W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“We read not that Christ ever exercised force but once; and that was to drive profane ones out of his Temple, not to force them in.”
Source: The Prose Works of John Milton: With a Biographical Introduction
“We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we can’t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our lives and of the world. When we’re distressed and go to therapy, our therapist’s job is to help us tell our story. Life doesn’t come with plots; it’s messy and chaotic; life is one damn, inexplicable thing after another. And we can’t have that. We insist on meaning. And so we tell stories so that our lives make sense.”
Source: Is Life Like This?: A Guide to Writing Your First Novel in Six Months
“We read novels. We read hundreds of pages of words, when the story is good because we're willing to stay there. I hope the story is good. I'm going into this venture thinking that the audience is really smart and really wants to hear all the nuances of what we're saying.”
“We read of preaching the Word out of season, but we do not read of praying out of season, for that is never out of season.”
Source: Directions for daily communion with God, in 3 discourses, and The communicant's companion
“We read off the many signals that our companions' clothes transmit to us in every social encounter. In this way, clothing is as much a part of human body language as gestures, facial expressions and postures.Even those people who insist that they despise attention to clothing, and dress as casually as possible, are making quite specific comments on their social roles and their attitudes towards the culture in which they live.”
“We read often with as much talent as we write.”
“We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give.”
“We read our mail and counted up our missions In bombers named for girls, we burned The cities we had learned about in school Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among The people we had killed and never seen. When we lasted long enough they gave us medals; When we died they said, "Our casualties were low." They said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.”
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
“We read privately, mentally listening to the author's voice and translating the writer's thoughts. The book remains static and fixed; the reader journeys through it.”
“We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.”
Source: Ever the Winds of Chance
“We read so much about incompetence and corruption in all sorts of places. I'm not just thinking of the United Kingdom and the United States. Almost everywhere there seems to me to be an increase in incompetence and general dishonesty. This is what I mean about democracy - you feel that you've got the ability to arrange things and influence matters and it's not quite so easy as that, I'm afraid.”
“We read so that we can be moved by a new way of looking at things.”
“We read some things in the Bible three hundred and sixty-five times and they mean nothing to us, then all of a sudden we see what God means, because in some particular we have obeyed God, and instantly His nature is opened up.”
Source: My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition
“We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.”
Source: Literary and Professional Works
“We read the [Dracula] scripts, but Jess [De Gouw] and I are completely taken out of the hunts and anything with Van Helsing. We're just living our lives, as our characters.”
“We read the books we're meant to read, in the moment we're meant to read them.”
“We read the future by the past.”
Source: Civilization and Black Progress: Selected Writings of Alexander Crummell on the South
“We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).”
“We read the letters of the dead like helpless gods,
but gods nonetheless, since we know the dates that follow.
We know which debts will never be repaid.”
Source: View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems
“We read the letters of the dead like helpless gods,
but gods, nonetheless, since we know the dates that follow.
We know which debts will never be repaid.
Which widows will remarry with the corpse still warm.
Poor dead, blindfolded dead,
gullible, fallible, pathetically prudent.
We see the faces people make behind their backs.
We catch the sound of wills being ripped to shreds.
The dead sit before us comically, as if on buttered bread,
or frantically pursue the hats blown from their heads.
Their bad taste, Napoleon, steam, electricity,
their fatal remedies for curable diseases,
their foolish apocalypse according to St. John,
their counterfeit heaven on earth according to Jean-Jacques…
We watch the pawns on their chessboards in silence,
even though we see them three squares later.
Everything the dead predicted has turned out completely different.
Or a little bit different – which is to say, completely different.
The most fervent of them gaze confidingly into our eyes:
their calculations tell them that they’ll find perfection there.”
Source: View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems
“We read the lines, the stories, but we do not read what pushes a soul to find the voice through those words. We do not read how the fumbling fingers take the freezing grief and turn it into sunlight. We do not read that beneath the calm lines, there remains the drinking of pain.”
