W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“William Alexander Morgan was born on April 19, 1928, as a United States citizen. Although he didn’t become a Comandante until later, it is interesting to note that he was a United States citizen when he joined Castro’s forces. He fought for the Cuban Revolution with a guerilla force led by Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, as part of the Second National Front of the Escambray Mountains, a mountain range in the central region of Cuba. Later in the battle of Santa Clara, Morgan was one of about two dozen Americans who had joined the Revolutionary army. He once stated that he did not believe that Castro was a Communist during the revolution, and only accepted the Communist ideology later. Morgan was promoted to the rank of Comandante on January 1, 1959. The next year, in October of 1960 he was arrested for treason. On March 11, 1961, when he was 32 years old, just before his death, Morgan said, “the most important thing for free men to do is to protect the freedom of others.” He was executed by a firing squad, standing against a stone wall in the moat surrounding La Cabaña in Havana. His wife was sentenced to 30 years in a Cuban prison, but was released after 12 years. In April of 2007, Morgan’s remains were returned to the United States after having been in Cuba for nearly 50 years. His United States citizenship was restored posthumously in April 2007, after having lost it for serving in a foreign country's military.”
“William Armstrong is a great teacher. He speaks truthfullyabout the discipline required for learning, and about the pleasures oforder and system in acquiring knowledge. Any reader, of any age, will enjoythis book.”
“William awoke one morning to find that ― despite having no memory of it − he'd send a message to the Requisitions Department demanding ten thousand gallons of sleep (73% concentrate, with acetic acid stabilizer). The request had been rejected, but someone from Requisitions sent back a blanket and a pillow.”
Source: The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl
“William Bennett is my patron saint, one of them. Redd Foxx is another.”
“William Blake cursed the flesh for a clod,
Yet of some of his sayings we Moderns have heard tell:
'The nakedness of woman is the work of God',
Or that title--The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”
Source: Collected Poems, 1919-1976
“William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn't quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician.”
“William Blake really is important, my cornerstone. Nobody ever told me before he did that childhood was such a damned serious business.”
“William Blake says the body is 'that portion of soul discerned by the five senses”
Source: Conscious Femininity: Interviews with Marion Woodman
“William Brings lightness and joy and sensitivity with his gifts.”
Source: Little Book of Destiny
“William Burroughs was a thin old man with bad teeth and the kind of paranoia people would die for.”
“William Burroughs was simultaneously old and young. Part sheriff, part gumshoe. All writer. He had a medicine chest he kept locked, but if you were in pain he would open it. He did not like to see his loved ones suffer. If you were infirm he would feed you. He’d appear at your door with a fish wrapped in newsprint and fry it up. He was inaccessible to a girl but I loved him anyway.”
Source: Just Kids
“William Carey chides his countrymen for deciding it would be impossible for the Gospel to travel over great distances and to penetrate varied cultures when they are willing to face the same trials for the sake of commerce.”
“William Carlos Williams, late in his long life, had a dream: He saw an enormous spiral staircase in empty space, and his father slowly descending toward him. When he reached the bottom, his father walked over, looked him in the eye and said: “You know those poems you're writing? They're no good.””
Source: An Elemental Thing
“William Castle and Alfred Hitchcock were the first director-personalities. Before then, nobody in America knew what a director was.”
“William Congreve is the only sophisticated playwright England has produced; and like Shaw, Sheridan, and Wilde, his nearest rivals, he was brought up in Ireland.”
Source: Curtains: Selections from the Drama Criticism and Related Writings
“William Cowper said that God made the country, and man made the town. If it was the opposite, there would be no country; because town can be created from the country but the country cannot be created from the town!”
“William Coyne headed research and development at 3M—the company behind Ace bandages, Post-it notes, Scotch tape, and other inventions—for over a decade. Shortly after retiring, Coyne spoke to a group of hundreds of executives about innovation at 3M and his own management style. He said he’d started at 3M as a researcher and learned firsthand how well-meaning but nosy executives who proffer too many questions and suggestions can undermine creative work. So when he became head of R&D, he was determined to allow his teams to work for long stretches, unfettered by intrusions from higher-ups. Coyne understood his colleagues’ curiosity; if successful, an R&D project could generate millions in new revenue. But he limited their interference (and his own) because, he said, “After you plant a seed in the ground, you don’t dig it up every week to see how it is doing.”
“William Dalrymple has superseded Mark Tully as the voice of India… He may well be the greatest travel writer of his generation.”
“William Devane was amazing [ in The Grinder] - that we were able to reinvent an acting legend as a comedy star - that's very gratifying.”
“William Ewart Gladstone is credited with the credo that a prime minister must be a "good butcher." The metaphor is apt insofar as the root of the word "decision" is "to cut."”
“William F. Buckley was a man who had a great capacity for fun and for amusing himself by amazing others.”
Source: Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets
“William F. Buckley, Jr. does not so much speak as exhale, but he exhales polysyllabically, and the results are remarkable.”
“William Faulkner was the master of what one must do to be serious. But I don't understand why people haven't moved forward from that, why that's not where the line in the sand is that you would see from. When I think about the reception of my own writing and what seems "difficult," there is an actual precedent.”
