Bereft Quotes

• Madam, you have bereft me of all words, Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.

  William Shakespeare

  Blood, Veins, Speak

  1596-7 Bassanio to Portia.TheMerchant ofVenice, act 3, sc.2, l.175-6.

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• Patience. I colored patience gray, hung over with black clouds. I colored hope yellow, just like the sun we could see for a few short morning hours. Too soon the sun rose high in the sky & disappeared from view, leaving us bereft and staring at blue.

  Virginia C. Andrews

  Morning, Clouds, Blue

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• I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

  David Bowie

  Religious, Buddhist, Powerful

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• In war, when a commander becomes so bereft of reason and perspective that he fails to understand the dependence of arms on Divine guidance, he no longer deserves victory.

  Douglas MacArthur

  War, Divine Guidance, Perspective

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• And the headbonny ash that sits over the burn.
  What would the world be, once bereft
  Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
  O Let them be left, wildness and wet:
  Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Weed, Nature, Long

  1881 'Inversnaid'.

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• The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering. I should turn to God

  Yann Martel

  Mind, Suffering, Want

  Yann Martel (2002). “Life Of Pi”, p.381, Canongate Books

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• Did you love well what very soon you left? Come home and take me in your arms and take away this stomach ache, headache, heartache. Never so full, I never was bereft so utterly. The winter evenings drift dark to the window. Not one work will make you, where you are, turn in your day, or wake from your night toward me. The only gift I got to keep or give is what I've cried, floodgates let down to mourning for the dead chances, for the end of being young, for everyone I loved who really died. I drank our one year out in brine instead of honey from the seasons of your tongue.

  Marilyn Hacker

  Broken Heart, Home, Winter

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• The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.

  Yann Martel

  Mind, Want, Soar

  Yann Martel (2009). “Life of Pi”, p.314, Vintage Canada

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• Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.

  Robert Browning

  Justice, Coats, Sticks

  "The Lost Leader" l. 1 (1845). Refers to William Wordsworth.

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• Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.

  Loren Eiseley

  Beach, War, Ocean

  Loren Eiseley (2016). “The Unexpected Universe: A Library of America eBook Classic”, p.45, Library of America

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• Tears could not be equal, if I wept diamonds from the skies," Jenks whispered, empty and bereft. "My word silent, though I should howl. Muffled by death, my wings can't lift me high enough to find you. I feel you within. Unaware of my pain. Not knowing why I mourn. And why I breathe alone.

  Kim Harrison

  Pain, Sky, Wings

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• Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual's liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual's liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom.

  John Keegan

  Mean, Men, Liberty

  John Keegan (2012). “A History of Warfare”, p.94, Vintage

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• For a moment man is a boy, for a moment a lovesick youth, for a moment bereft of wealth, for a moment in the height of prosperity; then at life's end with limbs worn out by old age and wrinkles adorning his face, like an actor he retires behind the curtain of death.

  Bhartrhari

  Boys, Men, Wrinkles

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• These eyes, tho' clear To outward view of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot, Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, not bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward.

  John Milton

  Stars, Eye, Heart

  John Milton (1844). “I. Prose Works: Poetical works. II.”, p.36

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• O father, father
  Gone from us, lost to us,
  The church lies bereft,
  Alone,
  Desecrated, desolated.
  And the heathen shall build
  On the ruins
  Their world without God.
  I see it.
  I see it.

  T. S. Eliot

  Lying, Father, Church

  T. S. Eliot (2014). “Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950”, p.228, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A choice is the root of all morality. Without choice, one can have no moral code. In a vacuum bereft of alternatives, there can be no values. And without values, there can be no reason for a code of ethics. What gives our lives meaning is which alternatives we choose. If we have no options, if we can take but one path, we are by definition slaves.

  Dave Galanter

  Roots, Giving, Choices

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• The mind is left bereft when it is nothing more than a tool of regurgitation.

  Corey Taylor

  Mind, Tools, Seven Deadly Sins

  Corey Taylor (2012). “Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good”, p.99, Da Capo Press

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• Politics bereft of religion is absolute dirt, ever to be shunned.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Religion, Dirt, Absolutes

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• We're so bereft of support of theatre in this day and age.

  Stefanie Powers

  Support, Age, Theatre

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• A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.

  William Shakespeare

  Women, Taming, Shrews

  'The Taming Of The Shrew' (1592) act 5, sc. 2, l. 143

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• Comes now a smiling New-Born Year To fill to-day with goodly cheer— An infant hale and lusty. Upon our door-sill he is left By Daddy Time, of clothes bereft Despite the season gusty. If he be Churl or doughty Knight, A Son of Darkness or of Light No man can tell, God bless him! But be he base or glorious Time puts it wholly up to us To dress him!

  John Kendrick Bangs

  New Year, Cheer, Son

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• I've never felt so bereft and panicky. What do I do without my phone? How do I function? My hand keeps automatically reaching for my phone in its usual place in my pocket. Every instinct in me wants to text someone, 'OMG, I've lost my phone! ' but how can do that without a bloody phone?

  Sophie Kinsella

  Phones, Hands, Want

  Sophie Kinsella (2012). “I've Got Your Number”, p.16, Random House

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• In terms of you happiness, in terms of the matters that make you proud or sad, nothing-I repeat, nothing-will have so profound an effect on you as the way your children turn out. You will either rejoice and boast of their accomplishments or you will weep, head in hands, bereft and forlorn, if they become a disappointment or an embarrassment to you.

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Children, Disappointment, Parenting

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• A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry. But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain: So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee, With urging helpless patience wouldst relieve me; But if thou live to see like right bereft, This fool-begged patience in thee will be left.

  William Shakespeare

  Pain, Adversity, Grieving

  William Shakespeare, Alfred Harbage (1977). “The complete works”

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• Sometimes events that lead us bereft of anything but grief just happen for no reason other than happenstance--a car turns left instead of right, a train is missed, a call comes too late--and the real test of our humanness is whether, in light of that knowledge, we are ever able to recover. When we again find our way despite the inability to manufacture a deeper meaning in our suffering, that I think is when God smiles upon us, proud of the strength of his creation.

  Neil Abramson

  Real, Grief, Thinking

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