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Momentary Quotes

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Momentary Quotes

“Are not lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it.”

YearsHumansMomentsAgeLastsDesireNightPassionBornHuman BeingsSilenceChildhoodListeningOld AgeUncertainLifelongMomentaryFlux
Author:C. S. Lewis
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“I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past me with a rush and out of the front door; and all that was left of the mobscene was the head of a whacking big fish, lying on the carpet and staring up at me in a rather austere sort of way, as if it wanted a written explanation and apology.”

IfsWayBigsWantedPastLyingLeftRoomsWrittenDoorsMiddleFrontsHundredShotsCatSizeFishesStaringExplanationColourApologyFlashFifteenCarpetMomentaryFront DoorsBig Fish
Book:Expecting Jeeves
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“Oh I believe in loving cats and dogs and children and parents – sometimes – but I don’t believe in romantic love. Of course, there’s the momentary rush of hormones and chemicals that encourages us to mate, but it’s biology – it’s no more inherently mystical than the nicotine in that cigarette you’re smoking”

BelieveChildrenSometimesCoursesI BelieveParentDogCatDon't BelieveI Believe InSmokingBiologyChemicalsMatesRomantic LoveCigaretteMysticalHormonesMomentaryChildren And ParentsCat And DogNicotine
Author:Amy Jenkins
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“Even the most subjected person has moments of rage and resentment so intense that they respond, they act against. There is an inner uprising that leads to rebellion, however short- lived. It may be only momentary but it takes place. That space within oneself where resistance is possible remains.”

MayPersonsMomentsSpaceRemainsOneselfRageIntenseResistanceRebellionResentmentMomentaryUprisingShort Lived
Book:Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics
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“He awoke, opened his eye. The room meant very little to him; he was too deeply immersed in the non-being from which he had just come. If he had not the energy to ascertain his position in time and space, he also lacked the desire. ... In utter comfort, utter relaxation he lay absolutely still for a while, and then sank back into on the the light momentary sleeps that occur after a long, profound one.”

IfsLittlesLongStillsLightEyeDesireEnergySleepSpaceRoomsPositionComfortLaysProfoundHis EyesRelaxationTime And SpaceMomentary
Author:Paul Bowles
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“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”

HumansHas BeensWisdomSpiritualJoyHouseDarkMorningLaughingDoorsAwarenessTreatsShameGratefulGuidesWelcomeUnexpectedInvitesGuestsEvery MorningBe GratefulBeing HumanMaliceVisitorsArrivalsMomentaryMeannessInspirational SufiHouse GuestsDark ThoughtsNew Arrivals
Author:Rumi
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“She had had her momentary flowering, a year, perhaps, of wildrose beauty, and then she had suddenly swollen like a fertilized fruit and grown hard and red and coarse, and then her life had been laundering, scrubbing, laundering, first for children, then for grandchildren, over thirty years. At the end of it she was still singing.”

YearsFirstsChildrenStillsEndsHardSingingRedFruitThirtyGrandchildrenThirty YearsMomentaryFloweringCoarseSwollen
Book:Animal Farm and 1984
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“. . . women were brought up to have only one set of manners. A woman was either a lady or she wasn't, and we all know what the latter meant. Not even momentary lapses were allowed; there is no female equivalent of the boys-will-be-boys concept.”

KnowsBoysConceptsFemaleMannersLatterMomentaryLapsesMiss Manners
Book:Common courtesy: in which Miss Manners solves the problem that baffled Mr. Jefferson
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“In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable.”

MightNightPowerfulGoneFlowerMonthsGardenEssenceBlueFishesSpotsDawnPoolDucksBeesEgyptPerfumeFillingMomentaryLotusesMusk
Author:Anita Diament
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“From a tale one expects a bit of wildness, of exaggeration and dramatic effect. The tale has no inherent concern with decorum, balance or harmony. ... A tale may not display a great deal of structural, psychological, or narrative sophistication, though it might possess all three, but it seldom takes its eye off its primary goal, the creation of a particular emotional state in its reader. Depending on the tale, that state could be wonder, amazement, shock, terror, anger, anxiety, melancholia, or the momentary frisson of horror.”

MayStatesMightEyeThreeBitsGoalDealsWonderEffectsCreationEmotionalParticularReaderBalanceHorrorAnxietyConcernHarmonyTerrorTalesPsychologicalPrimariesNarrativeDramaticShockDisplayInherentExaggerationMomentaryAmazementSophisticationWildnessDecorum
Author:Peter Straub
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“If there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up; So quick bright things come to confusion.”

IfsMenWarDreamEarthNightChoicesHeavenSoundDarknessShadowLaysConfusionSicknessLightningHeaven And EarthMomentarySiegeMidsummer Night's DreamSpleen
Author:William Shakespeare
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“Let us admit, without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests and can, without felony, stipulate for those interests and defend them. The present has its pardonable amount of egotism; momentary life has its claims, and cannot be expected to sacrifice itself incessantly to the future. The generation which is in its turn passing over the earth is not forced to abridge its life for the sake of the generations, its equals after all, whose turn shall come later on.”

