Settings Quotes (page 68)
I'll kill you all," yelled Bill, and swore for three or four minutes, calling us every dirty name he could think of for being so chicken-hearted. When people talk about "leadership quality" I often think of Bill Unsworth; he had it. And like many people who have it, he could make you do things you didn't want to do by a kind of cunning urgency. We were ashamed before him. Here he was, a bold adventurer, who had put himself out to include us-- lily-livered wretches-- in a daring, dangerous,...
Robertson Davies
Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable. And given the nature of human beings, so are religions. Spiders can't help making fly-traps, and men can't help making symbols. That's what the human brain is there for - the turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols.
Aldous Huxley
The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good, and wise; and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked. Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very...
William Makepeace Thackeray
The man who indulges us in this natural passion, who invites us into his heart, who, as it were, sets open the gates of his breast to us, seems to exercise a species ofhospitality more delightful than any other. No man, who is in ordinary good temper, can fail of pleasing, if he has the courage to utter his real sentiments as he feels them, and because he feels them.
Adam Smith
I never set out to be a one-night-stand kinda woman. I want to be sure, if I have sex with you, that it's because you want to be around for a while and because you like me for who I am, not what I am. Maybe a million women had made approximately the same speech. I meant it as sincerely as any one of those million.
Charlaine Harris
Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: And whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.’ [Matthew 16:25.]…He who is ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’ [see John 14:6] has herein set forth an immutable law. …Specifically stated, this law is, ‘We live our lives most completely when we strive to make the world better and happier.’ The law of pure nature, survival of the fittest, is self-preservation at the sacrifice of all else; but in contrast to this the law of true spiritual...
David O. McKay
But this man had set down with a hammer and chisel and carved out a stone water trough to last ten thousand years. Why was that? What was it that he had faith in? It wasn't that nothin' would change. Which is what you might think, I suppose. He had to know better'n that. I've thought about it a good deal. . . And I have to say that the only thing I can think is that there was some sort of promise in his heart. And I don't have no intentions of carvin' a stone water trough. But I would like to...
Cormac McCarthy
Well, I must own that you are not at all goodnatured to your sisters," she said frankly. "Not that I blame you for that - at least, not altogether! They seem positively to take delight in setting up your back! I wonder they shouldn't know that pinching at one's brothers is fatal! But whatever you may say you are not a monster of selfishness. You wouldn't be so kind to Jessamy and Felix if that were so.
Georgette Heyer
Irma, my dear sister,' said Prunesquallor, 'I have two things to say. Firstly, why in the name of discomfort are we hanging around in the hall and probably dying of a draught that as far as I'm concerned runs up my right trouser leg and sets my gluteous maximus twtiching; and secondly, what is wrong, when you boil the matter down - with feet? I have always found mine singularly useful, especially for walking with. In fact, ha, ha, ha, one might almost imagine that they have been designed for...
Mervyn Peake