Quotes by British Authors - Page 478

It's all about balance, do you see? Balance is the trick. Keep the balance and - " she stopped. "You've ridden on a seesaw? One end goes up, one end goes down. But the bit in the middle, that stays where it is. Upness and downness go right through it. Don't matter how high or low the ends go, it keeps the balance." She sniffed. "Magic is mostly movin' stuff around.
Terry Pratchett
It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be , is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be.
Bill Bryson
But he also knew this centurion, this man of honour, would change her…by giving her love…and love was the most powerful force in the universe.
Alan Kinross
Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think 'first woman president.' We think—for example—'first ex-co-president' or 'first wife of a disbarred lawyer and impeached former incumbent' or 'first person to use her daughter as photo-op protection during her husband's perjury rap.
Christopher Hitchens
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
Samuel Butler
Rincewind picked up a spare paper and read it.It was headed: Examination for the post of Assistant Night-Soil Operative for the District of W'ung.He read question one. It required candidates to write a sixteen-line poem on evening mist over the reed beds.Question two seemed to be about the use of metaphor in some book Rincewind had never heard of.Then there was a question about music . . .Rincewind turned the paper over a couple of times. There didn't seem to be any mention, anywhere, of words like 'compost' or 'bucket' or 'wheelbarrow'. But presumably all this produced a better class of person than the Ankh-Morpork system, which asked just one question: 'Got your own shovel, have you?
Terry Pratchett
Rich people always had someone to call who could arrange something that the average guy couldn't get done, no matter how right or wrong. The only call the poor man could make was to Jesus. If Jesus didn't answer, Smith and Wesson always did.
James Anderson
There are some great positive quotes out there that I can't quite share as I wonder how a victim in a war torn country could be expected to see from their perspective?
Jay Woodman
If contemporary literary fiction doesn't read a bit like science fiction then it's probably not all that contemporary, is it
Warren Ellis
Sufis are not here to satisfy a demand. They exist to share what they have got. These two things are not always the same.
Idries Shah
The things that matter don't necessarily make sense.
Russell Hoban
This outburst caused Vexis to tremble and reach up to her neck. Fox groaned and glared at them exasperated. ‘Shut up! Stop blaming yourselves! You think you’re these big heros going around doing good, saving the world? Does it make you feel good? Well, you’re not. You can’t change much, you can do a bit of good here and there, but you can’t blame yourselves for every wrong you failed to right!'~Fox FletcherDeathsworn Arc 5: The Temple of the Mad God- Martyn Stanley
Martyn Stanley
To be healthy in modern society, you must adopt the behaviors of an astronaut!
Steven Magee
Both agreed that to find any sense in life it was pointless to search in the places where people were instructed to look. Sense was only to be found in secrets.
John Berger
The person who learns to number his or her days gains a heart of wisdom (Ps. 90:12).
Colin S. Smith
Nature is bent on new beginningand death has not a chance of winning...
Rosy Cole
It may be better to live under robber barons than omnipotent moral busybodies.
C.S. Lewis
It's not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing.
Terry Pratchett
I have known him (Micawber) come home to supper with a flood of tears and a declaration that nothing was now left but a jail and go to bed making a calculation of the expense of putting bow-windows to the house "in case anything turned up " which was his favorite expression.
Charles Dickens
My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.""You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company; that is the best. Good company requires only birth, education, and manners (...)
Jane Austen
If you pursue happiness you'll never find it.
C.P. Snow
Treat your fiends as you do your picture and place them in their best light.
Jennie Jerome Churchill
Good conduct arises out of good doctrine.
John R.W. Stott
Freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep.
Isaiah Berlin
Utilizing the Power of Your Heart is the most significant choice you will make in life.
Steven Redhead
Suppressing the fear of death makes it all the stronger. The point is only to know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that "I" and all other "things" now present will vanish, until this knowledge compels you to release them - to know it now as surely as if you had just fallen off the rim of the Grand Canyon. Indeed you were kicked off the edge of a precipice when you were born, and it's no help to cling to the rocks falling with you. If you are afraid of death, be afraid. The point is to get with it, to let it take over - fear, ghosts, pains, transience, dissolution, and all. And then comes the hitherto unbelievable surprise; you don't die because you were never born. You had just forgotten who you are.
Alan W. Watts
The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, and its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact."Julia? Are you awake? There is truth, and there is untruth. To be in a minority of one doesn't make you mad.
George Orwell
Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty.
J.K. Rowling
but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. it soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.
Jane Austen
She, however, attentively watched my looks, and her artist's pride was gratified, no doubt, to read my heartfelt admiration in my eyes.
Anne Brontë
LAW 4 Always Say Less Than Necessary When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.
