Enough Quotes (page 105)
-
-
-
The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!
Patrick Henry
Calonice: My dear Lysistrata, just what is this matter you've summoned us women to consider. What's up? Something big?
Lysistrata: Very big.
Calonice: (interested) Is it stout too?
Lysistrata: (smiling) Yes, indeed -- both big and stout.
Calonice: What? And the women still haven't come?
Lysistrata: It's not what you suppose; they'd come soon enough for that.
Aristophanes
I'm always horrified whenever I finish anything. Horrified and desolate. My instinct for perfection should inhibit me from ever finishing anything; it should in fact inhibit me from ever beginning. But I become distracted and do things. My accomplishments are not the product of my applied will but a giving away of my will. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have soul enough to stop things. This book is my cowardice.
Fernando Pessoa
Hark ye yet again,--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But...
Herman Melville
I hate solitude, but i'm afraid if intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company which I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself.
Iris Murdoch
I want to go on being a student," I told him. "I want to be a teacher. I'm just a reader," I said."DON'T SOUND SO ASHAMED," he said. "READING IS A GIFT."I learned it from you," I told him."IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE YOU LEARNED IT- IT'S A GIFT. IF YOU CARE ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IT. IF YOU'RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO FIND A WAY OF LIFE YOU LOVE, YOU HAVE TO FIND THE COURAGE TO LIVE IT.
John Irving
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear...
John Stuart Mill
Sure enough, it was just as I had dreaded, he started to climb the tree-"What the Bull?"Of course- who else?"But a bull can't climb a tree."He can't can he? Since you know so much about it, did you ever see a bull try?"No! I never dreamt of such a thing."Well, then, what is the use of your talking that way, then? Because you never saw a thing done, is that any reason why it can't be done?
Mark Twain
Okay, let’s put it this way. I would like to sleep with you. But it’s alright if I don’t sleep with you. What I’m saying is I’d like to be as fair as possible. I don’t want to force anything on anybody, any more than I’d want anything forced on me. It’s enough that I feel your presence or see your commas swirling around me.
Haruki Murakami