W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“When, from the top of any high hill, one looks round the country, and sees the multitude of regularly distributed spires, one not only ceases to wonder that order and religion are maintained, but one is astonished that any such thing as disaffection or irreligion should prevail.”
“When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
“When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion - the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.”
“When, however, you have an enemy, then do not requite him good for evil: for that would shame him. Instead, prove that he did some good for you. And rather be angry than put to shame! And when you are cursed, I do not like it that you want to bless. Rather curse a little also! And if you are done a great injustice, then quickly add five small ones. Hideous to behold is he who is obsessed with an injustice.”
“When, in 1913, in a desperate attempt to rid art of the ballast of objectivity, I took refuge in the form of the square... the critics... sighed, "All that we loved has been lost. We are in a desert"... But the desert is filled with the spirit of non-objective feeling.”
“When, in 1966, I progressed to The Frost Report, I was paid ten guineas a minute. I was guaranteed three minutes a week, so this was good money.”
“When, in adoration, we look at the consecrated Host, the sign of creation speaks to us. And so, we encounter the greatness of his gift; but we also encounter the Passion, the Cross of Jesus and his Resurrection. Through this gaze of adoration, he draws us toward himself, within his mystery, through which he wants to transform us as he transformed the Host.”
Source: Heart of the Christian Life: Thoughts on the Holy Mass
“When, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his [Jesus'] day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples: and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from his lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian.”
Source: Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness
“When, in the autumn of 1947, I was fired from the first and only job I have ever held, I wanted one thing out of life: to become a writer.”
Source: My Generation: Collected Nonfiction
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
“When, in the present world, men behave well, that is no doubt sometimes because they are creatures of habit as well as, sometimes, because they are reasonable.”
“When, in the third book, we do learn the identity of the Blue Rose murderer, the information comes in a muted, nearly off-hand manner, and the man has died long before.”
“When, in the year 1913, in my desperate attempt to free art from the ballast of objectivity, I took refuge in the square form and exhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a black square on a white field, the critics and, along with them, the public sighed: 'Everything which we loved is lost. We are in a desert .... Before us is nothing but a black square on a white background!'”
“When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect - they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul - not of intellect, or of heart.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)
“When, instead of merely associating some act with some situation in the animal way, we think the situation out, we have a set of particular feelings of its elements.”
Source: Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies
“When, like an Emir of tyrannic power,
Sirius appears, and on the horizon black
Bids countless stars pursue their mighty track.”
Source: Works
“When, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stillness, and the cold, and dark.”
Source: The Call of the Wild and White Fang
“When, President Bush asks me to go with his father to the Tsunami impacted areas and help raise money, I was thrilled to do that, because I think we have to always keep looking for common ground.”
“When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.”
Source: The Law
“When, therefore, I had long considered this uncertainty of traditional mathematics, it began to weary me that no more definite explanation of the movement of the world-machine established in our behalf by the best and most systematic builder of all, existed among the philosophers who had studied so exactly in other respects the minutest details in regard to the sphere.”
“When, therefore, man lives according to man, not according to God, he is like the devil.”
Source: The City of God
“When, to gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon that an ignorant and helpless creature shall be sacrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.”
“When, within our souls and psyches we are made aware of a safe but insistent drum beat, repeated like butterfly wings in motion, we sense the message...that our inner self has begun its search for freedom.”
“When, you know, I'm busy and Nancy Pelosi is busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess –- we don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way. Why don't you grab a mop, why don't you help clean up. You're not mopping fast enough. That's a socialist mop. Grab a mop –- let's get to work.”
“When... I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he had asked me to consider my unfortunate wife, who would have me about the house all day 'wearing a dressing gown, brewing tea and stumped for words'.”
Source: Murderers and Other Friends: Another Part of Life
“When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.”
Source: Joseph Anton
“When...has a mugging case ever heard a defense attorney claim, 'Your Honor, the victim was dressed in an Armani suit and wearing a Rolex. Clearly he was begging to be assaulted.'”
