Browse 8828 quotes about Causes.
“A town, before it can be plundered and, deserted, must first be taken; and in this particular Venus has borrowed a law from her consort Mars. A woman that wishes to retain her suitor must keep him in the trenches; for this is a siege which the besieger never raises for want of supplies, since a feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation. Inanition may cause it to die a slow death, but repletion always destroys it by a sudden one.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another; that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“In an easy cause any man may be eloquent.”
“September is different from all other months. It is more magical. I feel the strange chemical change in the earth which produces mushrooms is the cause, too, of the extra 'life' in the air - a resilience, a sparkle.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)
“Men are the cause of women not loving one another.
[Fr., Les hommes sont la cause que les femmes ne s'aiment point.]”
“The sublime only paints the true, and that too in noble objects; it paints it in all its phases, its cause and its effect; it is the most worthy expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find out the exact expression, and use synonymes.”
“The causes that govern the heart appear to be wholly alien to the results achieved. Are the forces that moved a desperate criminal the same that fill a martyr with pride, as both mount the scaffold?”
“On the moral plane, true friends enjoy the same protection as the sense of smell confers upon dogs. They scent the sorrow of their friends, they divine its causes, and they clasp it to their minds and hearts.”
“Love, according to our contemporary poets, is a privilege which two beings confer upon one another, whereby they may mutually cause one another much sorrow over absolutely nothing.”
“Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“And in thy own sermon, thou
That the sparrow falls dost allow,
It shall not cause me any alarm;
For neither so comes the bird to harm,
Seeing our Father, thou hast said,
Is by the sparrow's dying bed;
Therefore it is a blessed place,
And the sparrow in high grace.”
Source: THOMAS WINGFOLD, CURATE + PAUL FABER, SURGEON + THERE AND BACK - The Complete Series: The Curate's Awakening, The Lady's Confession & The Baron's Apprenticeship
“Misery and ignorance are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger, and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels.”
“Boredom is often the cause of promiscuity, and always its result.”
Source: Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin
“That which we remember of our conduct is ignored by our closest neighbour; but that which we have forgotten having said, or even what we never said, will cause laughter even into the next world.”
“The cause of all the blunders committed by man arises from this excessive self-love. For the lover is blinded by the object loved; so that he passes a wrong judgment on what is just, good and beautiful, thinking that he ought always to honor what belongs to himself in preference to truth. For he who intends to be a great man ought to love neither himself nor his own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by himself, or by another.”
“Nobody wants his cause near as bad as he wants to talk about his cause.”
Source: Will Rogers' World: America's Foremost Political Humorist Comments on the Twenties and Thirties--and Eighties and Nineties
“Being physically close to extreme power causes one to experience a giddiness, an intoxication.”
Source: The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou
“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.”
Source: The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle
“To this day I always say my prayers on my knees 'cause I think maybe they get there sooner.”
“lack of self-esteem is what causes wars because people who really love themselves don't go out and try to fight other people ... It's the root of all the problems.”
“The fear of approaching death, which in youth we imagine must cause inquietude to the aged, is very seldom the source of much uneasiness.”
“What mighty ills have not been done by woman!
Who was't betray'd the Capitol? A woman;
Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman;
Who was the cause of a long ten years' war,
And laid at last old Troy is ashes? Woman;
Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman!”
Source: The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway: In Three Volumes
“Diligence which, as it avails in all things, is also of the utmost moment in pleading causes. Diligence is to be particularly cultivated by us; it is to be constantly exerted; it is capable of effecting almost everything.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Cicero (Illustrated)
“The cause is hidden, but the result is known.
[Lat., Causa latet: vis est notissima.]”
“The general remedy of those who are uneasy without knowing the cause is change of place.”
Source: The Rambler
“Their origin is commonly unknown; for the practice often continues when the cause has ceased, and concerning superstitious ceremonies it is in vain to conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain.”
Source: Selected poetry and prose
“He knows enough, the mariner, who knows
Where lurk the shelves, and where the whirlpools boil,
What signs portend the storm: to subtler minds
He leaves to scan, from what mysterious cause
Charybdis rages in the Ionian wave;
Whence those impetuous currents in the main
Which neither oar nor sail can stem; and why
The roughening deep expects the storm, as sure
As red Orion mounts the shrouded heaven.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Armstrong, Dyer, and Green: With Memoirs, and Critical Dissertations
“Through all history, from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs have fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history, to the end, as long as men believe in God that army must still march and fall, recruited only from the flower of mankind, cheered only by their own hope of humanity, strong only in the confidence of their cause.”
