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Semblance Quotes

Browse 122 quotes about Semblance.

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Semblance Quotes

“Masculine observers, if the birth-mark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness, without the semblance of a flaw.”

IfsWorldMightWishBirthIdealsMarkFlawsAdmirationObserversMasculineLovelinessSemblance
Book:The Birthmark (Unabridged): A Dark Romantic Story on Obsession with Human Perfection From the Renowned American Author of
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“Nostalgia for people, cultures, everything. There's an ability to use these marks to note things that are erased, deleted. Traces are a species of history, of evidence. It's a way for the way the narrator to construct a semblance of self, even though all of this creates a deception, a way to think of one's traces as a real way to define oneself. The trace is fallible, impermanent. It's one of the motives I had in mind throughout the text.”

PeopleThinkingWayMindRealSelfUseCultureAbilityEvidenceMarkNotesSpeciesOneselfNostalgiaDeceptionMotiveConstructsNarratorsSemblance
Author:Sergio Chejfec
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“Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen seem to have no respect for the institutions that were created after World War II, and they see a potential alliance of populists around the world who would fight Islam and restore a certain semblance of traditional values.”

WorldWarSeemsCertainValuesFightingTrumpInstitutionsIslamTraditionalAround The WorldWar Of The WorldsPensWorld War IiWorld War IMarinePutinAlliancesNo RespectPopulistSemblanceTraditional Values
Author:David Brooks
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“The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.”

ChildrenStillsMightTodayChallengesLevelsCitiesTeacherNew YorkAreasAverageSpendingNeighborhoodNew York CityEducateContrastFairnessSalaryPoorestNew YorkersSemblance
Author:Jonathan Kozol
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“Selfishly, perhaps, Catti-brie had determined that the assassin was her own business. He had unnerved her, had stripped away years of training and discipline and reduced her to the quivering semblance of a frightened child. But she was a young woman now, no more a girl. She had to personally respond to that emotional humiliation, or the scars from it would haunt her to her grave, forever paralyzing her along her path to discover her true potential in life.”

YearsChildrenYoungGirlForeverPathEmotionalDisciplineTrainingDeterminedGravesFrightenedScarYoung WomenHumiliationOwn BusinessAssassinsSemblanceTrue PotentialBrie
Author:R. A. Salvatore
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“Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.”

IfsHeartPersonsCharacterShowsDiesFateDevelopmentEssentialsFemininePeculiarAttributesTendernessCrushedPermanenceDepartedSeveritySemblance
Book:The Scarlet Letter (Annotated And Illustrated Edition)
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“Justice based purely on laws is about as accurate as a portrait created out of large low-resolution color pixels. If you stand back far enough it looks good. Come any closer and the glaring approximations overtake all semblance of the original. Justice should be viewable under the microscope, not from a telescope. And for that it needs to be based not on law but on truth.”

IfsNeedsShouldLooksEnoughLawJusticeColorLowsOriginalsResolutionAccuratePortraitsTelescopesMicroscopesSemblanceApproximationPixels
Author:Vera Nazarian
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“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”

PeopleIfsWorldLooksEarthOrderJusticeAnswersPoorGraceHavensThis WorldWillingDespairHappeningsOrdinaryOptimisticDataOddsOrdinary PeoplePulsePessimisticSemblance
Author:Paul Hawken
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“She thumped him again. He looked startled, then caught her flying fist in his hand and gently pried her fingers open. Very carefully he pressed a kiss into the exact center of her palm. 'Savannah? Were you trying to hit me?' 'I didn't hit you--twice, you scum. You didn't even notice the first time.' She sounded very irritated with him. For some reason it made him want to smile. 'I apologize, mon amour. Next time, I promise I will notice when you strike me.' The hard edge to his mouth softened into a semblance of a smile. 'I will even go so far as to pretend that it hurts, if you wish it.”

IfsWantTryingFirstsMadeHardReasonHandsNextWishHurtPromiseKissingMouthsFirst TimeFingersEdgesCaughtStrikesFlyingApologizingNext TimeIt HurtsPalmsFistsI PromiseAmourIrritatedSemblanceI ApologizeScumSavannah
Author:Christine Feehan
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“Africans in the United States must remember that the slave ships brought no West Indians, no Caribbeans, no Jamaicans or Trinidadians or Barbadians to this hemisphere. The slave ships brought only African people and most of us took the semblance of nationality from the places where slave ships dropped us off.”

