Plague Quotes - Page 13

• It is straightforward — and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.

  Martin Amis

  Atheist, Mind, Atheism

  "The voice of the lonely crowd" by Martin Amis, www.theguardian.com. May 31, 2002.

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• Do you know how a man makes his way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful corruption. You must either cut your way through these masses of men like a cannon ball, or steal among them like a plague.

  Honore de Balzac

  Cutting, Men, Balls

  Honore de Balzac (2015). “Father Goriot”, p.102, Library of Alexandria

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• But we remember that it was just precisely in the reign of Richard II that the Peasants' War, following upon the changes wrought by the visitations of the Great Plague, virtually destroyed serfdom as a personal status.

  Edward Jenks

  War, Reign, Remember

  Edward Jenks (1922). “A Short History of English Law: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Year 1919”

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• More than one philosopher has claimed that we ever remain children, far beneath the indurated layers that make up the armour of adulthood. Armour encumbers, restricts the body and soul within it. But it also protects. Blows are blunted. Feelings lose their edge, leaving us to suffer naught but a plague of bruises, and, after a time, bruises fade.

  Steven Erikson

  Children, Blow, Leaving

  Steven Erikson (2009). “Memories of Ice: (Malazan Book of the Fallen: Book 3)”, p.160, Random House

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• The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.

  Stella Gibbons

  Art, Epidemics, Years

  Stella Gibbons (1977). “Cold comfort farm”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets
  loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today
  the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the
  techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness.

  Alvin Toffler

  Loneliness, Being Alone, People

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• If America was trying to keep the bubonic plague out of its hemisphere, Canadians would import it just to show their independence of American foreign policy.

  Barbara Amiel

  America, Independence, Trying

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• The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago,
  And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
  But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
  And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,
  Till fell the first from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,
  And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland glade and glen.

  William C. Bryant

  Summer, Fall, Autumn

  William Cullen Bryant, “The Death Of The Flowers”

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• The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Solitude, Occupation, Want

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• It is a great plague to be too handsome a man.
  [Lat., Nimia est miseria nimis pulchrum esse hominem.]

  Plautus

  Beauty, Men, Handsome

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• If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

  William Shakespeare

  Calumny Is, Ice, Snow

  William Shakespeare (1823). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: From the Text of Johnson, Stevens, and Reed; with Glossarial Notes, His Life, and a Critique on His Genius & Writings”, p.920

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• If you're someone who geniunally believes that women don't deserve or aren't as much as men, you're like the plague. On the big history chart, you're the plague....It's just pointless and deadly.

  Joss Whedon

  Believe, Men, Profound

  "Watch Joss Whedon Make the Perfect Speech About the Word Feminist" by Kate Dries, jezebel.com. Novemebr 7, 2013.

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• In the arts of life main invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine. ... There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Death, Art, Nature

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.2044, e-artnow

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• If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you - until you get your revenge.

  Muhammad Ali

  Revenge, Fighting, Worry

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• It is not a case of whether we want to wash our hands of Europe or want to help her to regain her feet. The troubles of Europe have been laid on our doorstep, so to speak, and will plague us, if we do nothing to cure them, whether we like it or not.

  B. C. Forbes

  Hands, Europe, Feet

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• I hope to one day co-sign a lease with another person but, well, it doesn't plague me that I have yet to do so. Put it this way: I've never had to violently tug at my own pillow at 2 A.M. to get myself to stop snoring.

  Sloane Crosley

  Break Up, One Day, Way

  "I want to be alone: the rise and rise of solo living". www.theguardian.com. March 30, 2012.

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• America has been a land of dreams. A land where the aspirations of people from countries cluttered with rich, cumbersome, aristocratic, ideological pasts can reach for what once seemed unattainable. Here they have tried to make dreams come true. Yet now... we are threatened by a new and particularly American menace. It is not the menace of class war, of ideology, of poverty, of disease, of illiteracy, or demagoguery, or of tyranny, though these now plague most of the world. It is the menace of unreality.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Dream, Country, War

  Daniel J. Boorstin (1962). “The Image or What Happened to the American Dream”

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• Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property.

  Jeremy Collier

  Strong, Ignorance, Pride

  Jeremy COLLIER (the Nonjuror.), J. E. (1838). “Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of “Sir William Jones's Discourses,” etc. [The editor's preface signed: J. E., i.e. James Elmes.]”, p.5

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• Be temperate in wine, in eating, girls, & sloth; Or the Gout will seize you and plague you both.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Girl, Food, Wine

  Poor Richard's Almanack (1734)

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• The English play hockey in any weather. Thunder, lightning, plague of locusts... nothing can stop the hockey. Do not fight the hockey, for the hockey will win.

  Maureen Johnson

  Hockey, Fighting, Winning

  "The Name of the Star (The Shades of London)". Book by Maureen Johnson, September 29, 2011.

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• Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague.

  Norman Douglas

  Happiness, Laughter, Giving

  Norman Douglas (1982). “South Wind”, p.164, Courier Corporation

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• Sure there are some companies at the margins of our society that probably do that and I think we all have the responsibility as consumers and as investors to avoid them like the plague. If we do, they won't last very long. Doing what's right is the only possible formula for long-term - I emphasize long term - business success.

  John C. Bogle

  Responsibility, Thinking, Long

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• For this, deep waters whelm the fruitful lea, Wars ravage, famine wastes, plague withers, nor Shall cease till men have chosen the better part.

  George MacDonald

  War, Men, Deep Water

  George MacDonald (2015). “The Complete Works of George MacDonald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Theological Writings & Essays (Illustrated): The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, At the Back of the North Wind, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, David Elginbrod, Malcolm, The Light Princess, The Golden Key and many more”, p.12942, e-artnow

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• The divide of race has been America's constant curse. Each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction, are no different. They have nearly destroyed us in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. They torment the lives of millions in fractured nations around the world. These obsessions cripple both those who are hated and, of course, those who hate, robbing both of what they might become.

  William J. Clinton

  Religious, Hate, Past

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• The great virtue of a diversified food economy, like a diverse pasture or farm, is its ability to withstand any shock. The important thing is that there be multiple food chains, so that when any one of them fails-when the oil runs out, when mad cow or other food-borne diseases become epidemic, when the pesticides no longer work, when drought strikes and plagues come and soils blow away-we'll still have a way to feed ourselves.

  Michael Pollan

  Running, Blow, Epidemics

  Michael Pollan (2009). “The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World”, p.134, Bloomsbury Publishing

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