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W Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All W Quotes

“When something tragic has happened, you'll find that you, the tragicee, become the person that has to make everything comfortable for everyone else.... As a tragicee and future divorcee, you'll also find that people will question you on the biggest decisions you've ever made in your life as though you hadn't thought about them at all before – as though, through their twenty questions and dubious faces, they're going to shine light on something that you missed the hundredth time around during your darkest hours.”

“When something unfortunate occurs, I tell myself it's the less-bad thing I bargained with the universe for in exchange for something worse not happening...Or let's say I'm trying on clothes and feel less than impressed with my pasty, flat-chested reflection in the dressing room mirror. I just tell myself that something terrible must have been about to happen in the alternate version of my life - like maybe some kittens were abut to be hit by a truck while the busty, even-skin-toned version of me was out jogging - and in my courageous way, I said, 'LORD, TAKE MY TAN AND MY BOOBS. JUST SAVE THE KITTENS.”

“When sometimes a true sea-serpent, complete and undecayed, is found or caught, a shout of triumph will go through the world. "There, you see," men will say, "I knew they were there all the time. I just had a feeling they were there." Men really need sea-monsters in their personal oceans. And the Old Man of the Sea is one of these. [...] For this reason we rather hope he is never photographed, for if the Man of the Sea should turn out to be some great malformed sealion, a lot of people would feel a sharp personal loss—a Santa Claus loss. And the ocean would be none the better for it. For the ocean, deep and black in the depths, is like the low dark levels of our minds in which the dream symbols incubate and sometimes rise up to sight like the Old Man of the Sea. And even if the symbol vision be horrible, it is there and it is ours. An ocean without its unnamed monsters would be like a completely dreamless sleep.”

“When sonneteering Wordsworth re-creates the landing of Mary Queen of Scots at the mouth of the Derwent - Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore - he unveils nothing less than a canvas by Rubens, baroque master of baroque masters; this is the landing of a TRAGIC Marie de Medicis. Yet so receptive was the English ear to sheep-Wordsworth's perverse 'Enough of Art' that it is not any of these works of supreme art, these master-sonnets of English literature, that are sold as picture postcards, with the text in lieu of the view, in the Lake District! it is those eternally, infernally sprightly Daffodils.”

“When sovereignty first expands to become the general organizing principle of a society, it is by turning violence into kinship. The early, spectacular phase of mass killing in both China and Egypt, whatever else it may be doing, appears to be intended to lay the foundations of what Max Weber referred to as a ‘patrimonial system’: that is, one in which all the kings’ subjects are imagined as members of the royal household, at least to the degree that they are all working to care for the king. Turning erstwhile strangers into part of the royal household, or denying them their own ancestors, are thereby ultimately two sides of the same coin. Or to put things another way, a ritual designed to produce kinship becomes a method of producing kingship.”

“When Soyer said of pies that they are 'one of our best companions du voyage through life', he was referring consumers, but he might just as well been referring to his professional colleagues, for pies have always been enormously useful to caterers and cooks, particularly at events where a large number must be fed efficiently. In modern times this is usually at sporting events such as football games, but the original experts in mass catering were the military.”

“When speakers make eye contact with an audience, they will be perceived as being more prepared, more competent, confident, and trustworthy. Eye contact helps to relax the speaker and reminds them that their audience is made up of separate individuals who perceive things differently. Audience response is clearly seen in the expressions of their eyes.”

“When speaking of a "body of knowledge" or of "the results of research," e.g., we tacitly assign the same cognitive status to inherited knowledge and to independently acquired knowledge. To counteract this tendency a special effort is required to transform inherited knowledge into genuine knowledge by revitalizing its original discovery, and to discriminate between the genuine and the spurious elements of what claims to be inherited knowledge.”

“When speaking of disabilities, the blind and their needs are most often used as an example. It is deceivingly simplistic since accessibility is something most of the population can benefit from. We all benefit when we are tired, in bright sunshine with a mobile, are forced to use a gaming mouse with too-high sensitivity or receive the text version of video clips when we have forgotten our earphones and are in a quiet environment.”

“When speaking to parents, I encourage them to take their child(ren) to a children's museum and watch carefully what the child does, how she/she does it, what he/she returns to, where there is definite growth. Teachers could do the same or could set up 'play areas' which provide 'nutrition' for different intelligences... and watch carefully what happens and what does not happen with each child.”