Robert Greene
...when you decide you want to be with someone forever, you want forever to start right now.
Alexandra Potter
I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong.
Jane Austen
T is not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’We are not now that strength which in old daysMov’d earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Tennyson
The Obama administration has a strange theory. Terrorism is a response of uneducated human beings who have been disenfranchised politically and economically. If we can solve the ‘root grievances’ of the poor and oppressed around the world, there will be no more terrorists, and Americans will be safe. This view is of course absurd. If poverty, lack of education, and political disenfranchisement were the causes of terrorism, then much of India and most of China would be populated by terrorists. But they are not. And this is because terrorism is the violent expression of ideology, not objective conditions—what has famously been called ‘propaganda of the deed.’ The terrorist’s ideology may be secular and political—communist or fascist, for example—or it may be religious—Christian, Islamic, or even Hindu.
Sebastian Gorka
Considering the way the prebiotic soup is referred to in so many discussions of the origin of life as an already established reality, it comes as something of a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence.
Michael Denton
These people were the first to master a new kind of late twentieth-century life. They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never disappointed.
J.G. Ballard
To regret the exchange of earthly pleasures for the joys of Heaven, is as if the grovelling caterpillar should lament that it must one day quit the nibbled leaf to soar aloft and flutter through the air, roving at will from flower to flower, sipping sweet honey from their cups, or basking in their sunny petals. If these little creatures knew how great a change awaited them, no doubt they would regret it; but would not all such sorrow be misplaced?
Anne Brontë
God's will is determined by His wisdom which always perceives, and His goodness which always embraces the intrinsically good. But when we have said that God commands thing only because they are good, we must add that one of the things intrinsically good is that rational creatures should freely surrender themselves to their Creator in obedience. The content of our obedience - the thing we are commanded to do -- will always be something intrinsically good, something we ought to do even if (by an impossible supposition_ God had not commanded it. But in addition to the content, the mere obeying is also intrinsically good, for, in obeying a rational creature consciously enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fill, treads Adam's dance backward, and returns.
C.S. Lewis
Advice for a long and happy life - never tell a writer you have fixed their work. Ever.
C.S. Woolley
It's always best to feel fulfilled first, before finding a man. Then you'll know the value of yourself, and you'll hold the key to your own happiness. So you won't turn into a vulnerable, needy, emotional mess the minute you fall in love.
Menna van Praag
I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.
Doris Lessing
Sometimes success is due less to ability than to zeal.
Charles Buxton
If you say you're a unifier, you expect and usually get applause. I'm a divider. Politics is division by definition, if there was no disagreement there would be no politics. The illusion of unity isn't worth having, and is anyways unattainable.
Christopher Hitchens
Sometimes it is no great shame to give in, even to despair, provided that it is just for a little while. Sometimes a little surrender is good for the soul.
Alexia Casale
You shall find it greatly mitigates the sorrow of bereavements, if before bereavement you shall have learned to surrender every day all the things which are dearest to you into the keeping of your gracious God.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unnering flows towards her goal. History knows herway. She makes no mistakes.
Arthur Koestler
No. No, you're not like him," she spat. "You're your very own brand of fucked up, Lucien.
Kitty French
Happiness ... leads none of us by the same route.
Charles Caleb Colton
The moment you stop chasing happiness, you become happy.
Sandy Hyatt-James
By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.
C.S. Lewis
It was a good thing to be an African. There were terrible things that happened in Africa, things that brought shame and despair when one thought about them, but that was not all there was in Africa. However great the suffering of the people of Africa, however harrowing the cruelty and chaos brought about by soldiers—small boys with guns, really—there was still so much in Africa from which one could take real pride. There was the kindness, for example, and the ability to smile, and the art and the music.
Alexander McCall Smith
The notion that human life has greater value than any other form of life is both unjustifiable and arrogant.
Wei Wu Wei
Men are excessively ruthless and cruel not as a rule out of malice but from outraged righteousness. How much more is this true of legally constituted states, invested with all this seeming moral authority of parliaments and congresses and courts of justice! The destructive capacity of an individual, however vicious, is small; of the state, however well-intentioned, almost limitless. Expand the state and the destructive capacity necessarily expands too. Collective righteousness is far more ungovernable than any individual pursuit of revenge. That was a point well understood by Woodrow Wilson, who warned: 'Once lead this people into war and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.
Paul Johnson
Successful women don't sleep until noon.
Barbara Taylor Bradford
So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.
Charles Dickens
In War: Resolution,In Defeat: Defiance,In Victory: MagnanimityIn Peace: Good Will.
Winston S. Churchill
He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spent ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air everyday.
Terry Pratchett
Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness.
Dodie Smith
If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration, but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
Ludwig Wittgenstein