Alas Quotes - Page 14

• Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

  Matthew Arnold

  Love, Heart, Speak

  Matthew Arnold (2013). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold (Illustrated)”, p.167, Delphi Classics

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• War is a culture, bellicosity is addictive, defeat for a community that imagines itself to be history's eternal victim can be as intoxicating as victory. How long will it take for the Serbs to realize that the Milosevic years have been an unmitigated disaster for Serbia, the net result of Milosevic's policies being the economic and cultural ruin of the entire region, including Serbia, for several generations? Alas, one thing we can be sure of, that will not happen soon.

  Susan Sontag

  War, Years, Long

  "Why Are We in Kosovo?" by Susan Sontag, www.nytimes.com. May 2, 1999.

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• Great wealth may be to its owner a blessing or a curse. Alas! I fear it is too often the latter. It hardens the heart, blunts the finer susceptibilities, and transforms into a fiend what under more favourable circumstances might have been a human being.

  Arnold Bennett

  Heart, Blessing, May

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• The dumpling is indeed of more ancient institution, and of foreign origin; but alas, what were those dumplings? Nothing but a few lentils sodden together, moisten'd and cemented with a little seeth'd fat.

  John Arbuthnot

  Together, Littles, Ancient

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• Alas, criticism has always been what human beings, especially leaders, most hate to hear.

  David Brin

  Hate, Leader, Criticism

  David Brin (1999). “The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?”, p.11, Basic Books

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• When I thinkof my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair.

  William Cowper

  Hands, Land, Despair

  1782 Poems,'Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk, During His Solitary Abode in the Island of Juan Fernandez'.

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• Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.

  John Milton

  Sports, Thinking, Hair

  'Lycidas' (1638) l. 64

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• And where, on earth, dwell hope and truth? In childhood's uncorrupted heart; Alas! too soon to guileless youth The world doth its dark code impart!

  Luc de Clapiers

  Children, Heart, Dark

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• If hell has no answer for the questioning dead, it is not because it refuses to answer (for rigorous, alas, in observance, is the imperishable fire), but it is because hell has nothing to say, will say nothing eternally.

  Georges Bernanos

  Fire, Answers, Hell

  "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.

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• And now, when I have summed up all my store, Thinking (so I myself deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas! I find the serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast, About the flowers disguised does fold With wreaths of fame and interest.

  Andrew Marvell

  Kings, Flower, Thinking

  c.1650-1652 'The Coronet' (published 1681).

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• marrows - alas! - are arriving in a steady stream at the back door. ... Oddly enough, the majority of people who grow them in Fairacre say, as they hand them over: 'Funny thing! I don't care for them myself. In fact, none of the family likes them!' But still they plant them. It must be the fascination of seeing such a wonderful return for one small seed, that keeps marrow-growers at their dubious task.

  Miss Read

  Doors, Hands, Funny Things

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• We live at a time that is notable for the polemical nature of discussions about identity, consciousness, rationality, agency, memory, and feeling. 'New atheists' and reductive materialists conduct gladiatorial debates against defenders of faith and enemies of reductionism. Lots of heat is produced, but, alas, little light is shed. How marvelous it is, then, to see this fine new book by Lenn E. Goodman and Gregory Caramenico. Here is a learned, illuminating, and decidedly non-polemical treatment of the classic questions of soul, mind, and brain-an exemplary work of scholarship.

  Robert P. George

  Atheist, Memories, Book

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• I was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist. I think religion does a lot for us but I can't quite believe it, alas... It's just a personal choice. I love the idea of heaven though. Who doesn't? It's lovely.

  Paul Bettany

  Atheist, Believe, Thinking

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• Where are the marks of the cross in your life? Are there any points of identification with your Lord? Alas, too many Christians wear medals but carry no scars.

  Vance Havner

  Faith, Christian, Religious

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• I remember watching steak being cooked on TV and wanting to try it. As a special treat, my mother cooked it for me, and I thought this would be the time I would eat with a knife and fork. Alas, I ate it with chopsticks!

  Nobu Matsuhisa

  Mother, Knives, Special

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• Alas! the scientific conscience had got into the debasing company of money obligation and selfish respects.

  George Eliot

  Selfish, Science, Obligation

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.483, Penguin

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• Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly; telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Holy, Should

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• Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another; by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave!

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Self, Cells, Knaves

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• It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may these patient angels hover around us, watching for the spell which is so soon forgotten!

  Charles Dickens

  Beautiful, Death, Memories

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• Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters.

  Honore de Balzac

  Character, Men, Two

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• One could do with a longer year - so much to do, so little done, alas.

  Rose Macaulay

  Time, Years, Done

  Rose Macaulay (Dame.), John Hamilton Cowper Johnson (1963). “Last letters to a friend, 1952-1958”

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• Virtue, vain word, futile shadow, slave of chance! Alas! I believe in thee!

  Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger

  Believe, Shadow, Chance

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• Alas! Much has been done of late to promote the production of dwarfish Christians. Poor, sickly believers turn the church into an hospital, rather than an army. Oh, to have a church built up with the deep godliness of people who know the Lord in their very hearts, and will seek to follow the Lamb wherever he goes!

  Charles Spurgeon

  Christian, Heart, Army

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• Removing prejudices is, alas! too often removing the boundary of a delightful near prospect in order to let in a shockingly extensive one.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Order, Prejudice, Boundaries

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• Death is not rare, alas! nor burials few,
  And soon the grassy coverlet of God
  Spreads equal green above their ashes pale.

  Bayard Taylor

  Death, Ashes, Green

  Bayard Taylor (1867). “The Picture of St. John”, p.168

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