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W Quotes

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All W Quotes

“Westerners instinctively consider wealth an unlimited resource. There’s more than enough to go around, we believe. Everyone could be wealthy if they only tried hard enough. So if you don’t have all the money you want, it’s because you lack the virtues required for success—industry, frugality and determination. A nineteenth-century biographer of George Washington put the matter this way: “In a land like this, which Heaven has blessed above all lands . . . why is any man hungry, or thirsty, or naked, or in prison? why but through his unpardonable sloth?”[17] There appears to have been a trend from very early in American thought to invert Paul’s proverb “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thess 3:10 NIV 1984) to read, “If a man can’t eat, it is because he doesn’t work.” People know what they need to do to make money, we think, so if they’re poor, they must deserve it. This understanding of wealth is the very opposite of how many non-Western cultures view it. Outside the West, wealth is often viewed as a limited resource. There is only so much money to be had, so if one person has a lot of it, then everyone else has less to divide among themselves.”

“Westerners often laud their children as 'talented' or 'gifted', while Asian parents highlight the importance of hard work. And in fact, research performed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has found that the way parents offer approval affects the way children perform, even the way they feel about themselves.”

“Westerners think that all that is negative and positive is only caused from outside of themselves. They materialize and externalize their experiences, never understanding the connection between outer and inner phenomena or interdependent phenomena, looking for explanations only from objects through nihilist habit instead of from the subjective experience of their own minds.”

“Westerns. A period gone by, the pioneer, the loner operating by himself, without benefit of society. It usually has something to do with some sort of vengeance; he takes care of the vengeance himself, doesn't call the police. Like Robin Hood. It's the last masculine frontier. Romantic myth. I guess, though it's hard to think about anything romantic today. In a Western you can think, Jesus, there was a time when man was alone, on horseback, out there where man hasn't spoiled the land yet.”

“Westley closed his eyes. There was pain coming and he had to be ready for it. He had to prepare his brain, he had to get his mind controlled and safe from their efforts, so that they could not break him. He would not let them break him. He would hold together against anything and all. If only they gave him sufficient time to make ready, he knew he could defeat pain. It turned out they gave him sufficient time (it was months before the Machine was ready). But they broke him anyway.”

“Westley shrugged. "Welcome to the middle of nowhere. I'm more likely to come home to find someone's left a pie on my counter than to find my television's missing. Although—" He winced. "What?" Jaylen looked ready to fight whatever threat had made its way into Westley's home. "Last year the zucchini crop was really good and somebody left three bushels in my kitchen." "Oh." Jaylen deflated. So there was an enemy he wasn't a match for. "There's still zucchini bread in the freezer," Westley offered. "If you're hungry.”

“Westley: Hear this now: I will always come for you. Buttercup: But how can you be sure? Westley: This is true love-you think this happens every day? Westley: I told you I would always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me? Buttercup: Well...you were dead. Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while. Buttercup: i will never doubt again. Westley: There will never be a need.”

“Westminster Hall raises its immense dignity as we pass out. Little men and women are moving soundlessly about the floor. They appear minute, perhaps pitiable; but also venerable and beautiful under the curve of the vast dome, under the perspective of the huge columns. One would rather like to be small nameless animal in a vast cathedral. Let us rebuild the world then as a splendid hall; let us give up making statues and inscribing them with impossible virtues.”

“Weston: Look at my outlook. You don't envy it, right? Wesley: No. Weston: That's because it's full of poison. Infected. And you recognize poison, right? You recognize it when you see it? Wesley: Yes. Weston: Yes, you do. I can see that you do. My poison scares you. Wesley: Doesn't scare me. Weston: No? Wesley: No. Weston: Good. You're growing up. I never saw my old man's poison until I was much older than you. Much older. And then you know how I recognized it? Wesley: How? Weston: Because I saw myself infected with it. That's how. I saw me carrying it around. His poison in my body.”

“Westward on the high-hilled plains Where for me the world began, Still, I think, in newer veins Frets the changeless blood of man. ... There, when hueless is the west And the darkness hushes wide, Where the lad lies down to rest Stands the troubled dream beside. There, on thoughts that once were mine, Day looks down the eastern steep, And the youth at morning shine Makes the vow he will not keep.”