Alas Quotes - Page 12

• And when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew Soul-animating strains,-alas! too few.

  William Wordsworth

  Hands, Soul, Path

  William Wordsworth (1847). “The Poems of William Wordsworth”, p.203

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• No white nor red was ever seen So am'rous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress' name. Little, alas, they know or heed How far these beauties hers exceed! Fair trees! where s'e'er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found.

  Andrew Marvell

  Cutting, White, Flames

  Andrew Marvell (1997). “"To His Coy Mistress" and Other Poems”, p.24, Courier Corporation

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• But alas! Like many another consummation devoutly to be wished, the actual performance was a disappointing one.

  Fred Reinfeld

  Chess, Disappointing, Humour

  Fred Reinfeld (2012). “The Immortal Games of Capablanca”, p.10, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! It is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life... are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these.

  Charles Dickens

  Beautiful, Nature, Winter

  Charles Dickens (1867). “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit”, p.125

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• We scientists have fantasies of being uniquely qualified to make great discoveries. Alas, reality is cruel: most of us are replaceable. For the vast majority of scientific contributions, if scientist X hadn't achieved it that year, scientist Y would have achieved the same result or something very similar soon thereafter.

  Jared Diamond

  Science, Reality, Discovery

  4 Copy quote

• Alas! to seize the moment When the heart inclines to heart, And press a suit with passion, Is not a woman's part. If man come not to gather The roses where they stand, They fade among their foliage, They cannot seek his hand.

  William C. Bryant

  Passion, Heart, Men

  William Cullen Bryant, “Song From The Spanish Of Iglesias”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• You do not play then at whist, sir? Alas, what a sad old age you are preparing for yourself!

  Charles Lamb

  Play, Age, Cards

  7 Copy quote

• It is disgraceful when the passers-by exclaim, "O ancient house! alas, how unlike is thy present master to thy former one.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  House, Ancestry, Ancient

  "De Officiis". Treatise by Marcus Tullius Cicero, CXXXIX, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 23-25, 44 B.C..

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Alas! How difficult it is to prevent the countenance from betraying guilt!

  Ovid

  Guilt, Difficult, Betray

  8 Copy quote

• What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas! not all the blood, of all the Howards.

  Alexander Pope

  Blood, Coward, Ancestry

  Alexander Pope, Daniel Clark (1824). “An Essay on Man: In Four Epistles, to H. St. John, Lord Bolingbroke”, p.58

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe.

  Alexander Pope

  Hurt, Lawyer, Scribes

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1835). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, being the prologue to the satires. Satires, epistles, and odes of Horace imitated. Epitaphs. The Dunciad, in four books”, p.111

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Satire or sense, alas! Can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

  Alexander Pope

  Butterfly, Wheels, Satire

  "An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" l. 307 (1735)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Time, time - that is our greatest master! Alas, like Ugolino, time devours its own children.

  Hector Berlioz

  Time, Children, Masters

  Letter to Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, 12 Aug. 1856. Sometimes quoted as "Time is a great teacher but unfortunately it kills all its pupils."

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• My rejection at the Salon brought an end to my hesitation [to settle in Paris] since after this failure I can no longer claim to cope... alas, that fatal rejection has virtually taken the bread out of my mouth.

  Claude Monet

  Taken, Paris, Rejection

  Claude Monet (2014). “Monet by Himself: Paintings, Drawings, Pastels, Letters”, Chartwell

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Alas! by what slight means are great affairs brought to destruction.

  Claudius Claudianus

  Mean, Affair, Destruction

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 289-93, In Rufinum, II, 49., 1922.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Alas! the slippery nature of tender youth.

  Claudius Claudianus

  Youth, Slippery

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 921-24, De Raptu Proserpiae, III. 227, 1922.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vulgarized knowledge characteristically gives birth to a feeling that everything is understandable and explained. It is like a system of bridges built over chasms. One can travel boldly ahead over these bridges, ignoring the chasms. It is forbidden to look down into them; but that, alas, does not alter the fact that they exist.

  Czeslaw Milosz

  Bridges, Giving, Feelings

  "The Captive Mind" by Czeslaw Milosz, as translated by Jane Zielonko, 1990.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It does not astonish me that the critics in London relegate me to the lowest rank. Alas! I fear that they are only too justified!

  Camille Pissarro

  Doe, London, Justified

  Camille Pissarro, Lucien Pissarro (1943). “Camille Pissarro: letters to his son Lucien”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any assassination is an assassination. It's cold, it's terrible. I'm against any capital punishment. Only the Lord has the right to take away life because he's the giver of life. And assassination stands against democracy, against civilization, against a civilized life of people. Alas, the situation in Lebanon is very chaotic and many innocent people lost their lives because they have a state within a state, an army within an army and the respect for life is not high enough.

  Shimon Peres

  Army, Punishment, Civilization

  22 Copy quote

• Old age doth in sharp pains abound; We are belabored by the gout, Our blindness is a dark profound, Our deafness each one laughs about. Then reason's light with falling ray Doth but a trembling flicker cast. Honor to age, ye children pay! Alas! my fifty years are past!

  Pierre-Jean de Beranger

  Children, Pain, Fall

  10 Copy quote

• Alas, the very name of picture produces a sadness of heart I cannot describe.

  Samuel Morse

  Heart, Sadness, Names

  37 Copy quote

• Alas! How enthusiasm decreases, as our experience increases!

  Louise Colet

  Enthusiasm, Increase, Decrease

  4 Copy quote

• The animals share with us the privilege of having a soul Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another! In the midst of such wealth as earth, the best of mothers, provides, yet nothing satisfies you, but to behave like the Cyclopes, inflicting sorry wounds with cruel teeth! You cannot appease the hungry cravings of your wicked, gluttonous stomachs except by destroying some other life.

  Pythagoras

  Mother, Sorry, Philosophical

  97 Copy quote

• Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another!

  Pythagoras

  Vegetarianism, Wickedness, Body

  119 Copy quote

• Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play!

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Stars, Play, Shining

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1873). “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.288

  57 Copy quote

  Show source