PeopleStatesRememberUnitedUnited StatesSlaveWestShipsIndianNationalityCaribbeanHemisphereSemblanceJamaicansSlave ShipsTrinidadians
Author:John Henrik Clarke
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“Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.”

WritingLanguageViewsSpeechContraryDialogueTempoClimaxSemblance
Book:Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies
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“All that is limited by form, semblance, sound, color is called object. Among them all, man alone is more than an object. Though, like objects, he has form and semblance, He is not limited to form. He is more. He can attain to formlessness. When he is beyond form and semblance, beyond "this" and "that," where is the comparison with another object? Where is the conflict? What can stand in his way? He will rest in his eternal place which is no-place. He will be hidden in his own unfathomable secret. His nature sinks to its root in the One. His vitality, his power hide in secret Tao.”

MenWayFormSoundSecretObjectsColorConflictEternalRootsEternityComparisonTaoVitalityUnfathomableSemblance
Author:Zhuangzi
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“In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are so truth-like and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.”

LifeLongStatesWholeDreamRealityArtistMemoriesPowerfulBrainConditionsSickFilledExtraordinaryDetailsImpressionSettingSettingsNervousConsistentWakingDreamerDelicateMonstrousNervous SystemMorbidActualitySemblanceDerangedWhole PictureVividnessPushkin
Book:Crime and Punishment: Dostoevsky's Collections
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“How false is the conception, how frantic the pursuit, of that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty: most treacherous, indeed, of all phantoms; for the feeblest ray of reason might surely show us, that not only its attainment, but its being, was impossible..... There is no such thing in the universe. There can never be. The stars have it not; the earth has it not; the sea has it not; and we men have the mockery and semblance of it only for our heaviest punishment.”

MenReasonShowsMightEarthPoliticalUniversePoliticsStarsLibertyImpossibleSeaPursuitPunishmentConceptionRaysAttainmentMockeryPhantomsTreacherousFranticSemblance
Book:The stones of Venice (cont'd) Seven lamps of architecture. Lectures on architecture and painting, delivered at Edinburgh in Nov. 1853. An inquiry into some of the conditions at present affecting the study of architecture in our schools
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“Archimedes was my ideal. I admired the works of artists, but to my mind, they were only shadows and semblances. The inventor, I thought, gives to the world creations which are palpable, which live and work.”

WorldInspirationalGivingMindArtistCreationShadowIdealsInventorSemblance
Book:Simpozij Nikola Tesla: u okviru programa proslave 120. obljetnice rođenja Nikole Tesle : Zagreb, Smiljan, Gospić, 7-10. jula 1976
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“The recollections of an older man are different from those of a younger man. What seemed vital at forty may lose its significance at seventy. We manufacture stories, after all, from the fleeting sensory material that bombards us at every instant, a fragmented series of pictures, conversations, odors, and the touch of things and people. We delete most of it to live with some semblance of order, and the reshuffling of memory goes on until we die.”

PeopleMenMayDifferentStoriesOrderDiesLosesMemoriesMaterialsGoes OnConversationSeriesInstantFortySignificanceSeventiesFleetingRecollectionSensoryOdorFragmentedSemblanceOlder Man
Author:Siri Hustvedt
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“If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one’s existence, if one does not use the mind to it’s fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. True happiness involves the pursuit of worthy goals. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.”

IfsGivingMindDoeUseFeelingsDreamGoalExistenceFailingRiskWorthyPursuitTrue HappinessFractionsGood FeelingSemblance
Book:Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way
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“I had often thought that if I managed to live through the war I wouldn't expect too much of life. How could one resent disappointment in love if life itself was continuously in doubt? Since Belgorod, terror had overturned all my preconceptions, and the pace of life had been so intense one no longer knew what elements of ordinary life to abandon in order to maintain some semblance of balance. I was still unresigned to the idea of death, but I had already sworn to myself during moments of intense fear that I would exchange anything - fortune, love, even a limb - if I could simply survive.”

IfsLoveStillsIdeasWarMomentsAgeOrderDoubtToo MuchBalanceElementsOrdinaryFortuneTerrorDisappointmentIntenseIf I CouldAbandonPaceLimbsResentOrdinary LifePreconceptionsSemblanceDisappointment LovePace Of Life
Author:Guy Sajer
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