Essayists Quotes - Page 3

• Simplicity is the glory of expression.

  Walt Whitman

  Simple, Expression, Simplicity

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

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• Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Witty, Being Yourself

  Intentions "The Critic as Artist" pt. 2 (1891)

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• They are born, put in a box; they go home to live in a box; they study by ticking boxes; they go to what is called "work" in a box, where they sit in their cubicle box; they drive to the grocery store in a box to buy food in a box; they talk about thinking "outside the box"; and when they die they are put in a box.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Funny, Life, Humorous

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms”, p.31, Random House

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• A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wise, Time, Men

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  The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

  Marcel Proust

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

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  People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

  Richard Grenier

  Strength, Wisdom, Veterans Day

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• Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.

  Anais Nin

  Love, Life, Inspiring

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• Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.

  Salman Rushdie

  Friends, Mother, Character

  "The Ground Beneath Her Feet". Book by Salman Rushdie, April, 1999.

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• Poetry is for me Eucharistic. You take someone else's suffering into your body, their passion comes into your body, and in doing that you commune, you take communion, you make a community with others.

  Mary Karr

  Inspirational, Sympathy, Book

  "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly" with Judy Valente, www.pbs.org. March 4, 2011.

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• I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Book, Reading, Novelists

  "Jamaica Kincaid on writing and 'outlaw American' culture". Interview with Nathan Rostron, www.usatoday.com. March 7, 2013.

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• You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Funny, Truth, Humorous

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• We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

  Adrienne Rich

  Success, Dream, Use It Or Lose It

  Adrienne Rich (2003). “What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (Expanded Edition)”, p.172, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Soul

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.168, Courier Corporation

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• Every moment is a new beginning.

  Elie Wiesel

  Inspirational, Positive, New Beginnings

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Open Heart”, p.75, Schocken

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• Women need to become literary "criminals," break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives.

  Kathy Acker

  Women, Writing, Reality

  "Bodies of Work". Book by Kathy Acker, 1996.

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• All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased. If any one thing is wrong with the movie industry today, it is the unrelenting effort to astonish.

  Clive James

  Movie, Effort, Hollywood

  Clive James (1985). “Flying Visits”

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• The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.

  Karl Kraus

  Funny, Clever, Stupid

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  There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

  Washington Irving

  Strength, Sad, Sympathy

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• Nothing becomes reality in the political life of a nation that was not present in its literature as spirit.

  Hugo von Hofmannsthal

  Life, Reality, Political

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• A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Soulmate, Mirrors, Flames

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.157, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• There is hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to accept them fully, to love them almost despite themselves.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Love, Acceptance, Offering

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.394, A&C Black

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• Sometimes I think no matter how one is born, no matter how one acts, there is something out of gear with one somewhere, and that must be changed. Life at its best is a grand corrective.

  Jessie Redmon Fauset

  Life, Change, Thinking

  Jessie Redmon Fauset (1924). “There is Confusion”, p.267, UPNE

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• Selfish men make the best lovers. They're prepared to invest in the women's pleasures so that they can collect an even bigger dividend for themselves.

  J. G. Ballard

  Funny, Best Love, Selfish

  "Cocaine Nights". Book by J. G. Ballard, 1996.

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• We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

  Mark Strand

  Life, Thinking, Pay

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• In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair...the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Life, Hate, Believe

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