“William Ferris has long reigned as the unimpeachable source of the entire southern experience. His work on southern folklore and the composition of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture have made him both legendary and necessary. His book, The Storied South , is a love song to the South Bill helped illuminate. It's a crowning achievement of his own storied career.”
“William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.”
“William Graebner's brilliant analysis of America's struggles over the meaning of Patty Hearst gives us not only new perspectives on the 1970s, on Americans' fundamental understandings of their world in a bicentennial year that offered little to celebrate, but also on the longing for heroism and the desire for belief in free will that Graebner believes structured the rise of Reagan-era conservatism. This is a masterful work of cultural history.”
“William groaned. "Oh, Miss Cross," he replied in a low dark tone. "I've seen you stripped bare since the day we met. You couldn't hide from me if you tried. I know every nuance. Every detail. In my mind, I've kissed you a thousand times. I've worshiped your body even more." He paused to lightly trace his fingers over my arm. A shiver traveled down my spine. "I tried to keep you out of this world. But now that you're here, I'm going to claim every last inch of you. I have spent the last three years eavesdropping on your soul. Next, I'll learn your body.”
Source: Malice
“William H. Macy has said, and I don't think I can quote him verbatim, but he's said many times before to not buy into the hype, the Hollywood appeal. To find yourself as a person, as a family man, to find your own happiness, and not to allow your ego to get in the way of your work.”
“William Hague, the world's favourite hairline.”
“William Hartnell was one of the great unsung character actors of his time”
“William Henry Flower the Anglican too praised evolution as a cleansing solvent, dissolving the dross which had 'encrusted' Christianity 'in the days of ignorance and superstition'.”
“William Holden and I weren't just good friends. He was my very best friend. I feel his loss very much still.”
“William Howard Taft, who he embarrassed in these congressional hearings, attacks him as an emotionalist and a socialist and a cosmopolitan in terms that kind of have an anti-Semitic overtone. And even the pro-Brandeis press supported him in terms that really seem creepy today. There's this piece from Life magazine. It says, "Mr. Brandeis is a Jew. And until now there's never been a Jew on the Supreme Court. Perhaps it's time we have one."”
“William III died childless in 1702, in a fall when his horse stumbled over a molehill, an obstacle that seems as if it should have some philosophical significance but, as far as can be seen, does not.”
Source: The First Salute : View of the American Revolution
“William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was 'A smell of petroleum prevails throughout'.”
Source: History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition
“William James once made an acute point about the relationship between happiness and expectation. He argued that satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every endeavour. We are not always humiliated by failing; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement and then do not reach it.”
“William James once said: "Progress is a terrible thing." It is more than that: it is also a highly ambiguous notion. For who knowsbut that a little further on the way a bridge may not have collapsed or a crevice split the earth?”
“William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”
“William James used to preach the 'will to believe.' For my part, I should wish to preach the 'will to doubt' ... what is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.”
Source: Sceptical Essays
“William knows that science and magic are the same thing; magic is only science that hasn't been explained yet. Tonight he has made chemistry into magic for her.”
“William kom in naken i vardagsrummet och hämtade ett glas. Jacob förstod vad han höll på med. William visste att Jacob hade svårt att stå emot hans vältränade kropp och seniga muskler. Det här var hans sätt att bli förlåten, att få Jacob att smälta och glömma dispyten. Det hade fungerat förr och det skulle säkert fungera igen”
Source: Att raka en zebra
“William Kowalski is the kind of storyteller you don’t see quite enough these days. The yarn spinner with a generous soul. The Hundred Hearts is a moving, humane adventure about the price of personal connections and the costs of sacrifice. I tore through this bad boy in two short nights.”
“William loathed his family,' Mercer said. 'With cause.”
Source: City on Fire
“William looked up... through his tears... past the catwalk and lights... past the sky... through the dark and clouds and stars and into the void where he once knew God existed, then turned himself outside-in, alone, and asked, 'Why?”
Source: The Brandywine Prophet
“William McKinley has left us a priceless gift in the example of a useful and pure life, in his fidelity to public trusts and in his demonstration of the value of kindly virtues that not only ennoble but lead to success.”
“William McKinley has surely been underrated - in no small part because he was succeeded by a memorable leader, Theodore Roosevelt.”
“William Morris, " Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”
Source: The Art of Coorie: How to Live Happy the Scottish Way
“William: My brother has an appreciation of art, so I imagine the woman he chooses must be beautiful beyond the pale. Once he outgrows his current predilection with painting and accepts his family responsibilities, he'll need a wife who can move throughout society. She must have proper carriage and be a witty conversationalist. She should have excellent bloodlines as well, in the event of offspring.
Emma: With the possible exception of a witty conversationalist, I believe you've described all the attributes of a racehorse.”
Source: The Education of Mrs. Brimley
“William Packard surely must be one of the great editors of our time.”
“William Penn planned to use this land for a colony where Quaker ideas would be followed. He wanted the settlers to be like brothers, all equal to each other. The capital city would be called the City of Brotherly Love--in Greek, Philadelphia.”
Source: Early Modern Times: From Elizabeth the First to the Forty-Niners