Stranger Quotes - Page 6

• It has always happened hitherto that whenever I have begun to feel an attachment to places, persons, or things, of a merely temporary nature, I have been carried away from them. Amen! May I live as a stranger and pilgrim upon the earth. May we be brought to that better country where painful changes are known no more.

  Henry Martyn

  Country, Attachment, Earth

  Henry Martyn (1837). “Journals and letters of ... Henry Martyn ...”, p.237

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• Nell Zink is a writer of extraordinary talent and range. Her work insistently raises the possibility that the world is larger and stranger than the world you think you know.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Thinking, World, Talent

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• The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers.

  George Eliot

  Wit

  George Eliot (1873). “Wise, Witty, and Tender Sayings in Prose and Verse: Selected from the Works of George Eliot”, p.313

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• Fact is stranger than fiction.

  Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  Humanity, Fiction, Facts

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• There are houses in certain provincial towns whose aspect inspires melancholy, akin to that called forth by sombre cloisters, dreary moorlands, or the desolation of ruins. Within these houses there is, perhaps, the silence of the cloister, the barrenness of moors, the skeleton of ruins; life and movement are so stagnant there that a stranger might think them uninhabited, were it not that he encounters suddenly the pale, cold glance of a motionless person, whose half-monastic face peers beyond the window-casing at the sound of an unaccustomed step.

  Honore de Balzac

  Book, Thinking, Skeletons

  Honore de Balzac (2009). “Eugenie Grandet”, p.5, The Floating Press

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• Two elements enter into successful and happy gatherings at table. The food, whether simple or elaborate, must be carefully prepared; willingly prepared; imaginatively prepared. And the guests - friends, family or strangers - must be conscious of their welcome.

  Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

  Successful, Simple, Two

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• There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, "That drunkenness does not produce but discover faults." Common experience teaches the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses dualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments.

  Joseph Addison

  Wine, Men, Mind

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• It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company--for he did all the talking.

  Mark Twain

  Book, Talking, Simplicity

  Mark Twain (2008). “10 Books in 1”, p.442, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• Scientists are rarely to be counted among the fun people. Awkward at parties, shy with strangers, deficient in irony - they have had no choice but to turn their attention to the close study of everyday objects.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Fun, Party, Science

  Fran Lebowitz (2011). “The Fran Lebowitz Reader”, p.96, Vintage

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• Ill seemes (sayd he) if he so valiant be,
  That he should be so sterne to stranger wight;
  For seldom yet did living creature see
  That courtesie and manhood ever disagree.

  Edmund Spenser

  Courtesy, Should, Valiant

  Edmund Spenser, George Gilfillan (1859). “The poetical works of Edmund Spenser: With memoir and critical dissertations”, p.45

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• Let's be cheerful! We have no more right to steal the brightness out of the day for our own family than we have to steal the purse of a stranger.

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Cheerful, Brightness, Purses

  Laura Ingalls Wilder, Stephen W. Hines (2008). “Laura Ingalls Wilder, farm journalist: writings from the Ozarks”, University of Missouri

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• Silence sat in the taxi, as though a stranger had got in.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Silence, Taxi, Sat

  Elizabeth Bowen (1952). “The house in Paris”

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• Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
  To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
  Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
  And every stranger finds a ready chair
  Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
  Where all the ruddy family around
  Laugh at the jest or pranks, that never fail,
  Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
  Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
  And learn the luxury of doing good.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Pain, Simple, Fire

  Oliver Goldsmith (1833). “Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith: With a New Life of the Author”, p.81

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• Gratitude is a humble emotion. It expresses itself in a thousand ways, from a sincere thank you to friend or stranger, to the mute, up-reaching acknowledgment to God--not for the gifts of this day only, but for the day itself; not for what we believe will be ours in the future, but for the bounty of the past.

  Faith Baldwin

  Gratitude, Believe, Humble

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• Strangers are an endangered species.

  Adrienne Rich

  Endangered Species, Species

  Adrienne Rich (1993). “A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems 1978-1981”, p.40, W. W. Norton & Company

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• A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.

  John Quincy Adams

  Thinking, People, United States

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• Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Gratitude makes things right.

  Melody Beattie

  Gratitude, Mistake, Real

  Melody Beattie (2013). “Melody Beattie 4 Title Bundle: Codependent No More and 3 Other Best Sellers by Melody Beattie: A collection of four Melody Beattie best sellers”, Hazelden Publishing

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• If a stranger taps you on the ass and says, "How's the little lady today!" you will probably cringe. But if he's an American, he's only being friendly.

  Margaret Atwood

  Friendly, Littles, Today

  Margaret Atwood (2006). “Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood”

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• If thou expect death as a friend, prepare to entertain it; if thou expect death as an enemy, prepare to overcome it; death has no advantage, but when it comes a stranger.

  Francis Quarles

  Death, Enemy, Overcoming

  Francis Quarles (1844). “Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles”, p.87

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• The tongue of slander is too prompt with wanton malice to wound the stranger.

  Aeschylus

  Tongue, Slander, Malice

  Aeschylus (1821). “The tragedies of Aeschylus”, p.88

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• I am not at home in myself. I am my own stranger.

  Anne Sexton

  Home, Self, My Own

  Anne Sexton, Linda Gray Sexton, Lois Ames (2004). “Anne Sexton: A Self-portrait in Letters”, p.239, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• If any individual live too much in relations, so that he becomes a stranger to the resources of his own nature, he falls, after a while, into a distraction, or imbecility, from which he can only be cured by a time of isolation, which gives the renovating fountains time to rise up.

  Margaret Fuller

  Fall, Giving, Solitude

  Margaret Fuller (2012). “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”, p.80, Courier Corporation

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• Spirits that have once been sincerely united and tended together a sacred flame, never become entirely stranger to one another's life.

  Margaret Fuller

  Flames, Together, Sacred

  Margaret Fuller (1994). “The Letters of Margaret Fuller: 1850 and undated”

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• Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive.

  Madame de Stael

  Meditation, Mind, Criticism

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• Strangers are contemporary posterity.
  [Fr., Les etrangers sont la posterite contemporaine.]

  Madame de Stael

  Contemporary, Posterity

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