Delight Quotes - Page 31

• If H. P. Lovecraft and H. L. Mencken had ever collaborated, they might have come up with something like The Edge of Reason. This one will delight thinkers-and outrage true believers-of all stripes.

  George R. R. Martin

  Stripes, Might, Lovecraft

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• Camping has become one of my most beloved pastimes. I take a fierce delight in swinging a pak o my back or into a canoe and heading for the hills or lakes. In my opinion, camping can be the greatest expression of free will, personal independence, innate ability, and resourcefulness possible today in our industrialized, urbanized existence. Regardless of how miserable or how splendid the circumstances, the sheer experience of camping seems a total justification for doing it.

  Anne LaBastille

  Lakes, Expression, Independence

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• Rosanne Daryl Thomas's tale of her enchantment by bees is a delight to read. It also contains close observations of the natural world, tales of failure and triumph with the hives, and a stellar cast of characters that includes her daughter, their cats, the hapless Farmer Tom, Pete the crossing guard, and, most important, the Bee Master. Every word tastes sweet as honey.

  Janet Lembke

  Daughter, Sweet, Character

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• To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it.

  Charles Dickens

  Games, Words Of Wisdom, Growing

  Charles Dickens (1872). “A Cyclopedia of the Best Thoughts of Charles Dickens”, p.246

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• Ownership in the world I have none, but I have an infinite interest in it; for if not my own it is my God's; and so it is mine in a higher than a legal sense. Yes, this is the beauty, this is the whole sublimity, this is the tender delight of life - that it is of God's governing.

  William Mountford

  World, Infinite, Ownership

  William Mountford (1858). “Euthanasy, Or Happy Talk Towards the End of Life”, p.282

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• We can't hire out our own inner work, but we can do the manual labor with delight and decency.

  Sakyong Mipham

  Labor, Manuals, Can Do

  Sakyong Mipham (2013). “The Shambhala Principle: Discovering Humanity's Hidden Treasure”, p.99, Harmony

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• We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Bittersweet, Kind, Misfortunes Of Others

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• Human existence is a brutal experience to me... it's a brutal, meaningless experience - an agonizing, meaningless experience with some oases, delight, some charm and peace, but these are just small oases. Overall, it is a brutal, terrible experience, and so it salvation is what can you do to alleviate the agony of the human condition, the human predicament? That is what interests me the most.

  Woody Allen

  Agony, Oasis, Agonizing

  "Woody Allen's World: Whatever Works". Interview with Robert E. Lauder, www.commonwealmagazine.org. April 15, 2010.

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• Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.

  Jonathan Swift

  Believe, Character, Pride

  Jonathan Swift (1856). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.305

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• The degradation which characterizes the state into which you plunge him by punishing him pleases, amuses, and delights him. Deep down he enjoys having gone so far as to deserve being treated in such a way.

  Marquis de Sade

  Happiness, Light, Joy

  Sade (marquis de), Marquis de Sade (1987). “The 120 days of Sodom and other writings”, Grove Pr

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• Cruelty is a mystery, and the waste of pain. But if we describe a word to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and delight, the canary that sings on the skull.

  Annie Dillard

  Pain, Games, Skulls

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• I haven't a clue about the biology or the psychology involved when a person dissolves into tears, but it is quite fascinating to note what turns them on. There are wives who can cascade over a late husband or a burned dinner, and equally pour tears of joy over a new bonnet or a renovated bathroom.... A while ago I took a ship back from Europe. Amid the tumbling confetti ... I found myself misty-eyed watching a young lady waving a tearful farewell to her boyfriend on the dock. I couldn't figure out if I was crying at her plight, or in delight that he wasn't coming along with us.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Husband, Farewell, Europe

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• Let ancient times delight other folk, I rejoice that I was not born till now.

  Ovid

  Ancient, Born, Rejoice

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• Not for any one man's delight has Nature made
  the sun, the wind, the waters; all are free.

  Ovid

  Nature, Men, Wind

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• The imperfect is our paradise.
  Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
  Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
  Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

  Wallace Stevens

  Lying, Perfection, Sound

  Wallace Stevens (2011). “The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play”, p.218, Vintage

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• To the untraveled, territory other than their own familiar heath is invariably fascinating. Next to love it is the one thing that solaces and delights.

  Theodore Dreiser

  Territory, Next, Solace

  Theodore Dreiser (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Theodore Dreiser (Illustrated)”, p.325, Delphi Classics

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• Tis a barbarous temper, and a sign of a very ill nature, to take delight in shocking any one: and, on the contrary, it is the mark of an amiable and a beneficent temper, to say all the kind things one can, without flattery or playing the hypocrite,--and what never fails of procuring the love and esteem of every one; which, next to doing good to a deserving object who wants it, is one of the greatest pleasures of this life.

  Samuel Richardson

  Hypocrite, Want, Next

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• I'd want the human voice expressing grievances, or delight, or whatever it might be. But something real

  Studs Terkel

  Real, Voice, Want

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• Yet if strict criticism should till frown on our method, let candor and good humor forgive what is done to the best of our judgment, for the sake of perspicuity in the story and the delight and entertainment of our candid reader.

  Sarah Fielding

  Reading, Forgiving, Criticism

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• The particular source of frustration of women observing their own self-study and measuring their worth as women by the distance they kept from men necessitated that a distance be kept, and so what vindicated them also poured fuel on the furnace of their rage. One delight presumed another dissatisfaction, but their hatefulness confessed to their own lack of power to please. They hated men because they needed husbands, and they loathed the men they chased away for going.

  Alexander Theroux

  Husband, Distance, Men

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• But the fact is that when wine is taken in moderation, it gives rise to a large amount of breath, whose character is balanced, and whose luminosity is strong and brilliant. Hence wine disposes greatly to gladness, and the person is subject to quite trivial exciting agents. The breath now takes up the impression of agents belonging to the present time more easily than it does those which relate to the future; it responds to agents conducive to delight rather than those conducive to a sense of beauty.

  Avicenna

  Strong, Taken, Character

  Avicenna, Oskar Cameron Gruner (1984). “The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna”

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• We must look upon the world, with all its delights and all its attractions, with suspicion and reserve. We who love our Lord and whose affections are set on Heavenly things voluntarily and gladly lay aside the things that charm and ravish the world, that our hearts may be ravished with the things of Heaven; that our whole being may be poured forth in constant and unreserved devotion in the service of the Lord who died to save us.

  Amy Carmichael

  Heart, Heaven, Looks

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• It is the delight of vulgar talent to dazzle and to bind the beholder. But true genius seeks to defend us from itself. True geniuswill not impoverish, but will liberate, and add new sense. If a wise man should appear in our village, he would create, in those who conversed with him, a new consciousness of wealth, by opening their eyes to unobserved advantages; he would establish a sense of immovable equality, calm us with assurances that we could not be cheated; as every one would discern the checks and guarantees of condition.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Wisdom, Eye

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1544, Delphi Classics

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• Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his mind, and behold, all the mats and rubbish which had littered his garret become precious. Every trivial fact in his private biography becomes an illustration of this new principle, revisits the day, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Creativity, Men, Illustration

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1396, Delphi Classics

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• Young girls giggle with nervous delight at the erections they inspire.

  Mason Cooley

  Girl, Sex, Inspire

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