Caprice Quotes - Page 2

I used this line to demonstrate how important colors are in movies: It's not a caprice.

Pedro Almodovar

Color, Important, Lines

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Popular glory is a perfect coquette; her lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and perhaps at last be jilted into the bargain. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense; her admirers must play no tricks. They feel no great anxiety, for they are sure in the end of being rewarded in proportion to their merit.

Oliver Goldsmith

Hands, Play, Perfect

Oliver Goldsmith (1856). “The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: Comprising His Poems, Comedies, Essays, and Vicar of Wakefield”, p.193

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But assuredly Fortune rules in all things; she raised to eminence or buries in oblivion everything from caprice rather than from well-regulated principle.
[Lat., Sed profecto Fortuna in omni re dominatur; ea res cunctas ex lubidine magis, quam ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque.]

Sallust

Principles, Oblivion, Fortune

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Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European Ambition, Rivalship, Interest, Humour or Caprice?

George Washington

Ambition, Destiny, Europe

George Washington’s "Farewell Address", oll.libertyfund.org. September 19, 1796.

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Art is life, plus caprice.

William Ernest Hocking

Life, Art, Plus

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Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer – Death has never forsaken any man

Honore de Balzac

Men, Unexpected, Forsaken

Honore de Balzac (2014). “The Elixir of Life”, p.9, The Floating Press

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... caprice is as ruinous as routine.

Edith Wharton

Routine

Edith Wharton (2016). “A Backward Glance”, p.4, Edith Wharton

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There is one province in which, sooner or later, virtually everyone gets dealt a leading role--hero, heroine, or villain.... Unlike the slight implications of quotidian dilemmas that confront the average citizen in other areas of life ... the stakes in this realm could not be higher. For chances are that at some point along the line you will hold in your hands another person's heart. There is no greater responsibility on the planet. However you contend with this fragile organ, which pounds or seizes in accordance with your caprice, will take your full measure.

Lionel Shriver

Hero, Responsibility, Heart

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If you live according to nature, you never will be poor; if according to the world's caprice, you will never be rich.

Seneca the Younger

Inspirational, Life, Nature

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Adam and Eve entered the world naked and unashamed - naked and pure-minded. And no descendant of theirs has ever entered it otherwise. All have entered it naked, unashamed, and clean in mind. They entered it modest. They had to acquire immodesty in the soiled mind, there was no other way to get it. ... The convention mis-called "modesty" has no standard, and cannot have one, because it is opposed to nature and reason and is therefore an artificiality and subject to anyone's whim - anyone's diseased caprice.

Mark Twain

Mind, Naked, World

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I will now claim - until dispossesed - that I was the first person in the world to apply the typewriter to literature. ... The early machine was full of caprices, full of defects- devilish ones. It had as many immoralities as the machine of today has virtues. After a year or two I found that it was degrading my character, so I thought I would give it to Howells. ... He took it home to Boston, and my morals began to improve, but his have never recovered.

Mark Twain

Character, Home, Two

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Caprice is half man. There is something manly about her.

Richard Bacon

Men, Half, Manly

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Caprice in women often infringes upon the rules of decency.

Jean de la Bruyere

Decency

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Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure.

Edward Gibbon

Passion, Connections, Letters

Edward Gibbon (2016). “EDWARD GIBBON Premium Collection: Historiographical Works, Memoirs & Letters: Including "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.2148, e-artnow

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Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.

Alexander Hamilton

Men, Liberty, Constitution

Alexander Hamilton, John Church Hamilton (1850). “The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc”, p.61

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Her vice takes hold of her again, but she still refrains until some moment when, gnawed by some hideous caprice, she comes aground like a mournful wreck ruined by lust, in the midst of her own banal, perfidious pollution.

Jean Lorrain

Lust, Vices, Wrecks

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Destiny ... a word which means more than we can find any definitions for. It is a word which can have no meaning in a mechanical universe: if that which is wound up must run down, what destiny is there in that? Destiny is not necessitarianism, and it is not caprice: it is something essentially meaningful. Each man has his destiny, though some men are undoubtedly "men of destiny" in a sense in which most men are not.

T. S. Eliot

Meaningful, Running, Destiny

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Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) - neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice.

William Hazlitt

Teacher, Laughter, Opportunity

William Hazlitt (2004). “On the Pleasure of Hating”, p.31, Penguin UK

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Our fascination with weather: its caprices and changes as an antidote to the eternal repetition of daily life; a helpful illusion of novelty

Derren Brown

Weather, Fascination, Novelty

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When faced with demanding situations, can you keep your heart as light as a feather? Can you laugh your way through challenges and maintain an attitude freer than fear? When confronted with upsets and the poisonous projections of others, can you remember that all is well? Do you know that you are a spiritual being, not subject to the whims and caprices of earthly tides?

Alan Cohen

Spiritual, Attitude, Heart

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As every writer has his use, every writer ought to have his patrons; and since no man, however high he may now stand, can be certain that he shall not be soon thrown down from his elevation by criticism or caprice, the common interest of learning requires that her sons should cease from intestine hostilities, and, instead of sacrificing each other to malice and contempt, endeavour to avert persecution from the meanest of their fraternity.

Samuel Johnson

Writing, Son, Sacrifice

Samuel Johnson (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In Eleven Volumes ...”, p.32

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I see nothing quite conclusive in the art of temporal government, But violence, duplicity and frequent malversation. King rules or barons rule: The strong man strongly and the weak man by caprice. They have but one law, to seize the power and keep it.

Samuel Smiles

Art, Strong, Kings

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Broken lines do not know what they want. With their caprices they cut time up, abuse routes, slash the joyous flowers and split the peaceful fruits with their corners.

Rene Crevel

Flower, Cutting, Broken

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You can purchase the mind of Pascal for a crown. Pleasures even cheaper are sold to those who give themselves up to them. It is only luxuries and objects of caprice that are rare and difficult to obtain; unfortunately they are the only things that touch the curiosity and taste of ordinary men.

Luc de Clapiers

Men, Luxury, Giving

Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of Fortune.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Whimsical, Fortune, Temper

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