancy Fields.”
“Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.”
Source: The Great Gatsby
“Tom Carnegie will never be replaced.”
“tom clancy probably wears a baseball hat when he has sex”
Source: selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee
“Tom Coburn never forgot that members of Congress are spending the hard-earned money of the people back home. Even a lot of conservatives end up forgetting that. Here's hoping that back in the private sector, Tom Coburn keeps up the fight for his beliefs and that he remains a constant reminder to lawmakers and the White House of ethical standards to which all should aspire.”
“Tom Cotton voted against preparing America for pandemics like Ebola.”
“Tom couldn't take his gaze from Cassandra. Her wide, wondering eyes were like soft blue midnight, star-glittered with forgotten tears. The curves of her body looked firm and sweet, no hard angles or straight lines anywhere... nothing but inviting, sensual softness. If she were his... he might finally have the sense of ease other men had. No more spending every minute of the day striving and hungering and never feeling sated.
"I'll marry you," Tom told her. "Any time. Any terms.”
Source: Chasing Cassandra
“Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had the baby. He was there for the birth. It would've been nice if he was there for the conception.”
“Tom Cruise has the needed bravado to be the actor of note he is. Some of his movies, as colourfully intriguing as they are, reflect the proclivities that nurture the pithy discourses that embellish their plots with the equipage of recommendable quality. His EYES WIDE SHUT fills my being with its flagrant display of casuistry.”
“Tom Cruise has-we all have-the right to practice how we feel...don't judge someone until they have tossed your salad.”
“Tom Cruise is one of the most successful actors of all time.”
“Tom Cruise isn't that big of a guy," my mom always says. I love how she tries to avoid using the word "short."
Yeah," I tell her in return, "but he compensates by being Tom Cruise."
Not that anyone really wants to BE Tom Cruise anymore now that he's a crazy couch jumper. But whatever.”
Source: The Loser's Guide to Life and Love
“Tom Cruise only makes one or two film appearances a year. A baseball player can be the hero or the goat one-hundred and sixty-two times a year.”
“Tom Cruise's attorney said he is going to sue anyone who claims he is gay. In a related story, Ricky Martin's attorney has been hospitalized for exhaustion.”
“Tom Cruise's pre-nup lets him keep his money, the kids and Katie Holmes.”
“Tom Cruise, he's a lot more famous than me.”
“Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine cone You never know What opportunity Is going to travel to you, Or through you. Once a friend gave me A small pine cone- One of a few He found in the scat Of a grizzly In Utah maybe, Or Wyoming. I took it home And did what I supposed He was sure I would do- I ate it, Thinking How it had traveled Through that rough And holy body. It was crisp and sweet. It was almost a prayer Without words. My gratitude, Tom Dancer, For this gift of the world I adore so much And want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear”
“Tom DeLay fears independent thinkers and fighters. I am both.”
“Tom DeLay himself has never been the issue. DeLay is a symptom of a larger disease?a sick Republican culture of corruption that touches everyone who took his dirty money, voted for his corrupt leadership, or sat silently while their party has sold our government to the highest bidder.”
“Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence.”
“Tom Demarco, a principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild team of consultants ... and his colleague Timothy Lister devised a study called the Coding War Games. The purpose of the games was to identify the characteristics of the best and worst computer programmers; more than six hundred developers from ninety-two different companies participated. Each designed, coded, and tested a program, working in his normal office space during business hours. Each participant was also assigned a partner from the same company. The partners worked separately, however, without any communication, a feature of the games that turned out to be critical.
When the results came in, they revealed an enormous performance gap. The best outperformed the worst by a 10:1 ratio. The top programmers were also about 2.5 times better than the median. When DeMarco and Lister tried to figure out what accounted for this astonishing range, the factors that you'd think would matter — such as years of experience, salary, even the time spent completing the work — had little correlation to outcome. Programmers with 10 years' experience did no better than those with two years. The half who performed above the median earned less than 10 percent more than the half below — even though they were almost twice as good. The programmers who turned in "zero-defect" work took slightly less, not more, time to complete the exercise than those who made mistakes.
It was a mystery with one intriguing clue: programmers from the same companies performed at more or less the same level, even though they hadn't worked together. That's because top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said that their workspace was acceptably private, compared to only 19 percent of the worst performers; 76 percent of the worst performers but only 38 percent of the top performers said that people often interrupted them needlessly.”
Source: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
“Tom, does this activity that we are undertaking qualify for the moniker cloak-and-dagger?” GERI asked. “I think it does, but I don’t share your enthusiasm for it. I’m the agent on the ground and potentially the one in the line-of-fire.” “Do not worry, Tom. I have got your six,” GERI said, and laughed.”
Source: Tom and G.E.R.I.
“Tom doesn't have any principles, or if he does, he puts them aside whenever they're inconvenient. The truth hurts, doesn't it, Tom?”