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Able Quotes

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Able Quotes

“Cruelty, very far from being a vice, is the first sentiment Nature injects in us all. The infant breaks his toy, bites his nurse's breast, strangles his canary long before he is able to reason; cruelty is stamped in animals, in whom, as I think I have said, Nature's laws are more emphatically to be read than in ourselves; cruelty exists amongst savages, so much nearer to Nature than civilized men are; absurd then to maintain cruelty is a consequence of depravity. . . . Cruelty is simply the energy in a man civilization has not yet altogether corrupted: therefore it is a virtue, not a vice.”

ThinkingMenFirstsLongSaidReasonAbleLawEnergyAnimalBreakVirtueCivilizationConsequenceVicesAbsurdCrueltyBreastsCivilizedSentimentsBitesNurseToysSavagesInfantDepravityCanaries
Author:Marquis de Sade
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“Treat persons who profess to be able to cure disease as you treat fortune tellers.”

PersonsAbleDiseaseTreatsFortuneCuresQuacksFortune Teller
Book:George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion
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“Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it. Matter-of-fact men, and those who like precision, naturally fall into comparisons and metaphor. Sprightly natures, full of fire, and whom a boundless imagination carries beyond all rules, and even what is reasonable, cannot rest satisfied even with hyperbole. As for the sublime, it is only great geniuses and those of the very highest order that are able to rise to its height.”

PeopleMenMatterFactsAbleYoungOrderFallImaginationFireStyleGeniusHighestMetaphorSatisfiedHeightReasonableComparisonCarrieSublimeBoundlessPrecisionMatter Of FactAntithesisHyperbole
Author:Jean de la Bruyere
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“Both as to high and low indifferently, men are prepossessed, charmed, fascinated by success; successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify.”

MenWholeAbleSuccessVirtueSuccessfulCrimeLowsFortuneDeedsJustifyCyclesFascinatedGood FortuneHatefulCharmedHighs And Lows
Author:Jean de la Bruyere
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“Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully--not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts--watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with.”

ThinkingWorldHeartStillsAbleDeathDiesFightingFoundChristEnemyKnowingProgressPlansDyingFieldsVictoryBattleAnxietyLipsGreat ThingsTriumphServantDecayNot KnowingFoeLooking ForwardSlow Progress
Book:Sermons Preached at Brighton
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“No substance in nature, as far as yet known, has, when it reaches the brain, such power to induce mental and moral changes of a disastrous character as alcohol. Its transforming power is marvelous, and often appalling. It seems to open a way of entrance into the soul for all classes of foolish, insane or malignant spirits, who, so long as it remains in contact with the brain, are able to hold possession.”

WayLongSoulCharacterSeemsAbleSpiritBrainKnownMoralClassRemainsPossessionAlcoholFoolishContactInsaneSubstanceMarvelousTransformingEntrances
Author:Timothy Shay Arthur
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“What a man is lies as certainly upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintances may be able to read it. The very intercourse with him may have rendered it more difficult.”

MenHeartMayAbleLyingDifficultAcquaintanceIntercourseCountenance
Book:The Complete Novels of George Macdonald (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Wilfrid Cumbermede and many more
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“The riches of a country are to be valued by the quantity of labor its inhabitants are able to purchase, and not by the quantity of silver and gold they possess; which will purchase more or less labor, and therefore is more or less valuable, as is said before, according to its scarcity or plenty.”

SaidCountryAbleLaborGoldValuableRichesPlentySilverQuantityScarcity
Book:The Political Economy of the American Revolution
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“Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.”

WellsKindMayWholeHandsEyeAbleViewsObjectsSucceedAimDistanceSticksSelfishCommandHorizonCunningDiscretion
Book:The spectator
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“When you meet anyone in the flesh you realize immediately that he is a human being and not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas. It is partly for this reason that I don't mix much in literary circles, because I know from experience that once I have met and spoken to anyone I shall never again be able to feel any intellectual brutality towards him, even when I feel I ought to - like the Labour M.P.s who get patted on the back by dukes and are lost forever more.”

KnowsFeelsHumansIdeasReasonAbleCertainLostRealizingHuman BeingsForeverOughtMetsIntellectualRelationFleshCirclesLabourBrutalityHuman RelationsDukesCaricatures
Author:George Orwell
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“There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions--that is, to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited.”

KnowsMenWayHumansMeanReasonCharacterAbleFormThreeNamesCausesEmotionClearHe ManGoodnessVariousExcitedCommandPersuasion
Book:The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle
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“The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.”

SoulHandsAbleFatherEasyCuresSuitsClergymen
Book:Dr. Johnson's Table-talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners, with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Mr. Boswell's Life of Johnson
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“The whole power of cunning is privative; to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet men, thus narrow by nature and mean by art, are sometimes able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of integrity, and, watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain advantages which belong to higher characters.”

MenMeanArtSometimesWholeCharacterAbleOpportunityHigherIntegrityAdvantageBraveryOpennessCunningMiscarriage
Book:The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
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“O thou who art able to write a book which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name city-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name conqueror or city-burner.”

MenWritingArtTwoBookAbleNamesCitiesCenturyEnvyPityGiftedConquerorBuilderAuthorship
Book:Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books
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“A friend of mine who writes history books said to me that he thought that the two creatures most to be pitied were the spider and the novelist - their lives hanging by a thread spun out of their own guts. But in some ways I think writers of fiction are the creatures most to be envied, because who else besides the spider is allowed to take that fragile thread and weave it into a pattern? What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it to create some semblance of order.”

ThinkingWayWritingSaidTwoBookAbleOrderFictionGraceMinesCreaturesChaosPatternsNovelistsGutsFragileThreadSpidersEnviedSpunHistory BooksSemblance
Author:Katherine Paterson
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