EarthTurnsIndividualInterestGenerationsSacrificeAmountClaimsSakeExpectedPassingPassingsBitternessEgotismMomentaryIncessantlyFelony
Book:Hugo's Works
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“There are people whose eyes you must avoid, whose attention you must not draw to yourself. They are strange, parasitic creatures, lost souls seeking to stretch across the abyss and make fatal contact with the warm, constant flow of humanity. They live in pain, and exist only to visit that pain on others. A random glance, the momentary lingering of a look, is enough to give them the excuse that they seek. Sometimes, it is better to keep your eyes on the gutter for the fear that, by looking up, you might catch a glimpse of them, black shapes against the sun, and be blinded forever.”

PeopleGivingLooksSoulSometimesEnoughMightEyePainHumanityLostBlackAttentionSunForeverStrangeShapesCreaturesDrawsFlowConstantSeekingExcuseWarmContactGlancesGlimpseAbyssBlindedMomentaryLingeringGuttersLost Souls
Book:The Killing Kind: A Charlie Parker Thriller
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“To wait. In our lives we know joy, anger, sorrow, and a hundred other emotions, but these emotions all together occupy a bare one percent of our time. The remaining ninety-nine percent is just living in waiting. I wait in momentary expectation, feeling as though my breasts are being crushed, for the sound in the corridor of the footsteps of happiness. Empty. Oh, life is too painful, the reality that confirms the universal belief that it is best not to be born.”

KnowsFeelingsRealityTogetherLife IsJoyBeliefWaitingSoundBornEmotionOur LivesSorrowExpectationsPercentHundredEmptyUniversalPainfulNineOur TimeBreastsNinetyCrushedFootstepsMomentaryCorridorsNinety Nine
Author:Osamu Dazai
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“It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs.”

ThinkingWayDifferentMomentsMightCoursesRealizingParticularChosenMy WayHallsCrucialStairsMomentaryDesertedCrucial MomentsDaze
Author:Donna Tartt
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“No story has a beginning, and no story has an end. Beginnings and endings may be conceived to serve a purpose, to serve a momentary and transient intent, but they are, in their fundamental nature, arbitrary and exist solely as a convenient construct in the minds of man. Lives are messy, and when we set out to relate them, or parts of them, we cannot ever discern precise and objective moments when any given event began. All beginnings are arbitrary.”

MenMindMayEndsMomentsStoriesPurposeGivenEventsFundamentalsObjectivesRelatePreciseConstructsArbitraryConvenientMessyTransientMomentaryBeginnings And Endings
Author:Caitlín R. Kiernan
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“Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority. The preservation of freedom requires the elimination of such concentration of power to the fullest possible extent and the dispersal and distribution of whatever power cannot be eliminated — a system of checks and balances.”

MenMeanHandsPoliticalFreedomBalanceCapitalismFellowsFundamentalsMajorityThreatAbsenceChecksConcentrationDictatorPreservationDistributionFellow ManCoercionMomentaryEliminationMonarchsOligarchyPolitical FreedomCoerce
Book:Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
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“It is something great and greatening to cherish an ideal; to act in the light of truth that is far-away and far above; to set aside the near advantage, the momentary pleasure; the snatching of seeming good to self; and to act for remoter ends, for higher good, and for interests other than our own.”

EndsSelfLightInterestPleasureHigherAdvantageIdealsCherishFar AwaySeemingMomentary
Book:Bayonet! Forward: my Civil War reminiscences
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“[N]othing about a book is so unmistakable and so irreplaceable as the stamp of the cultured mind. I don't care what the story is about or what may be the momentary craze for books that appear to have been hammered out by the village blacksmith in a state of intoxication; the minute you get the easy touch of the real craftsman with centuries of civilisation behind him, you get literature.”

MindMayHas BeensBookRealStatesStoriesCareLiteratureEasyBehindsMinutesCenturyDon't CareI Don't CareVillageStampsCivilisationMomentaryIntoxicationCraftsmanIrreplaceableHammeredCrazeBlacksmiths
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.' 'Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.' 'When are we happy?' 'When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.' 'What is regret?' 'To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.' 'What is sorrow?' 'To long for the past.' 'What is the highest pleasure?' 'To hear a good story.”

WorldLongHardStoriesPastDesireAsksRealizingPleasureWorryForeverRegretBearsSorrowHighestPossessionHypocriteGood StoryMomentary
Book:Red Earth and Pouring Rain
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“What you select from, in order to tell your story, is nothing less than everything. What you build up your world from, your local, intelligible rational, coherent world, is nothing less than everything. . . . . All human knowledge is local. Every life, each human life is local, is arbitrary, the infinitesimal momentary glitter of a reflection.”

WorldHumansStoriesLife IsOrderHumilityReflectionLocalsRationalHuman LifeArbitrarySelectGlitterMomentaryHuman Knowledge
Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
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“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.”

ThinkingEarthUniverseCompassionBloodStageHumilityMastersGloryRiversHatredCornersEndlessCrueltyTriumphCosmosCosmicPaleMisunderstandingArenaEmperorFractionsDotsMomentaryVastnessFerventCosmic ConsciousnessPale Blue DotAcross The UniverseAstronomy And UniversePixels
Book:Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
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“It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it; will be less attached to what he holds by a momentary or uncertain title, than to what he enjoys by a durable or certain title; and, of course, will be willing to risk more for the sake of the one, than for the sake of the other.”

MenHumansCertainCoursesEnjoyPrinciplesRiskHuman NatureWillingSakeTitlesProportionUncertainMomentaryFirmnessTenure
Book:The Federalist: On the New Constitution
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