W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“We may take it that the world is undoubtedly itself [i.e., is indistinct from itself], but, in any attempt to see itself, as an object, it must, equally, undoubtedly act so as to make itself distinct from and therefore false to itself.
In this sense, in respect to its own information, the universe must expand to escape the telescopes through which we, who are it, are trying to capture it, which is us.”
Source: Laws of Form
“We may take it to be the accepted idea that the Mosaic books were not handed down to us for our instruction in scientific knowledge, and that it is our duty to ground our scientific beliefs upon observation and inference, unmixed with considerations of a different order.”
Source: Natural Science and Religion
“We may take pride in believing ‘we matter’, whereas if we try ‘summarising life’, it may get ‘contained’ in a few sentences.”
Source: The Twelfth Preamble: To all the authors to be!
“We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.”
“We may talk lightly but never carelessly. We keep at bay the flow of common, ignorant thought which runs its damaging course through the pathways of ordinary human conversation.”
Source: The Love of Devotion
“We may talk of saving antique linens, species, or languages; but whatever we are intent on saving, when a restoration succeeds, we rescue ourselves.”
Source: The Same Ax, Twice: Restoration and Renewal in a Throwaway Age
“We may talk of the best means of doing good; but, after all, the greatest difficulty lies in doing it in a proper spirit. Speak- the truth in love, "in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves" - with the meekness and gentleness of Christ.”
“We may taste of every turn of chance - now rule as Kings, now serve as Slaves; now love, now hate; now prosper, and now perish. But still, through all, we are the same; for this is the marvel of Identity.”
Source: Delphi Works of H. Rider Haggard (Illustrated)
“We may tell ourselves that love is not really available. but the deeper truth is that we don't entirely trust it, and therefore have a hard time fully opening to it or letting it all the way into us. This disconnects us from our own heart, exacerbating our sense of love's scarcity.”
Source: Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships: Healing the Wound of the Heart
“We may, then, summarize the complex character of myth in the following words: Myth is a form of poetry which transcends poetry in that it proclaims a truth; a form of reasoning which transcends reasoning in that it wants to bring about the truth it proclaims; a form of action, of ritual behaviour, which does not find its fulfilment in the act but must proclaim and elaborate a poetic form of truth.”
Source: Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man
“We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)
“We may think all religions beneficial, and believe of one alone that it is true.”
Source: Anna Letitia Barbauld: Selected Poetry and Prose
“We may think God wants actions of a certain kind, but God wants people of a certain kind.”
“We may think it humility not to realize that the Lord is bestowing gifts upon us. Let us understand very, very clearly, how this matter stands. God gives us these gifts for no merit of ours. Let us be grateful to His Majesty for them, for, unless we recognize that we are receiving them, we shall not be aroused to love Him. And it is a most certain thing that, if we remember all the time that we are poor, the richer we find ourselves, the greater will be the profit that comes to us and the more genuine our humility.”
“We may think of ourselves as civilized, but there is always a wildness within.”
“We may think of peace as the absence of war, that if the great powers would reduce their weapons arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we will see our own minds - our own prejudices, fears, and ignorance.”
Source: Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change
“We may think of volcanic islands like Ascension as unusual because their recent origin and remoteness mean their ecosystems are made up of a motley crew of mariner migrants. But much of the world is like that. Nature is constantly in flux, and few ecosystems go back very far. Only ten thousand years ago, much of Europe and North America were covered in thick ice. All soil had been scraped away and with it most forms of life. Everything we see today in these former glaciated zones has either returned or arrived for the first time since the ice retreated.
Looked at from this perspective, the spread of alien species today is merely a continuation of a natural process of the colonization begun when the ice retreated. A broad time horizon shows there is no such thing as a native species. All lodgings are temporary and all ecosystems in a constant flux, the victims of circumstance and geological accident. As the pioneer British ecologist Charles Elton argued, “Were it not for the ice age, we [in Britain] should probably have wonderful mixed forests with wild magnolias and laurels and epiphytic orchids, such as . . . in China.”
Source: The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation
“We may think our past is behind us. Yet, sometimes it is blatantly in our face. Moments, seemingly lost, become inextricably intertwined with consciousness in the Here and Now.”
“We may think that justice is everyone being equal, having the same rights, sharing the same kind of advantages, but maybe we have not had the chance to look at the nature of justice in terms of no-self. That kind of justice is based on the idea of self, but it may be very interesting to explore justice in terms of no-self.”
“We may think that our tradition is exactly the same as it has always been, but that is an illusion.”
“We may think that we control our lives, or our deaths… but the truth remains that we have little say over either of them. What we do bear is an ability to work within the bounds of where we exist.”
Source: The Iron Tithe
“We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely... change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.”
“We may think we are nurturing our garden, but of course
it's our garden that is really nurturing us.”
“We may think we live for wisdom, but in fact we're living for the the pleasure wisdom brings us.”
Source: The engineer of human souls: an entertainment on the old themes of life, women, fate, dreams, the working class, secret agents, love and death
“We may think we’re self-aware- who could know us better?- but sometimes we can’t see (or smell) ourselves as clearly as the people around us. Think about that- the moments where you can’t see what everyone else is seeing about you. You can’t see yourself because you’re too close to yourself.”
“We may train or peak for a certain race, but running is a lifetime sport.”
