W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Were she better or you sicker, then the stars would not be so terribly crossed, but it is the nature of the stars to cross.”
Source: The John Green Collection
“Were she to decide fully to live here in Black Cove unto death, she believed she would erect towers on the ridge marking the south and north points of the sun's annual swing. It would be a great pleasure year after year to watch with anticipation as the sun drew nigh to the notch and then on a specified day fell into it and then rose out of it and retraced its path. Over time, watching that happen again and again might make the years seem not such an awful linear progress but instead a looping and a return. Keeping track of such a thing would place a person, would be a way of saying, You are here, in this one station, now. It would be an answer to the question, Where am I?”
Source: Cold Mountain
“Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.
For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?”
Source: Selected poems
“Were statues, I wondered, filled with love? Were they enchanted men and women, jaws hanging slack, who'd been flash-frozen by beauty? Had they seen something that had brought their world to a standstill? Were they beings somehow beyond us, beyond our grasping, snapping little world, transfixed by infinity?”
Source: Nod
“Were still gonna do those things not because weve got nothing to lose.. were still gonna do them because.. WERE RICH BIATCH!!”
“Were studying in Philippians, and Im trying to figure out this passage, Paul says I want to know Christ. What does that mean? See, hes fascinated by Jesus. I think thats a desire Id like to have on my heart, to know more about Jesus.”
“Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?”
Source: The tragedy of Macbeth. By William Shakespear. To which are added all the original songs.
“Were talking about an attitude. Delayed gratification is there, planning, be able to give up something now to get something later.”
“Were taught at such a young age that you can always be better and that youre never perfect and that youre never good enough.”
“Were the diver to think on the jaws of the shark, he would never lay hands on the precious pearl.”
“Were the earth as smooth as a ball bearing, it might be beautiful seen from another planet, as the rings of Saturn are. But here we live and move; we wander up and down the banks of the creek, we ride a railway through the Alps, and the landscape shifts and changes. Were the earth smooth, our brains would be smooth as well; we would wake, blink, walk two steps to get the whole picture and lapse into dreamless sleep. Because we are living people, and because we are on the receiving end of beauty, another element necessarily enters the question. The texture of space is a condition of time. Time is the warp and matter the weft of woven texture of beauty in space, and death is the hurtling shuttle…
What I want to do, then, is add time to the texture, paint the landscape on an unrolling scroll, and set the giant relief globe spinning on it stand.”
Source: PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK
“Were the eye not of the sun, How could we behold the light? If God's might and ours were not as one, How could His work enchant our sight?”
“Were the future leaders of the United States who had won coveted tickets to the highest echelons of the neoliberal meritocracy — the ones who were supposed to take over the newspapers, high political offices, and corporations — really demonstrating in the quads not about the military-industrial complex, wealth inequality, or America's endless foreign wars, but cosplay?”
Source: It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office
“Were the happiness of the next world as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live; and unto such as consider none hereafter, it must be more than death to die, which makes us amazed at those audacities that durst be nothing and return into their chaos again. Certainly such spirits as could contemn death, when they expected no better being after, would have scorned to live, had they known any.”
Source: Urne Burial
“Were the happiness of the next world is as closely apprehended as the felicities of this, it were a martyrdom to live.”
“Were the Inhabitants of Italy charming as their Country, all other Regions would be depopulated I think.”
“Were the judgments of mankind correct, custom would be regulated by the good. But it is often far otherwise in point of fact; for, whatever the many are seen to do, forthwith obtains the force of custom. But human affairs have scarcely ever been so happily constituted as that the better course pleased the greater number. Hence the private vices of the multitude have generally resulted in public error, or rather that common consent in vice which these worthy men would have to be law.”
Source: The Institutes Of The Christian Religion (Annotated Edition)
“Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to burn the world. Earth would become an hell; for future rewards when put off to a great distance, would cease to encourage, and future punishments to alarm.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Were the moon landings filmed in a secret Hollywood movie studio? Given the extensive lies that the government engages in with the general public, anything is possible.”
“Were the offer made true, I would engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life. All I would ask should be the privilege of an author, to correct, in a second edition, certain errors of the first.”
Source: The life of Benjamin Franklin: to which are added Essays by the same Author : Mit einem Wörterbuch ; Zum Schul- u. Privatgebrauch
“Were the only major company in the U.S. that is solely in the professional beauty industry. We promised hairdressers when we started that we would stay with them. If I went retail tomorrow then we would be four times our size overnight, but Im going to be the one guy who kept his word.”
“Were the “pampas,” perhaps, flatter than the land they were crossing? He doubted it; what could be flatter than a horizontal plane?”
Source: An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
“Were the stars out when I left the house last evening? All I could remember was the couple in the Skyline listening to Duran Duran. Stars? Who remembers stars? Come to think of it, had I even looked up at the sky recently? Had the stars been wiped out of the sky three months ago, I wouldn't have known. The only things I noticed were silver bracelets on women's wrists and popsicle sticks in potted rubber plants. There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night. No car, no car stereo, no silver bracelets, no shuffling, no dark blue tweed suits.
