Certain Quotes - Page 10

• In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only God that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Two, Religion, Use

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• When we say we are certain so-and-so can't possibly have done it, what we mean is that we think he very likely did.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Mean, Thinking, Done

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• I'm certain that most couples expect to find intimacy in marriage, but it somehow eludes them.

  James Dobson

  Marriage, Couple, Elude

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• If you ask any ordinary reader which of Dickens's proletarian characters he can remember, the three he is almost certain to mention are Bill Sykes, Sam Weller and Mrs. Gamp. A burglar, a valet and a drunken midwife-not exactly a representative cross-section of the English working class.

  George Orwell

  Character, Class, Ordinary

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• History has to move in a certain direction, even if it has to be pushed that way by neurotics.

  George Orwell

  Moving, History, Way

  George Orwell (1986). “The complete works of George Orwell”

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• There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs --apart from discernment --a certain greatness to find him.

  Margot Asquith

  Greatness, Men, Intellectual

  Margot Asquith (1920). “The Autobiography of Margot Asquith”

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• I have certain moral parameters that I do not cross in writing; I don't write about adultery or kids having premarital sex.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Sex, Writing, Kids

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• It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Light, May

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.440

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• If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them.

  Dorothy Parker

  Hurt, Attitude, Unnecessary

  Dorothy Parker (2002). “Complete Stories”, p.264, Penguin

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• If certain Critics were as clearsighted as they are malignant, how great would be the benefit to be derived from their writings!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Writing, Criticism, Would Be

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (2015). “Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Top Complete Works Collection”, p.82, 谷月社

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• The vigour of civilised societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth while. Vigorous societies harbour a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth while. Such personal gratification arises from aim beyond personality.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Strong, Jobs, Men

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• The comedians all finished their acts with a song. They would get a certain amount of money from the song publishers and would use that money to pay the writers. None of them paid very much for their comedy material, but it all added up.

  Denis Norden

  Song, Comedian, Use

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• In a certain sense the Good is comfortless.

  Franz Kafka

  Literature, Goodness

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

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• I've never really understood attachment to a place for reasons of birth. That my mother happened to give birth to me in a certain place doesn't, to my mind, justify any thankfulness towards that place. It could have been anywhere.

  Alberto Manguel

  Mother, Attachment, Giving

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• It may be that even if half consciously, we choose our personalities to maintain a certain saving balance in the family's little universe.

  Arthur Miller

  Personality, Balance, Half

  Arthur Miller (2013). “Timebends: A Life”, p.11, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count on it as sure to come nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be.

  Epicurus

  Future, May, Remember

  Epicurus (1964). “Letters: Principles Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings Translated, with an Introd. and Notes, by Russel M. Geor. Indianapolis Merrill”

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• I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.

  John Mason Brown

  Blood, Land, Civil War

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• At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.

  William Safire

  Mean, People, Use

  William Safire (1999). “Spread the Word”, Crown Publishers

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• The world of Manhattan is small and tightly knit, and the man on top retains a certain humility. He knows how far and fast he can fall by looking at the guy across the street. The view from the $250,000 apartment covers a lot of ground, most of it condemned.

  Herb Caen

  Fall, Humility, Men

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• Any test that turns on what is offensive to the community's standards is too loose, too capricious, too destructive of freedom of expression to be squared with the First Amendment. Under that test, juries can censor, suppress, and punish what they don't like, provided the matter relates to "sexual impurity" or has a tendency "to excite lustful thoughts." This is community censorship in one of its worst forms. It creates a regime where, in the battle between the literati and the Philistines, the Philistines are certain to win.

  William O. Douglas

  Winning, Expression, Community

  "Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. June 24, 1957.

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• It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy, but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Art, Memories, Philosophy

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• One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune, one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Business, Spring, Responsibility

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.311, Penguin

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• Then, at some point, you get identified with certain things.

  Gary Cole

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• Everyone who lives in an industrialized society is obliged gradually to give up the past, but in certain countries, such as the United States and Japan, the break with the past has been particularly traumatic.

  Susan Sontag

  Country, Giving Up, Past

  Susan Sontag (2011). “On Photography”, p.11, Macmillan

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• Those who have more power are liable to sin more; no theorem in geometry is more certain than this.

  Lord Acton

  Atheism, Sin, Liable

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