Source: Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis: On the principles and character of American institutions, and the duties of American citizens, 1856-1891
“There's no doubt in my mind that sleep deprivation is the hidden number one cause of arguments and cybersex. I'm convinced that countless good relationships end and bad ones begin because of chronic fatigue. Never make a major decision until after you've taken a nap.”
Source: Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self
“Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever; fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a dissipation of money; the former, of those fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fermentation.”
Source: Essays on men and manners; with aphorisms, criticisms, impromptus, fragments, etc
“When we view elevated ideas of Nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.”
Source: The works of John Dryden: now first collected in eighteen volumes. Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author
“Virtue without success is a fair picture shown by an ill light; but lucky men are favorites of heaven; all own the chief, when fortune owns the cause.”
“Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.”
Source: Notebooks
“The effect of boredom on a large scale in history is underestimated. It is a main cause of revolutions.”
“Corruption of politics has nothing to do with the morals, or the laxity of morals, of various political personalities. Its cause is altogether a material one.”
Source: Emma Goldman
“Never can a new idea move within the law. It matters not whether that idea pertains to political and social changes or to any other domain of human thought and expression - to science, literature, music; in fact, everything that makes for freedom and joy and beauty must refuse to move within the law. How can it be otherwise? The law is stationary, fixed, mechanical, 'a chariot wheel' which grinds all alike without regard to time, place and condition, without ever taking into account cause and effect, without ever going into the complexity of the human soul.”
“That's one of the privileges of old age - you can give plenty of advice 'cause most folks think that's all you got left anyway.”
Source: Selected from the Women of Brewster Place
“He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not color'd like his own, and having pow'r
T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.”
Source: The Poetical Works of William Cowper, Esq: Of the Inner Temple
“The spleen is seldom felt where Flora reigns;
The low'ring eye, the petulance, the frown,
And sullen sadness, that o'ershade, distort,
And mar the face of beauty, when no cause
For such immeasurable woe appears;
These Flora banishes, and gives the fair
Sweet smiles, and bloom less transient than her own.”
Source: William Cowper: The Task and Selected Other Poems
“Sacred interpreter of human thought,
How few respect or use thee as they ought!
But all shall give account of every wrong,
Who dare dishonor or defile the tongue;
Who prostitute it in the cause of vice,
Or sell their glory at a market-price!”
Source: The Works of Cowper and Thompson: Including Many Letters and Poems Never Before Published in this Country. With a New and Interesting Memoir of the Life of Thomson
“And when my own Mark Antony
Against young Caesar strove,
And Rome's whole world was set in arms,
The cause was,--all for love.”
Source: All for Love: And The Pilgrim to Compostella
“Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast,
Still to be powder'd, all perfum'd.
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.”
“Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend,
With whom my muse began, with who shall end.”
Source: The Poems of Alexander Pope: The Dunciad (1728) & The Dunciad Variorum (1729)
“Of lunacy,
Innumerous were the causes; humbled pride,
Ambition disappointed, riches lost,
And bodily disease, and sorrow, oft
By man inflicted on his brother man;
Sorrow, that, made the reason drunk, and yet
Left much untasted. So the cup was fill'd.”
Source: Pollok's Course of Time
“... every time I got disappointed I'd remember the Roseannadanna philosophy that says that you shouldn't cry over split milk 'cause if you spill some milk and instead of cleaning it up you just walk over it and start crying, they're gonna put you on lithium.”
“[Rhyme is] but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meter; ... Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, ... as have also long since our best English tragedies, as... trivial and of no true musical delight; which [truly] consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory.”
“Nations have passed away and left no traces, And history gives the naked cause of it - One single simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit.”
Source: The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated): 5 Novels & 440+ Short Stories, Complete Poetry, Historical Military Works and Autobiographical Writings (Kim, The Jungle Book, The Man Who Would Be King, Land and Sea Tales, Captain Courageous…)
“Be assured that, although men of eminent genius have been guilty of all other vices, none worthy of more than a secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either an excess of avarice or a deficiency of what, in physics, is called excitability, is the cause of it; neither of which can exist in the same bosom with genius, with patriotism, or with virtue.”
Source: The works of Walter Savage Landor [ed. by J. Forster].
“In a just cause it is right to be confident.”