“We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self.
These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,—the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.”
Source: Some Mistakes of Moses
“We read the past by the light of the present, and the forms vary as the shadows fall, or as the point of vision alters.”
Source: Short Studies on Great Subjects
“We read the stories, but we do not read what pushes a soul to find the voice through those words. We read the character names, but we do not read how their fumbling fingers take the freezing grief and turn it into sunlight. We do not read that beneath the calm lines, there remains the drinking of pain.”
“We read the weird tales in newspapers to crowd out the even weirder stuff inside us.”
“We read the world - television, movies, songs, books - and the people in it through the lens of our own lives.”
“We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.”
Source: Stray Birds
“We read to escape, to embrace, to challenge, and to understand. Reading enages our intellect, but also our empathy, and we are all the better for it.”
“We read to escape, to learn, to find love, to feel seen. We read to encounter new worlds, to discover new recipes, to find connection across difference, or simply to pass a rainy afternoon. No matter the reason, books have the power to keep us safe, to challenge us, and perhaps most importantly, to make us more fully human.”
Source: Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out – A Hilarious Guide for Book Lovers and Lifelong Readers
“We read to find life, in all its possibilities.”
“We read to find out what the world is like, to experience lots of lives, not just the one we live. If it is true that our lives are chaotic and we crave a shape, stories are the shapes that we put on experience, containing all the wisdom in the world. We can even choose what kind of wisdom suits us.”
“We read to know that we are not alone.”
“We read to know we are not alone.”
“We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.”
Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
“We read to know we're not alone.”
“We read to learn.”
Source: Think Great: Be Great!
“We read to learn and to grow, to laugh, to be motivated, and to understand things we've never been exposed to. We read for strength to help us when we feel broken, discouraged or afraid. We read to find hope. We read because we're not just made up of skin and bones, and a deep need for chocolate, but we're also made up of words, words which describe our thoughts and what's hidden in our hearts.”
“We read to understand our intuition of the world, to discover that someone a thousand miles and years away has put into words our most intimate desires and our most secret fears. Reading is a collaborative act.”
“We read to understand, or to begin to understand. We cannot do but to read. Reading almost as much as breathing, is our essential function.”
“We read too much Shakespeare at school, and view our parliamentary politics as dynastic drama, in which an impatient crown prince frets at his long subordination and begins to scheme for the throne he knows he merits, was promised and has earned.”
“We read, we wrote, we prayed, we cried, we listened,we screamed, we spoke out, we marched, we helped others in need. But how much do we change for good? It’s sake and forever? For those of us who survived, when and how we see the benefits of what we went through during those turbulent times is relative. But if we work individually to make justified changes for more value driven and righteous tomorrow, the redlight year that 2020 was will one day in the rear view mirror of life inevitably turn green. And perhaps be seen as one of our finest hours.”
Source: Greenlights
“We read with the very real understanding that a great mentor text may be waiting just a page-turn away. We read with the sense of possibility because everything we teach is grounded in the writing we love.”
Source: Writing with Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the Room Using Current, Engaging Mentor Texts
“We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.”
Source: Healing for Damaged Emotions
“We read, we travel, we become.”
Source: The Prodigal: A Poem
“We reaffirm that on days like this, there are no Republicans or Democrats. We are Americans, united in concern for our fellow citizens.”
“We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.”
Source: The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks
“We realised that it was important to embrace this popcorn logic, that it works, that it's funnier when you fire 20 rounds from one tiny pistol. Then it becomes the joke, it's funnier when you pay less attention.”
“We realize our dilemma goes deeper than shortage of time; it is basically a problem of priorities. We confess, we have left undone those things that ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.”
“We realize people perceive the world differently and feel how our senses shape our reality, swaying our comprehension of beings and things around us. When we think we perceive a bird or a plane, it might be quite something else. It could be Superman. (Is it a bird? Is it a plane?)”