Doubtful Quotes - Page 5

• The fortune of war is always doubtful.

  Seneca the Younger

  War, Fortune

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• He, who holds out but a doubtful hope of succour to the afflicted, denies it.

  Seneca the Younger

  Deny

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• We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Habit, Status Quo, Reverence

  Cynthia Ozick (1983). “Art & ardor: essays”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Country, Men, Availability

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• When people go to museums and see a sculpture made out of marble, they appreciate it but it's very doubtful that they will go home and have a slab of marble they can chip away at, but people do have LEGO. I don't have any LEGO specially made for me, all of the shapes, sizes and colours I use are available in stores so that if someone is inspired to create on their own, they can go and buy the very same bricks.

  Nathan Sawaya

  Home, Museums, People

  Source: londoncalling.com

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• False and doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those who build on them in the dark from truth. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, et cetera.

  John Locke

  Fashion, Party, Dark

  "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" by John Locke, (Book IV, Ch. 7), 1689.

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• Take a shot in front of D.L. Probing for a vein in my dirty bare foot... Junkies have no shame... They are impervious to the repugnance of others. It is doubtful if shame can exist in the absence of sexual libido... The junky's shame disappears with his nonsexual sociability which is also dependent on libido.

  William S. Burroughs

  Dirty, Feet, Veins

  William S. Burroughs (2007). “Naked Lunch: The Restored Text”, p.57, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• It is doubtful that congress would pass the Bill of Rights if it were introduced today.

  Earl Warren

  Rights, Bills, Today

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• It is very doubtful whether man is enough of a political animal to produce a good, sensible, serious and efficient constitution. All the evidence is against it.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Animal, Men, Political

  George Bernard Shaw (2015). “The Collected Works of George Bernard Shaw: Plays, Novels, Articles, Lectures, Letters and Essays: Pygmalion, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Candida, Arms and The Man, Man and Superman, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion, The New York Times Articles on War, Memories of Oscar Wilde and more”, p.6041, e-artnow

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• Tis reason's part
  To govern and to guard the heart,
  To lull the wayward soul to rest,
  When hopes and fears distract the breast;
  Reason may calm this doubtful strife,
  And steer thy bark through various life.

  Nathaniel Cotton

  Heart, Soul, May

  Nathaniel Cotton (1812). “The Poetical Works of Nathaniel Cotton: Collated with the Best Editions”, p.77

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• America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Blessing, America, Track

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• We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things, whilst those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Order, Mind, Enemy

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• "Agnostic" is a much more recent word than "atheist", coined by Thomas Huxley in 1869 to mean "without knowledge of God" and acquiring the usage of "being doubtful about the existence of God."

  Jim Herrick

  Atheist, Mean, Atheism

  Jim Herrick (1985). “Against the Faith: Essays on Deists, Skeptics, and Atheists”

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• When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful.

  Saint Augustine

  Broken, All Things, Regard

  Saint Augustine (2010). “Treatises on Various Subjects (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 16)”, p.78, CUA Press

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• It is doubtful if a more extensive anthology of errors (William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich) concerning the personality and policies of Hitler and the causes and responsibility for the Second World War has ever been assembled, even in war time.

  Harry Elmer Barnes

  War, Fall, Responsibility

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• Precision marching is less important for the bridal party than maintaining the proper facial expresssions: The bridegroom must look awed; the bridesmaids, happy and excited; the father of the bride, proud; and the bride, demure. If the bridegroom feels doubtful, the bridesmaids, sulky, the father, worried, and the bride, blasé, nobody wants to know.

  Judith Martin

  Father, Party, Important

  Judith Martin (1999). “Miss Manners on Weddings”, Crown

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• For a strolling damsel a doubtful reputation bears.
  [Ger., Denn ein wanderndes Madchen ist immer von schwankendem Rufe.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Bears, Reputation, Strolling

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• Nature makes us buy her presents at the price of so many sufferings that it is doubtful whether she deserves most the name of parent or stepmother.

  Pliny the Elder

  Names, Parent, Suffering

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• There is no such way to gain admittance, or give defence to strange and absurd Doctrines, as to guard them round about with Legions of obscure, doubtful, and undefin'd Words.

  John Locke

  Giving, Doctrine, Way

  John Locke (1714). “The Works of John Locke Esq: In Three Volumes. The Contents of which Follow in the Next Leaf. With Alphabetical Tables. ...”, p.228

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• In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no future state, yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a coward.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Selfish, Brave, Soul

  Frederick William Robertson (1850). “An address delivered to the members of the Working Man's Institute, at the Town Hall, Brighton, on Thursday, April 18, 1850, on the question of the introduction of sceptical publications into the library”, p.13

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• It is beginning to be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit in Westminster and Washington, or in the editorial rooms of the leading journals,--so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and responsible debaters get on their legs.

  James Russell Lowell

  Legs, Rooms, Printing

  James Russell Lowell (1897). “Literary and political addresses”

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• The most exquisite words and finest strokes of an author are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Want, Violence

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.331

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• ... pure honesty is a doubtful quality; it means often lack of imagination.

  Virginia Woolf

  Honesty, Mean, Imagination

  Virginia Woolf (1978). “The Diary of Virginia Woolf: 1920-1924”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• Virtue does not truly reward her votary if she leaves him sad and half doubtful whether it would not have been better to serve vice.

  George William Curtis

  Half, Rewards, Vices

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• The first act's doubtful, but we say, it is the last commends the play.

  Robert Herrick

  Play, Theatre, Lasts

  Robert Herrick, Samuel Weber Singer (1856). “Hesperides: Or, The Works Both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick ...”, p.160

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