“When...we, as individuals, obey laws that direct us to behave for the welfare of the community as a whole, we are indirectly helping to promote the pursuit of happiness by our fellow human beings.”
“When? At this time, while you have all the opportunities, if you do not do your best to achieve the pure, stainless path to enlightenment when will you do it? If you don't meditate, don't practise the graduated path to enlightenment, especially bodhicitta, in this life, then when? When will you practise? When will you have this realization? If, in this life, you don't achieve renunciation, bodhicitta and sunyata, as well as the two stages of tantra, when will you? When will you have these attainments? When will you become enlightened? When will you perform perfect work for sentient beings?”
“Whena scandalousstory isbelieved againstone, thereis certainly no comfort like the conscience of having deserved it.”
“Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway? – diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you'll have no tyrant states . Why, if they follow this conformity business they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive toward colorlessness? But seriously, and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain.”
“Whence arises all that order and beauty we see in the world?”
“Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death, and religiosu wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man?”
Source: The Theological Works of Thomas Paine
“Whence but from heaven, could men unskilled in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? Or how, or why,
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?”
“Whence came I, whither go I? Science cannot tell us a word about why music delights us, of why and how an old song can move us to tears. Science is reticent too when it is a question of the great Unity – the One of Parmenides – of which we all somehow form part, to which we belong. The most popular name for it in our time is God – with a capital ‘G’. Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.”
“Whence came it, that ethereal music, from what hidden grot or secret cell? From what dark
cave? From what window into paradise? We watched the tiny figure under the spotlight and
the music poured over us, sometimes soothing, sometimes blessing, sometimes accusing.
Every one of us confronting ghosts, demons and old memories. The recital by Tears of the
Mushroom, a young lady of the goblin persuasion, took but half an hour or, perhaps, it took a lifetime, and then it was over, to a silence which spread and grew and expanded until at last it exploded. Every single patron standing and clapping their hands raw, tears running down our faces. We had been taken somewhere and brought back and we were different people, longing for another journey into paradise, no matter what hell we had to atone for on the way.”
Source: Snuff
“Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.”
“Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question. Science has no answer to it.”
“Whence come those mysterious influences which change our happiness into discouragement, and our self-confidence into diffidence?”
Source: The Horla
“Whence comes this idea that if what we are doing is fun, it can't be God's will? The God who made giraffes, a baby's fingernails, a puppy's tail, a crooknecked squash, the bobwhite's call, and a young girl's giggle, has a sense of humor. Make no mistake about that.”
“Whence comes war and fighting, and factions? Whence but from the body and the lust of the body? Wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the same and service of the body.”
“Whence did the wond'rous mystic art arise, / Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eyes? / That we by tracing magic lines are taught, / How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT?”
Source: The medium is the massage: an inventory of effects
“Whence do I get my rules of conduct? I find them in my heart. Whatever I feel to be good is good. Whatever I feel to be evil is evil. Conscience is the best of casuists.”
“Whence had they come The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome? What sacred drama through her body heaved When world-transforming Charlemagne was conceived?”
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
“Whence has come thy lasting power.”
Source: Poems
“Whence his interest in the theater, in the show, where so many fates are offered him, where he can accept the poetry without feeling the sorrow.”
Source: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
“Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil O'er books consumed the midnight oil?”
“Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, since perfection is nothing but magnitude of positive reality, in the strict sense, setting aside the limits or bounds in things which are limited.”
“Whence it is evident that the remedy must be adapted to the particular cause of the mischief; consequently, the cause must be ascertained, before the remedy is devised.”
Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; Or, The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth
“Whence proceeds this weight we lay
On what detracting people say?
Their utmost malice cannot make
Your head, or tooth, or finger ache;
Nor spoil your shapes, distort your face,
Or put one feature out of place.”
Source: The Works. Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published. With Memoir of the Author, by Thomas Roscoe. -London, Washbourne 1841