Quotes by British Authors - Page 189

If she knew me as I really am she would despise me, and certainly not aid or abet my evil designs. To veil their vices from the sight of the good is the only resource of those who are not blind and know themselves to be vicious.' Thus was I confirmed in habits of hypocrisy; and these, for a time, worked only too effectually to my advantage.
William Beckford
His rage passes description - the sort of rage that is only seen when rich folk that have more than they can enjoy suddenly lose something that they have long had but have never before used or wanted.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Getting married means you've won, and I hate thinking like that, I do, but let's be honest, that's just how it is. Until you're married, you're a loser, NO MATTER HOW GREAT YOU ARE AT EVERYTHING ELSE. In our super progressive, equal right, modern society, it's the one thing no one wants to say but everyone is thinking, however messed-up it is.
Lindsey Kelk
She was always waiting, it seemed to be her forte.
D.H. Lawrence
Keep trying, especially at first. It can be very discouraging if your submissions keep being rejected by a publisher, but if your work is what people want to read, you should get there eventually!
Robin Jarvis
To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success...with a society that provides opportunities for all.
Malcolm Gladwell
Look at all the life in this," she said. "Every pip could become a tree, and every tree could bear another hundred fruits and every fruit could bear another hundred trees. And so on to infinity."I picked the picks from my tongue with my fingers."Just imagine," she said. "If every seed grew, there'd be no room in the world for anything but pomegranate trees.
David Almond
You are one brave woman," he whispers, "I am in awe of you.
E.L. James
There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
J.R.R. Tolkien
The word “idiot” comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: men are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but not the details indicative of their nature.
Rebecca West
When you view yourself through the lens of God’s Word, you will better understand God’s love for you and the worth you have in His eyes.
Elizabeth George
Language always betrays us, tells the truth when we want to lie, and dissolves into formlessness when we would most like to be precise.
Jeanette Winterson
It is evident that the chief feeling induced by woody country is one of reverence for its antiquity. There is a quiet melancholy about the decay of the patriarchal trunks, which is enhanced by the green and elastic vigor of the young saplings; the noble form of the forest aisles, and the subdued light which penetrates their entangled boughs, combine to add to the impression; and the whole character of the scene is calculated to excite conservative feeling. The man who could remain a radical in a wood country is a disgrace to his species.
John Ruskin
It is complete nihilism to propose laying down arms in a world where atom bombs are around. It is very simple: there is no way of achieving peace other than with weapons.
Karl R. Popper
Plant life is like the canary in the cage. When it starts to die off, we know we have problems. To ignore plant die off would be like the human race committing suicide. Human extinction would surely follow.
Steven Magee
A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the woman who did not care) But the fool he called her his lady fair - (Even as you or I!)
Rudyard Kipling
Not all people are 'people', some are more and some are less. But only those who listen intently with their hearts will recognise them for what they are.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
I'm not sure if you've noticed this yet, but Jenny Sullivan likes to overuse people's first names. It's a technique she read about in a book called Own It - Take Life By The Bollocks. She once said my name so many times I disconnected from it entirely.
Claire Garber
Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the rest of you if you'll just rattle your jewelry.
John Lennon
Always know what they want to hear - not just what everyone knew they wanted to hear but what they didn't even dare name to themselves. Show them the pattern. Give them permission to do what they wanted all along.
Nicola Griffith
What was I waiting for with regards to the sea-soaked woman laughing in front of me? What would I tell myself if I didn't watch her grow gorgeously ripe with our baby? If we didn't become sleep-deprived and snappy with each other as we tried to navigate the stormy seas of parenthood together.
Dorothy Koomson
Without the friendship we'd never have discovered the reason we were friends.
Mike A. Lancaster
Yes, I'm sure [the princess] thinks daily of a delinquent midget apprentice growing up to claim her hand ahead of all the nobles and princes of the realm. What could any of them possibly give that you don't have, except titles, land, wealth and all that.
Jonathan Renshaw
Or do you like being frightened?”Hugh, though generally intelligent, is dense in certain ways; this is one of them.“Why, of course, I like being frightened,” I said. “I want to be made to creep and creep and creep. Fear is the most absorbing and luxurious of emotions. One forgets all else if one is afraid.
E.F. Benson
A cheer then for the noble breast that fears not danger's post And like the lifeboat proves a friend When friends are wanted most.
Eliza Cook
Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien
J.R.R. Tolkien
There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.
Frederick William Faber
I have a horrid scar right under my left knee from you. Well, the absence of you. Seems appropriate. But I still miss you. My pillowcase smells like you, so I bury my face in it and breathe it in. Things feel empty. My couch, my living room, my heart. I see pictures of things. Silly things, beautiful things, and I want to share them with you. But alas, I cannot, I do not, I press the red button when you call.
Elizabeth Brooks
[T]he form that an animal's subjective experience takes will be a property of the internal computer model. That model will be designed, in evolution, for its suitability for useful internal representation, irrespective of the physical stimuli that come to it from outside. Bats and we need the same kind of internal model for representing the position of objects in three-dimensional space. The fact that bats construct their internal model with the aid of echoes, while we construct ours with the aid of light, is irrelevant.
