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Sullen Quotes

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Sullen Quotes

“All my life, people have taken my shyness for sullenness, snobbery, bad temper of one sort or another. "Stop looking so superior!" my father sometimes used to shout at me when I was eating, watching television, or otherwise minding my own business. But this facial cast of mine (that's what I think it is, really, a way my mouth has of turning down at the corners, it has little to do with my actual moods) has worked as often to my favor as to my disadvantage.”

ShyMouthSullenRbfResting Bitch Fast
Book:The Secret History
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“The sudden and uncalled for coldness with which you treated me just before I left last night, both surprised and deeply hurt me - surprised because I could not have believed that such sullen and inflexible obstinacy could exist in the breast of any girl in whose heart love had found place; and hurt me, because I feel for you more than I have ever professed and feel a slight from you more than I care to tell. My object in writing to you is this: if hasty temper produces this strange behaviour, acknowledge it when I give you the opportunity - not once or twice, but again and again. If a feeling of you know not what - a capricious restlessness of you can't tell what, and a desire to tease, you don't know why, give rise to it - overcome it; it will never make you more amiable, I more fond or either of us, more happy. Depend upon it, whatever be the cause of your unkindness - whatever gives rise to these wayward fancies - that what you do not take the trouble to conceal from a Lover's eyes, will be frequently acted before those of a husband's. I know as well, as if I were by your side at this moment, that your present impulse on reading this letter is one of anger - pride perhaps, or to use a word more current with your sex - 'spirit'. My dear girl, I have not the most remote intention of awakening any such feeling, and I implore you, not to entertain it for an instant.... I have written these few lines in haste, but not anger.... If you knew but half the anxiety with which I watched your recent illness, the joy with which I hailed your recovery, and the eagerness with which I would promote your happiness, you could more readily understand the extent of the pain so easily inflicted, but so difficult to be forgotten. - Excerpts from a letter by Charles Dickens to his fiancee of three weeks, 1835”

SullenCharles DickensLovers SadnessReprimand
Author:Charles Dickens
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“Things are sullen, and will be as they are, whatever we think them or wish them to be.”

ThinkingRealityWishSullen
Book:The True Intellectual System of the Universe: Wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted, and Its Impossibility Demonstrated : with a Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality
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“Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter: To what shall their rarity be likened? What prices shall count their worth? Perfect, and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches, No lovely thing on earth can picture their fair beauty. They be chance pearls, flung among the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion.”

GivingWisdomEarthJoyWaterChancePerfectRocksFairsLipsRichesLovelyPearlsOblivionSullenRarityLovely Things
Book:Proverbial philosophy: a book of thoughts and arguments, originally treated
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“When the Gauls laid waste Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes, and seated in stern tranquillity in their curule chairs; in this manner they suffered death without resistance or supplication. Such conduct was in them applauded as noble and magnanimous; in the hapless Indians it was reviled as both obstinate and sullen. How truly are we the dupes of show and circumstances! How different is virtue, clothed in purple and enthroned in state, from virtue, naked and destitute, and perishing obscurely in a wilderness.”

DifferentStatesShowsFoundVirtueCircumstancesWasteNobleResistanceNakedChairsWildernessRomeSenatorsPurpleRobesObstinateTranquillityDestituteSullenSupplicationDupesPerishingMagnanimous
Book:History, Tales, and Sketches
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“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.”

GivingEyeFacesFeltCausesSadnessSweetLowsFairsRingsMarsReignWoeTransientSullenFloraSpleenSweet SmilePetulance
Book:William Cowper: The Task and Selected Other Poems
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“Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow. Come, mourn with me for what I do lament, And put sullen black incontinent. I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land To wash this blood off from my guilty hand. March sadly after. Grace my mournings here In weeping after this untimely bier.”

ShouldBookSoulHandsGrowsBlackLordGraceBloodLandHolyGuiltyMy SoulMourningProtestMarchWoeWeepingMournVoyagesLamentSullenSprinklesHoly Land
Book:Histories of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)
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“All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral-- Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change; Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse; And all things change them to the contrary.”

TurnsBlackChangeFlowerOfficeAll ThingsInstrumentsContraryMelancholyCheerBuriedFuneralBellsThings ChangeFestivalsSolemnHymnsBurialSullenOur WeddingBridal
Book:Romeo and Juliet
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“No person who has not spent a period of his life in those 'stark and sullen solitudes that sentinel the Pole' will understand fully what trees and flowers, sun-flecked turf and running streams mean to the soul of a man”

MenMeanPersonsSoulRunningSunTreeFlowerPeriodsSolitudeStreamsStarksSullenTurfSentinels
Book:The Heart of the Antarctic: Being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909
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“There is not a manufacturer or tradesman in existence, who would not employ a man who takes a reasonable degree of pride in the appearance of himself and those about him, in preference to a sullen, slovenly fellow, who works doggedly on, regardless of his own clothing and that of his wife and children, and seeming to take pleasure or pride in nothing.”

