Quotes by British Authors - Page 789

Replace Fear of Radiation with Curiosity
Steven Magee
Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
John Maynard Keynes
I explored because I was feeling really crappy, and I wanted to know why
Steven Magee
Trithemius' concern for conservation was rare, indeed, and is a lesson to modern library managers who discard printed volumes, believing that e-books are the only way of the future.
Roderick Cave
There can be no doubt that the existing Fauna and Flora is but the last term of a long series of equally numerous contemporary species, which have succeeded one another, by the slow and gradual substitution of species for species, in the vast interval of time which has elapsed between the deposition of the earliest fossiliferous strata and the present day.
Thomas Henry Huxley
Some reviews give pain. This is regrettable, but no author has the right to whine. He was not obliged to be an author. He invited publicity, and he must take the publicity that comes along.
E.M. Forster
You desire the end but close your eyes to the means. You want the garden to be beautiful, provided that the smell of manure is kept well away from your fastidious nose.
P.D. James
Everyone has a destiny. Rosie told me that. A future that already exists – hidden from us but still there, in the future – and each thing that happens to us, each choice we make, each person in our life takes us closer to it.
Debbie Howells
And Pantalaimon didn't ask why, because he knew; and he didn't ask whether Lyra loved Roger more than him, because he knew the true answer to that, too. And he knew that if he spoke, she wouldn't be able to resist; so the dæmon held himself quiet so as not to distress the human who was abandoning him, and now they were both pretending that it wouldn't hurt, it wouldn't be long before they were together again, it was all for the best. But Will knew that the little girl was tearing her heart out of her breast.
Philip Pullman
There is only one world the world pressing against you this minute.
Storm Jameson
The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us and I for one must be content to remain agnostic.
Charles Darwin
in this case, a mother, noted for her beauty, might be reduced to a purple shadow... (Tansley to Lily on her painting of the house & grounds)
Virginia Woolf
I wish I was as sure of anything as Macaulay is of everything.
William Windham
Being pregnant is a very boring six months. I am not particularly maternal. It's an occupational hazard of being a wife.
Princess Anne
Those partial to drink were hiding faults and dishonesty. They were sloppy souls, even the ones with pleasant manners and fine noses.
Sarah Hall
A life without goals is like flotsam that is governed by the tides and winds of fate.
Steven Redhead
You don't seem to need many qualifications to liaise with Muggles; all they want is an OWL in Muggle Studies. ''Much more important is your enthusiasm, patience and a good sense of fun.'' - ''You'd need more than a good sense of fun to liaise with my uncle'', said Harry darkly .''Good sense of when to duck more like.
J.K. Rowling
Dare to be an optimist.
Matt Ridley (Author)
Life itself is a rickety building
William Golding
She read her way around the library, hungry for journeys, adventures, laughter and passion. She took each new book to bed like a lover, savouring every chapter, going too far some nights until the letters danced like insects and she was groggy next day at work. But still she'd sneak away for lunchtime trysts, her eager fingers fumbling for the bookmark.
Cath Staincliffe
But when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too.
Patrick Ness
Look!" Hawkeye said. Duke looked where Hawkeye was pointing. In one corner, kneeling on the dirt floor with his elbows on his cot, a Bible in front of him, his lips moving slowly, and oblivious to all about him, was Major Jonathan Hobson."Jesus," Hawkeye said."It don't look like Him," Duke said.
Richard Hooker
If you can’t be happy, then be something else. Be useful, that would be good. Decorative, if you like. Selfish, if you must. But don’t whine about it.
K.J. Charles
She was adamant that any organization that labelled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity.
Samantha Shannon
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard chiefly I think because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
Bertrand Russell
Remember, you are not sent to whiten tombs, but to open them.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity. The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern.
G.K. Chesterton
Talent is part of the equation, but when you combine talent with accountability and authenticity, it is tough to beat.
David Ross
I've tried to tell the truth. But I would say that, wouldn't I? In any case it has to be my truth. What other truth could I possibly know?
Tony Garnett
First, the wind would rumble in the distance like an approaching river, then he would see grass bend, pressed by a great invisible hand. The dull rumble would rise in pitch to a swishing, lashing exultation, causing stalks to lie flat against the ground while the tougher branches of shrubs held themselves up and shrieked their defiance in the gusts. Then the first drops, cold and heavy, would plummet from the sky and burst on the ground.
Jonathan Renshaw
We may have to face God's truth about our pain--it is real, but we must be careful not to get God and life mixed up. God does not cause the pain and sorrow. He suffers with us and desires to comfort us as only he can.
Jill Briscoe
The most difficult thing for a wise woman to do is to pretend to be a foolish one.