Richard Dawkins
Take the matter as you find it ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek because the nerves are martyrised; do not doubt that your mental stomach - if you have such a thing - is strong as an ostrich's; the stone will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob.
Charlotte Brontë
What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!
Cory Doctorow
Things don't matter, people do
Rosie Thomas
Women may show some discrimination about whom they sleep with, but they'll marry anybody.
Anthony Powell
Your brand is the value and magic that's not in your bottle, body or box. It's the inspiration, incense, intent and impact before, within and beyond.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
Ah! the clock is always slow it is later than you think.
Robert W. Service
We know – it has been measured in many experiments – that children with strong impulse control grow to be better adjusted, more dependable, achieve higher grades in school and college and have more success in their careers than others. Success depends on the ability to delay gratification, which is precisely what a consumerist culture undermines. At every stage, the emphasis is on the instant gratification of instinct. In the words of the pop group Queen, “I want it all and I want it now.” A whole culture is being infantilised.
Jonathan Sacks
Nana's French knickers were surely a symbol of liberty and abandonment, worn only by women who didn't care for conventional frills or superficial nametags. Those french knickers were flags blowing in the wind, like a statement of victory.
Diana Janney
I felt like a Porsche that had learned it wasn't a bicycle anymore but was still taking part in bicycle races.
Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves
I realized I would be forced to run away from home if someone tried to arrange a marriage for me. I didn't want to think about it.
Elizabeth Wein
When you share my heart. You share my love.
Anthony T.Hincks
Cos if it's encyclopedias we've got enough, like, information... and if it's God, you've got the wrong house.
Zadie Smith
But thought has no eyelids to close or ears to block...
David Mitchell
For the future, the motto is, "No days unalert.
Robert Greene
The suppliant, whose fears prevent his words, will be well understood by the Most High.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
We be light, we be life, we be fire! We sing electric flame, we rumble underground wind, we dance heaven! Come be we and be free!
Kate Griffin
Oh how Shakespeare would have loved cinema!
Derek Jarman
Of the contributions made during the essayist period three call for notice: Weismann deserves mention for his useful work in asking for the proof that "acquired characters" or, to speak more precisely, parental experience can really be transmitted to the offspring. The ocurrence of progressive adaptation by transmission of effects of use had seemed so natural to Darwin and his contemporaries that no proof of the physiological reality of the henomenon was thought necessary. Weismann's challenge revealed the utter inadequacy of the evidence on which the beliefs were based. They are doubtless isolated observations which may be interpreted as favouring the belief in these transmissions, but such meagre indications as exist are by general consent admitted to be too slight to be of much assistance in the attempt to understand how the more complex adaptive mechanisms arose.
William Bateson
If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party; if you do, other people's words will pour in where your lost words should be. Open a gap for them, create a space. Be pat
Hilary Mantel
Normally we divide the external world into that which we consider to be good or valuable, bad or worthless, or neither. Most of the time these discriminations are incorrect or have little meaning. For example, our habitual way of categorizing people as friends, enemies, and strangers depending on how they make us feel is both incorrect and a great obstacle to developing impartial love for all living beings. Rather than holding so tightly to our discriminations of the external world, it would be much more beneficial if we learned to discriminate between valuable and worthless states of mind.
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
How am I supposed to feed you?” Drake demanded.“Darkness say to coyote: don’t kill human. Did not say don’t eat dead human.”Drake laughed with a certain delight. This Pack Leader was definitely a smarter animal than the original one.
Michael Grant
Where dreams may take you fathoms deep within the soul of the forest. Mists close in around your feathered visions, floating phantoms of days gone by, and days to come, their twirling tendrils tempting your thoughts blossom with the unbound less love and passion you hide within.....
Virginia Alison
Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality. Silent and self-contained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no colour from the outer world.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon
What did I tell you? Something's happening!' cried Sam. '"The war's going well," said Shagrat; but Gorbag he wasn't so sure. And he was right there too. Things are looking up, Mr. Frodo. haven't you got some hope now?''Well, no, not much, Sam,' Frodo sighed. 'That's away beyond the mountains. We're going east not west. And I'm so tired. And the Ring is so heavy, Sam. And I begin to see it in my mind all the time, like a great wheel of fire.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Not doing anything can be worse than doing the wrong thing.
Alexandra Potter
Companies' motives to make profit means they neglect inherent social or moral values.
Russell Brand
Fathom your motivation so that you understand what you are prepared to do and why.
David Amerland
... all humans are frightened of their own solitude. Yet only in solitude can man learn to know himself, learn to handle his own eternity of aloneness. And love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other." - The Mountain is Young
Han Suyin
Show a man too many camels' bones, or show them to him too often, and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one. (Mirza Ahsan of Tabriz)
Idries Shah
Though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief.
Alister E. McGrath