MenChildrenPleasureExistenceWifePrideWords Of WisdomDegreesFellowsAppearanceReasonableClothingsPreferenceSeemingSullen
Book:Sunday Under Three Heads: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition
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“How do we know, then, when a code's been cracked?when we are right?when do we know if we have even received a message? Why, naturally, when, upon one set of substitutions, sense emerges like the outline under a rubbing; when a single tentative construal leads to several; when all the sullen letters of the code cry TEAM! after YEA! has been, by several hands, uncovered.”

IfsKnowsHas BeensHandsReadingTeamCryMessagesLettersCodeInterpretationOutlinesCrackedSullenSubstitution
Book:World Within The Word
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“The parent who loves his child dearly but asks for nothing in return might qualify as a saint, but he will not qualify as a parent. For a child who can claim love without meeting any of the obligations of love will be a self-centered child and many such children have grown up in our time to become petulant lovers and sullen marriage partners because the promise of unconditional love has not been fulfilled.”

ChildrenSelfMightAsksParentReturnLoversPromiseClaimsMeetingsSaintPartnersObligationOur TimeUnconditional LoveFulfilledUnconditionalSelf CenteredSullen
Book:The Magic Years: Understanding and Handling the Problems of Early Childhood
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“The passion you forbade my lips to utter Will not be silenced. You must hear it in The sullen thunders when they roll and mutter: And when the tempest nears, with wail and din, I know your calm forgetfulness is broken, And to your heart you whisper, "He has spoken."”

KnowsLoveHeartPassionBrokenCalmLipsThunderForgetfulnessTempestHeart LoveSullen
Book:Leafs On An Idle Breeze - My Inspirational Poems (Annotated Edition)
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“Britannia's shame! There took her gloomy flight, On wing impetuous, a black sullen soul . Less base the fear of death than fear of life. O Britain! infamous for suicide.”

SoulBlackShameSuicideWingsFlightBritainFear Of DeathGloomyInfamousSullenFears Of LifeImpetuous
Book:Night thoughts on life death and immortality ... to which are added the life of the author and a paraphrase on part of the Book of Job
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“Punitive measures whether administered by police, teachers, spouses or parents have well known standard effects: (1) escape-education has its own name for that: truancy, (2) counterattack-vandalism on schools and attacks on teachers, (3) apathy-a sullen do-nothing withdrawal. The more violent the punishment, the more serious the by-products.”

WellsSchoolNamesParentKnownTeacherEffectsSeriousProductsStandardsPolicePunishmentViolentApathySpouseWell KnownWithdrawalSullenVandalismTruancy
Author:B. F. Skinner
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“The president of a TV network generously agreed to take his company's aptitude test, a test required of all the personnel. He did badly. As a result he was in a sullen mood for the rest of the day. When he got home that night, his wife asked why he looked so grouchy. I took the company's aptitude test this morning. What did it show? asked the wife. It showed, boomed the executive, that such tests are idiotic. That's what it showed.”

ShowsHomeNightPresidentResultsCompanyMorningWifeTvsTestsMoodExecutivesIdioticAptitudePersonnelSullenGrouchyAptitude Test
Author:Joey Bishop
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“The human genome will not help us to understand the spiritual side of humankind, or to know who God is or what love is. The well-heeled couple who decide they want to use genetics to have a child that is a gifted musician may end up with a sullen adolescent who smokes marijuana and doesn't talk to them.”

KnowsWantHumansWellsMayChildrenEndsHelpingUseSpiritualSidesLove IsCoupleMusicianSmokeMarijuanaHumankindGiftedGeneticsSullenGenomeWho God Is
Author:Francis Collins
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“What does it mean to love someone with all your heart? It means to love with all your emotional feelings and with all your devotion. Surely when you love your wife with all your heart, you cannot demean her, criticize her, find fault with her, or abuse her by words, sullen behavior, or actions.”

HeartMeanDoeFeelingsActionWifeEmotionalBehaviorAbuseFaultsDevotionCriticizeLove SomeoneSullenLove Your Wife
Book:Come, Listen to a Prophet's Voice
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“The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its best to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up and all the cottage warm.”

HeartMadeBreakWindColdFitRainWarmStormAwakeSpiteLakesTonightCottagesSullenVexGrate
Book:The Works of Robert Browning
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“The sight of a sullen teenager is common no matter where you go. Teenagers want things so powerfully and can never seen to get them, and to add insult to injury, people make light of your feelings because you are a teenager. They say time will mend a broken heart and they're often right. But not where my feelings for Hardy were concerned.”

PeopleWantHeartMatterFeelingsLightCommonBrokenConcernedSightAddTeenagerInsultInjuryHardySullenInsult To InjuryMending A Broken Heart
Book:Sugar Daddy: A Novel
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“No longer mourn for me when I am dead than you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so, that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, if thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded am with clay, do not so much as my poor name rehearse; but let your love even with my life decay; lest the wise world should look into your moan, and mock you with me after I am gone.”

IfsThinkingWorldGivingShouldLooksHandsWould BeRememberNamesLinesPoorGoneWiseLove YouSweetWarningBellsDecayVersesWoeWormsClaySonnetMournMockSullenSurlySweet Thoughts
Author:William Shakespeare
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