“We may train ourselves to be adaptable as possible, to respond appropriately in each situation, but the ideal of controlling the outcome or steering events as they occur must be relinquished. Chaos rules it all.”
Source: Kiss Or Kill: Confessions of a Serial Climber
“We may travel the world over to find a good spot,
But if we are blind to search within, we find it not.”
Source: The Tao of Physical and Spiritual
“We may treat of the Soul as in the body - whether it be set above it or actually within it - since the association of the two constitutes the one thing called the living organism, the Animate.Now from this relation, from the Soul using the body as an instrument, it does not follow that the Soul must share the body's experiences: a man does not himself feel all the experiences of the tools with which he is working.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Plotinus - Complete Enneads (Illustrated)
“We may try to convince ourselves that we could never possibly make a valuable contribution to humanity, whether it be through invention or sharing of thoughts. Stop that nonsense.”
“We may try to numb anger, but when we do we numb joy and pleasure on the world too. This numbing does not mean we stop having the feelings, it just stops us from being aware that we are having them. Those feelings are still churning away, tensing our bodies, writing unconscious scripts for us, storing up stuff to unload on to the world, on to our kids, but preferably on to our therapists. This numbness also inhibits the ability to have good relationships as well.”
Source: The Descent of Man
“We may try to run away from grief and escape its terrible clutches. Perhaps we immerse ourselves in work or other activities. We busy ourselves and refuse to look back over our shoulder. Grief will follow us. It will hide around the corner so in that moment when our activity lulls, grief will pounce. Grief will never leave until it is defeated.”
Source: "When Will It Stop Hurting?": One Man's Journey Through Grief
“We may use blame and criticism to cover up needs that we have not expressed or that have not been met.”
Source: 亲密关系的重建
“We may very well wake up in the not-too-distant future in a culture that is not only unreceptive but openly hostile to the church and the gospel of Jesus Christ, a culture in which those who proclaim the gospel will be labeled as bigots and fanatics, a culture in which persecution of Christians will be not only allowed but applauded.”
“We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask. Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.”
Source: A Treatise of Human Nature: Revision of Great Book
“We may well be the most technologically advanced we’ve ever been, but we’re still only one step out of the cave.”
Source: The Video
“We may well be the ones Proverbs warns when it reminds us: "Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who speaks the truth." The point is clear: If the people speak and the king doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the king. If the king acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people.”
“We may well discover that the business failure we avoid and the business success we strive for do not lead us to personal success at all. Most of us have inherited notions of "success" from someone else or have arrived at these notions by facing a seemingly endless line of hurdles extending from grade school through college and into our careers. We constantly judge ourselves against criteria that others have set and rank ourselves against others in their game.”
Source: The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
“We may well find that if we are to fulfill God's mandate on earth, we will need to communicate less often so we can communicate more. We will need to forsake the ease and the pace of quantity for the reflective significance of quality.”
Source: The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion
“We may well have a competitive advantage buying decent businesses at decent prices. But they won't be fabulous businesses and fabulous prices. There's too much competition and money out there, with many buyout specialists.”
“We may well have numerous failed states in the Muslim world, I’ll give you that. But what we don’t have are failed societies. That’s a phenomenon that we only see in the West. Our societies are functioning, even if our governments are not, even if we don’t have state-imposed order. We still have functioning societies, we still have moral societies. Our people are still following a moral code. Can’t say the same about the West. And it’s interesting to me that the West uses this as an insult to the Muslim world, ‘‘Oh, look you have failed states’’. First of all, in most instances, you collapsed our states. And second of all, we can still function without them. Can you?”
“We may well lie with what seems to be a woman of flesh and blood, and yet all the time it is only a devil in the shape of a woman.”
“We may well soon be subjected to anything that judges want to enforce.... The result will be an enforced inability of the states to pass laws that reflect the principled judgment of their own citizens....And as our Founders taught us so well, ...[that] will be the end of liberty and the establishment of tyranny in America.”
“We may well value our minds and esteem our brainpower. But let us respect our feet as well. They might be down-to-earth for sure, but do allow us to go forward and steam ahead in life. On top, they can kick out anyone disrespectful and mind-numbing. ("If he doesn't play ball")”
“We may win a battle, but if in doing so we have planted thousands of seeds of hatred and fear..the war is not over- only the present conflict has ceased. There will be no peace as long as we react to violence with violence.”
“We may win and still be wrong or partially wrong. We may win based on the merits of a superior thought at any given moment. But would we have won if there was a thought superior enough to challenge the winning thought at any particular moment? We would fail if there were a superior thought at any given time to challenge us. Would even the more superior idea be nobler or only superior in terms of the truth? Countless questions always arise and follow any serious inquiry.”
Source: ABSOLUTE
“We may win when we lose, if we have done what we can; for by so doing we have made real at least some part of that finished product in whose fabrication we are most concerned: ourselves.”
Source: The Spirit of Liberty: Papers and Addresses
“We may wish and beg life to “let this cup pass from me” but, eventually, it will come to the point where we have to drink from it if we want to save our sanity and so all we can do is TRUST, take a sip, and know that we will ultimately find our realness at the bottom of the cup.”
Source: Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace
“We may wish for answers, but God rarely gives us answers. Instead, God gathers us up into soft, familiar arms and says, "Let me tell you a story.”