W Somerset Maugham
If you are present, then you can see that you give yourself presents in each moment that you can unwrap and thoroughly enjoy - the amazing world around us that we can explore, each incredible detail, the lives, and the stories we tell ourselves or experience so that we can feel what it's like to be human, the things we can learn from an interaction, about ourselves as well as everything and everyone else.Everyone is here in their own story, writing the script as they go, living the movie picture.... choosing who to meet, what to do, how to react to each new experience. We each find our own tools to help us traverse the terrain of each particular part of our journeys. It cannot be right to judge another, or yourself, for we are all at different stages, or on different stages. We do as we need to according to where and how we find ourselves, but the more you realise that you actually put yourself exactly where you are in each moment, the more your eyes will widen. You are an amazing Being playing the game of life - your attitude makes all the difference.
Jay Woodman
If you didn't feel like your support system was strong enough, then getting yourself out of the situation was the best thing to do
Lindsey Kelk
There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold;The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.
Robert W. Service
But are we human creatures as honest, kind, trustworthy as we at times are inclined to believe?
Lawrence G. Taylor
The worst mistake is to live life day by day, life was meant to be lived like there will be no tomorrow.
Steven Redhead
Early on in the Bible story, we will discover the devil taking on the form of an animal. At the center of the Bible story, we will find God taking on the form of a man. The Son of God is the image of God, and so when He took flesh, it was in the form of a man, because man was made in the image of God.
Colin S. Smith
That's Third Thoughts for you. When a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an igneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?
Terry Pratchett
To be afraid of sorrow is to be afraid of joy also.
Rebecca West
A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until--"My God," says a second man, "I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn." At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience... "Look, look!" recites the crowd. "A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.
Tom Stoppard
I need you to just trust me for now without knowing all the answers.
J.M. Richards
I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.
George Meredith
Resentment is a powerful and corrosive force, both on the slippery left and the slippery right, and the history of humankind can largely be read as a history of resentment. Aside from a profound philosophy of capital, what we really need is a profound psychology and philosophy of resentment. We must learn to live for ourselves, without reference to the other, and, at the same time, to rise above and beyond ourselves. Or else history will keep repeating itself, and our life will be a living death.
Neel Burton
Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament not of income.
Logan Pearsall Smith
Let mental suffering be intense enough, and it becomes a sort of carminative.
Hope Mirrlees
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
You know, you can't make someone love you again. No matter how much you might want it. Sometimes, unfortunately, the timing is simply... off.
Jojo Moyes
Man needs for his happiness not only the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change.
Bertrand Russell
It will happen but it will take time.
John Bowlby
What people say and feel about you when you've left a room is precisely your job while you are in it.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
I don't consider myself as a bad person, on the whole I consider myself a good person, I'm good to my parents. I treat my girl right ,,, take her out and buy her stuff. And I go to church every Sunday, But I've decided that just once I wanna do a really bad thing. I mean a really seriously bad thing. 'cause, ya know, like, we're put on this earth with free will. We can choose to do this or that. We can choose to be good or bad. But sometimes I think most people are good and not bad only because they're scared they might go to jail or hell or someplace. Some guy once said: "Anything done out of fear has no moral value." Well, I think that's right. I figure the only way you can be truly good is if you've tried been good, and you've tried being bad, and being good feels better.
Alan Moore
It felt like I was living in two worlds. There was one world which was a daylight world and another dark world (though I'm not saying that everything bad happened in darkness because it didn't). In the daylight world, life had a veneer of normality - my mum was a bit violent, my dad was a bit distant, my big brother was in hospital somewhere, my little brother was always with Mum, and I had an uncle who was very loving and caring and did nice things for me. In this daylight world, I went to church and learned about Jesus. I was told about innocence and how He loves children. Then there was the other side, the dark world, which was almost a mirror image. But what I was getting taught there was all of the opposites.It was almost the reverse of Christianity. They would say that the Christian teachings were rubbish, and everything in the Kirk was right. they would sing a hymn - not like 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' but something about being strong. The hymns were quite Germanic, with harsh, aggressive chanting. They were always about power and strength and right. When they were singing I would be standing or sitting with whoever had taken me.
Laurie Matthew
If you must know, I-I had never in my life kissed a young lady, and you are far too beautiful to me to want to get it wrong!
Diana Wynne Jones
The only crime of the Government is that it governs. The unpardonable sin of the supreme power is that it is supreme. I do not curse you for being cruel. I do not curse you (though I might) for being kind. I curse you for being safe!
G.K. Chesterton
The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.
Charles Dickens
He remembers which sisterI like least and askshow she is doing.(lines 9-11 of the poem 'Divorce')
Carrie Etter
Nothing is impossible, the world it's self says I'm possible!
Audrey Hepburn
Fear is the needle that pierces us that it may carry a thread to bind us to heaven.
James Hastings
I am not afraid of death, which after all can't be far away. What does frighten me, though, is the halfway stage.
Rosie Thomas