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Humbug Quotes

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Humbug Quotes

“I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue.”

PeopleFeelsMeanSometimesDoneActionWishNaturalMoralPrinciplesVirtueTroubleHavensProveShameLike MeWickedFrankVirtuousRemorseParticlesHumbugOwning It
Author:Louisa May Alcott
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“I would, like any other scientist, willingly change my mind if the evidence led me to do so. So I care about what's true, I care about evidence, I care about evidence as the reason for knowing what is true. It is true that I come across rather passionate sometimes - and that's because I am passionate about the truth... I do get very impatient with humbug, with cant, with fakery, with charlatans.”

IfsMindSometimesReasonCareKnowingAtheismEvidenceScientistPassionateI CareCantImpatientCharlatansHumbug
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“I am prepared to maintain that Honesty is essentially an anarchistic and disintegrating force in society, that communities are held together and the progress of civilization made possible only by vigorous and sometimes even, violent Lying; that the Social Contract is nothing more or less than a vast conspiracy of human beings to lie and humbug themselves and one another for the general Good.”

HumansMadeSometimesTogetherLyingForceSocialCommunityHuman BeingsProgressHonestyCivilizationPreparedViolentContractsConspiracyVigorousSocial ContractHumbug
Author:H. G. Wells
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“Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy.”

WayWritingLongDoeTogetherOrderEasyResultsModernWorstSakeAttractionSheerInventingHumbug
Book:A Collection of Essays
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“Aeroplanes are not designed by science, but by art in spite of some pretence and humbug to the contrary. I do not mean to suggest that engineering can do without science, on the contrary, it stands on scientific foundations, but there is a big gap between scientific research and the engineering product which has to be bridged by the art of the engineer.”

MeanArtBigsCan DoProductsResearchFoundationContrarySpiteGapsEngineeringEngineersAeroplanesScientific ResearchPretenceHumbugCivil EngineerCivil Engineering
Author:Walter Guido Vincenti
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“Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.”

HeartChildrenWonderfulSeeingCapacityExtraordinaryMy ChildrenHaving ChildrenHumbugWonderful ChildrenChild At Heart
Book:Bishop Desmond Tutu, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: a collection of his recent statements in the struggle for justice in South Africa
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“Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them—and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little— crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand. - "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts”

LittlesYoungRacePovertyLaughingCenturyWeaponsLaughterBlowCrowdsStrangerMysteriousLiftsSatanAtomsPersecutionAssaultPersuasionBlastManuscriptsRagsColossalChroniclesSupplicationHumbugFunniness
Author:Mark Twain
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“I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit, I know you're a liar and a humbug, I know that you're utterly contemptible. And the tragic part is'--her face was on a sudden distraught with pain--'the tragic part is that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart.”

KnowsMenHeartPainFacesWomenLove YouHavensMy HeartTragedySelfishTragicLiarsNervesRabbitsHumbugDistraughtYou Re A Liar
Author:W. Somerset Maugham
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“It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.”

PeopleIfsMenGivingWellsHelpingActionPleasurePracticeVirtueDrinkDemandHelping OthersAdmirationVirtuousBeggarWhiskeyBenevolentSpiritedSodaHumbugHuman Bondage
Author:W. Somerset Maugham
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“How can you see something that isn't there?" yawned the Humbug, who wasn't fully awake yet. "Sometimes, it's much simpler than seeing things that are,"he said. "For instance, if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones." "Then where is Reality?" barked Tock. "Right here,"cried Alec, waving his arms.”

IfsWellsSaidRealSometimesRealityEyeSeeingArmsEasierInstanceAwakeImaginaryCriedReal OnesHumbugTockImaginary Things
Author:Norton Juster
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“It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.”

PeopleIfsWayMindKindLongSaidUseWantedTroubleKingsLowsBest WayLiarsTake MeFraudQuarrelsObjectionsDukesHumbugHuckleberry
Book:10 Books in 1
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“Why, did you know that if a beaver two feet long with a tail a foot and a half long can build a dam twelve feet high and six feet wide in two days, all you would need to build Boulder Dam is a beaver sixty-eight feet long with a fifty-one-foot tail?" "Where would you find a beaver that big?" grumbled the Humbug as his pencil point snapped. "I'm sure I don't know," he replied, "but if you did, you'd certainly know what to do with him.”

IfsKnowsNeedsLongTwoBigsHalfFeetSixEightWideFiftyTwelveSixtyTailsPencilsTwo DaysDid You KnowDamsBouldersHumbugBeavers
Book:The Phantom Tollbooth 50th Anniversary Edition
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“The man is a humbug — a vulgar, shallow, self-satisfied mind, absolutely inaccessible to the complexities and delicacies of the real world. He has the journalist's air of being a specialist in everything, of taking in all points of view and being always on the side of the angels: he merely annoys a reader who has the least experience of knowing things, of what knowing is like. There is not two pence worth of real thought or real nobility in him. But he isn't dull.”

MenWorldMindTwoRealSelfSidesViewsKnowingAirReaderAngelPoint Of ViewSatisfiedJournalistComplexityDullReal WorldAnnoyingShallowVulgarNobilitySpecialistsDelicacyInaccessibleHumbugKnowing Things
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions.”

YearsUseFunnyMarriageParticularInstitutionsHolidayFriendlyResolutionNew YearAnnualsNew Years EveHappy New YearScapegoatBest YearNew Year's ResolutionsNew Years ResolutionNew Year New StartHappy New Year EvePromiscuousNew Years Eve InspirationalHappy New Year InspirationalHumbugDays Of The YearFunny Happy New YearNew Year WishesNew Year New MeInspirational New YearNew Years ToastFunny New YearsFunny New Years EveFunny New Years ResolutionNew Years DayChristian New YearIndian Happy New YearNew Years Holiday
Book:Early Tales & Sketches, Vol. 1: 1851-1864
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