My world foreshortened, flattening into a credit card. Seen head on, things seemed merely skewed, but from the side the view was virtually meaningless—a one-dimensional wafer. Everything about me may have been crammed in there, but it was only plastic. Indecipherable except to some machine.
My first circuit must have been wearing thin. My real memories were receding into planar projection, the screen of consciousness losing all identity.”
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
“Were the stories we told each other true? Who knows? At the best of times, a story is a slippery thing.
Perhaps that was why it changed with each telling. Or is that the nature of all stories, the reason for their power?”
Source: The Palace of Illusions
“Were the succession of stars endless, then the background of the sky would present us an uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy-since there could be absolutely no point, in all that background, at which would not exist a star. The only mode, therefore, in which, under such a state of affairs, we could comprehend the voids which our telescopes find in innumerable directions, would be by supposing the distance of the invisible background so immense that no ray from it has yet been able to reach us at all.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)
“Were the superfluities of a nation valued, and made a perpetual tax or benevolence, there would be more alms-houses than poor, schools than scholars, and enough to spare for government besides.”
Source: The Select Works of William Penn: In Five Volumes. ...
“Were the talents and virtues, which Heaven has bestowed on men, given merely to make then more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all?”
“Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do.”
Source: The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World
“Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small: Love so amazing, so divine Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
Source: Parish psalmody: A collection of psalms and hymns for public worship: containing Dr. Watts's versification of the psalms of David, entire, a large portion of Dr. Watts's hymns, and psalms and hymns by other authors, selected and original. To which are appended, the confession of faith and Shorter catechism of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.
“Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.”
“Were there atheists in foxholes during World War II? Of course, as can be verified by my dogtags . . . A veteran of Omaha Beach in 1944, I insisted upon including ‘None’ instead of P, C, or J as my religious affiliation.”
“Were there certain things that I didn't feel were dignified enough to make it into the movie? Yeah.”
“Were there contacts over time between Iraq and al-Qaeda? Yes, there were efforts made to communicate. We found no evidence of collaboration in any effort to mount any kind of operation against the United States' interests.”
“Were there mistakes? Yes, there were. Only those who don't act don't make mistakes. But to organize well - that's a difficult task.'
(Lenin to the All-Russian Conference of Bolsheviks on 24 April, 1917.)”
Source: Lenin
“Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be Vice or Virtue?”
Source: Complete Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs: 70+ Adventure Classics & Science Fiction Novels (Illustrated): The Tarzan Series, The Barsoom Chronicles, The Pelucidar Series, Caspak Trilogy, The Moon Trilogy, The Venus Series, Westerns, Lost World Novels, Fantasy Classics, Historical Novels and more
“Were there no fooles, badd ware would not passe.”
Source: The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose
“Were there no fools, there would be no flatterers.”
“Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts, and no one thank.”
“Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts, and no one to thank.”
“Were there no hearers, there would be no backbiters.”
Source: The poetical works of George Herbert
“Were there no heaven nor hell I should be honest.”
“Were there no men of vision, all who are blind would be dead.”
“Were there no uniforms, there would probably be no armies.”
“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”
Source: Notes on Nursing: What it Is, and what it is Not
“Were there not these still mirrors to reflect the beauty of the heavens to us, it might be lost to eyes so seldom lifted upwards.”
“Were there open gays and lesbians before the West started influencing Russia? No, there weren't. In fact, the most out person in the country, until recently, was me. I turned gay in America. I was a nice Soviet fourteen-year-old when I left, and I came back a lesbian.”
“Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.”
“Were there stories I wrote along the way that were terrible clinkers? God, yes. But they were all a product of their time, and I did the best I could.”
“Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one nineteen. They had all the prospects that life could hold out for any of the young; one a graduate of Chicago and another of Ann Arbor; one who had passed his examination for the Harvard Law School and was about to take a trip in Europe,--another who had passed at Ann Arbor, the youngest in his class, with three thousand dollars in the bank. Boys who never knew what it was to want a dollar; boys who could reach any position that was to boys of that kind to reach; boys of distinguished and honorable families, families of wealth and position, with all the world before them. And they gave it all up for nothing, for nothing! They took a little companion of one of them, on a crowded street, and killed him, for nothing, and sacrificed everything that could be of value in human life upon the crazy scheme of a couple of immature lads.
Now, your Honor, you have been a boy; I have been a boy. And we have known other boys. The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place.
Is it within the realm of your imagination that a boy who was right, with all the prospects of life before him, who could choose what he wanted, without the slightest reason in the world would lure a young companion to his death, and take his place in the shadow of the gallows?
...No one who has the process of reasoning could doubt that a boy who would do that is not right.
How insane they are I care not, whether medically or legally. They did not reason; they could not reason; they committed the most foolish, most unprovoked, most purposeless, most causeless act that any two boys ever committed, and they put themselves where the rope is dangling above their heads....
Why did they kill little Bobby Franks?
Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood.
. . . I know, Your Honor, that every atom of life in all this universe is bound up together. I know that a pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean without disturbing every drop of water in the sea. I know that every life is inextricably mixed and woven with every other life. I know that every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism, and that no one can fix the blame. I know that all life is a series of infinite chances, which sometimes result one way and sometimes another. I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom it, neither has any other human brain”
Source: Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom