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Stirring Quotes

Browse 272 quotes about Stirring.

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Stirring Quotes

“Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.”

MenFirstsHumansHas BeensHandsStepsProgressHeardMajorityPossessionValuableStoresDestroyedAbyssSeekersEvery StepStirringHuman ProgressValuable ThingsTruth Seekers
Author:H. L. Mencken
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“Opening a play is just tough. The idea that actors are weirdly protected from it is a myth. If you imagine yourself having to spend two and a bit hours cooking bolognaise, remembering a whole major work by David Hare and speaking it at the correct moment between chopping carrots and stirring the onions in front of an audience - the normal human response is 'Please, can I go to the airport?'”

IfsHumansTwoIdeasPlayWholeMomentsRememberActorsBitsHoursAudienceImagineFrontsPleaseNormalMajorsToughCookingResponseMythOpeningProtectedAirportsStirringOnionsCarrotsHaresChopping
Author:Bill Nighy
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“Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire. Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow Of bragging horror. So shall inferior eyes, That borrow their behaviors from the great, Grow great by your example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution.”

EyeSpiritGrowsFireExampleHorrorBehaviorThreatResolutionInferiorsBrowsStirringBraggingDauntless
Book:The Family Shakspeare, in One Volume: In which Nothing is Added to the Original Text, But Those Words and Expressions are Omitted which Cannot with Propriety be Read in a Family
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“Philip Kitcher has composed the most formidable defense of the secular view of life since Dewey. Unlike almost all of contemporary atheism, Life After Faith is utterly devoid of cartoons and caricatures of religion. It is, instead, a sober and soulful book, an exemplary practice of philosophical reflection. Scrupulous in its argument, elegant in its style, humane in its spirit, it is animated by a stirring aspiration to wisdom. Even as I quarrel with it I admire it.”

BookSpiritViewsPracticeAtheismStyleReflectionArgumentPhilosophicalDefenseContemporaryAdmireAspirationSecularSoberCartoonElegantQuarrelsHumaneAnimatedStirringFormidableCaricaturesPhilipSoulfulExemplary
Author:Leon Wieseltier
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“To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. ... While all melts under our feet, we may well grasp at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend.”

WellsMayHardMomentsHandsSeemsFacesSpiritArtistPassionFeetStrangeSensesCuriousFlamesContributionColourHorizonEcstasySuccess In LifeExquisiteStirring
Book:The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
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“Antagoras the poet was boiling a conger, and Antigonus, coming behind him as he was stirring his skillet, said, "Do you think, Antagoras, that Homer boiled congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon?" Antagoras replied, "Do you think, O king, that Agamemnon, when he did such exploits, was a peeping in his army to see who boiled congers?”

ThinkingSaidBehindsPoetKingsArmyDeedsExploitsStirringBoilingPeepingAgamemnon
Book:Plutarch's Morals
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“One knew, of course, that it was not the red cape any more than it was the boots, the tights, the trunks, or the trademark "S" that gave Superman the ability to fly. That ability derived from the effects of the rays of our yellow sun on Superman's alien anatomy, which had evolved under the red sun of Krypton. And yet you had only to tie a towel around your shoulders to feel the strange vibratory pulse of flight stirring in the red sun of your heart.”

FeelsHeartCoursesAbilitySunEffectsStrangeRedShouldersFlightAliensTiesRaysYellowBootsPulseStirringAnatomyTrunksTowelsCapesTrademarksTightsYellow SunKrypton
Book:Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
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“Amid the stirring and manifold activities of the age in which we live, to be neutral in the strife is to rank with the enemies of the Saviour. There is no greater foe to the spread of His cause in the world than the placid indifferentism which is too honorable to betray, while it is too careless or too cowardly to join Him.”

WorldAgeCausesEnemyGreaterActivitySpreadBetrayHonorableStrifeFoeCarelessSaviourCowardlyStirringManifoldPlacid
Book:Biographical and Historical Lectures: Comprising: The Prophet of Horeb, John Bunyan; Macaulay; Wilberforce; The Huguenots
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“Compulsion in the literal Sense is maliciously misrepresented, by supposing it authorizes Violences committed against the Truth. The Answer to this; by which it is prov'd, that the literal Sense does in reality authorize the stirring up Persecutions against the Cause of Truth, and that an erroneous Conscience has the same Rights as an enlighten'd Conscience.”

DoeRealityCausesAnswersRightsViolenceAtheismConscienceCommittedPositive AtheismPersecutionCompulsionEnlighteningLiteralStirringSupposing
Book:A philosophical commentary on these words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23:
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“Coquettes are, but too rare. It is a career that requires great abilities, infinite pains, a gay and airy spirit. 'T is the coquette who provides all the amusements,--suggests the riding-party, plans the picnic, gives and guesses charades, acts them. She is the stirring element amid the heavy congeries of social atoms,--the soul of the house, the salt of the banquet.”

GivingSoulPainSpiritHouseSocialAbilityPartyCareersPlansGayElementsInfiniteHeavyAtomsSaltRidingAmusementStirringPicnicsBanquetsAiryCharadesCoquette
Author:Benjamin Disraeli
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“Hemingway, damn his soul, makes everything he writes terrifically exciting (and incidentally makes all us second-raters seem positively adolescent) by the seemingly simple expedient of the iceberg principle - three-fourths of the substance under the surface. He comes closer that way to retaining the magic of the original, unexpressed idea or emotion, which is always more stirring than any words. But just try and do it!”

WayWritingTryingIdeasSoulSeemsThreeSimpleEmotionPrinciplesMagicExcitingOriginalsSurfaceSubstanceDamnPositivelyStirringIcebergRetaining
Author:Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
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“All of us in this country give lip service to the ideals set forth in the Bill of Rights and emphasized by every additional amendment, and yet when war is stirring in the world, many of us are ready to curtail our civil liberties. We do not stop to think that curtailing these liberties may in the end bring us a greater danger than the danger we are trying to avert.”

ThinkingWorldGivingTryingMayWarEndsCountryLibertyGreaterRightsDangerReadyIdealsBillsLipsCivil RightsAmendmentsStirringCivil LibertiesBill Of RightsAvertLip Service
Author:Eleanor Roosevelt
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“There is a certain period of the soul-culture when it begins to interfere with some of characters of typical beauty belonging to the bodily frame, the stirring of the intellect wearing down the flesh, and the moral enthusiasm burning its way out to heaven, through the emaciation of the earthen vessel; and there is, in this indication of subduing the mortal by the immortal part, an ideal glory of perhaps a purer and higher range than that of the more perfect material form. We conceive, I think, more nobly of the weak presence of Paul than of, the fair and ruddy countenance of David.”

ThinkingWaySoulCharacterFormCertainCultureHeavenPerfectBeautyMoralMaterialsHigherPeriodsGloryFairsIdealsWeakIntellectFleshEnthusiasmMortalsBurningRangeImmortalBelongingInterfereTypicalVesselIndicationStirringCountenance
Author:John Ruskin
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“Poetry should be vital--either stirring our blood by its divine movements or snatching our breath by its divine perfection. To do both is supreme glory, to do either is enduring fame.”

ShouldPoetryBloodMovementDivineFameGloryPerfectionBreathsEndureSupremeStirring
Book:Obiter Dicta ...: Carlye. On the alleged obscurity of Mr. Browning's poetry. Truth-hunting. Actors. A rogue's memoirs. The via media. Falstaff [by George Radford
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