Excellent Quotes - Page 35

• Ceremony keeps up things: 'tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit, or some excellent water; without it the water were spilt, and the spirit lost.

  John Selden

  Glasses, Water, Pennies

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• Bonds and the pangs of hunger are excellent prophet doctors for the wits.

  Aeschylus

  Doctors, Intelligence, Hunger

  Aeschylus, (2014). “The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides”, p.96, A&C Black

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• [On Ezra Pound:] A village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not.

  Gertrude Stein

  Village, Pounds, Ifs

  The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ch. 7 (1933)

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• It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.

  John Ruskin

  Discipline, May, Want

  John Ruskin (2015). “A Joy Forever”, p.113, John Ruskin

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• We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute.

  Hannah More

  Religious, Memories, Heart

  Hannah More (1814). “The Works of Hannah More: Including Several Pieces Never Before Published ...”, p.98

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• Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.

  Samuel Smiles

  Heart, Weather, Quality

  Samuel Smiles (1872). “Character”, p.219

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• Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.

  Joseph Joubert

  Eye, People, Mediocrity

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• Experience is an excellent doctor, though he never had a diploma.

  Fanny Fern

  Doctors, Experience, Diploma

  Fanny Fern (1872). “Caper-sauce: A Volume of Chit-chat about Men, Women, and Things”, p.15

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• The Chinese have an excellent proverb: "Be modest in speech, but excel in action.

  Horace Mann

  Chinese, Speech, Action

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• Every search has its own momentum. It is why a search makes such an excellent plot for a film or story.

  Nan Fairbrother

  Plot, Momentum, Stories

  Nan Fairbrother (1965). “The House”

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• The Highlanders regale themselves with whisky. They find it an excellent preservation against the winter cold. It is given with great success to the infants in the confluent smallpox.

  Tobias Smollett

  Food, Winter, Cooking

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• I'm going to trust God that I'm not going to completely burn out, and that I'll have the energy in me to stay in it. Fortunately, I have really excellent people around me that are helping me.

  Zachary Levi

  People, Energy, Helping

  "Zachary Levi Talks Heroes Reborn, the Tangled Tv Series, the Nerd Machine, Comic-con & More". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. July 3, 2015.

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• Avoid connecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides are unmixed and have not fermented together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or palletts set with colors; they are either excellent at home and insufferable abroad, or intolerable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they are incomparable.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Home, Character, Doors

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• I believe that the creative impulse is natural in all human beings, and that it is particularly powerful in children unless it is suppressed. Consequently, one is behaving normally and instinctively and healthily when one is creating - literature, art, music, or whatever. An excellent cook is also creative! I am disturbed that a natural human inclination [creative work] should, by some Freudian turn of phrase, be considered compulsive - perhaps even pathological. To me this is a complete misreading of the human enterprise. One should also enjoy one's work, and look forward to it daily.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Art, Children, Powerful

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• Intercourse is after all man's best teacher. "Know thyself" is an excellent maxim; but even self-knowledge cannot be perfected in closets and cloisters--nor amid lake scenery, and on the sunny side of the mountains. Men who seldom mix with their fellow-creatures are almost sure to be one-sided--the victims of fixed ideas, that sometimes lead to insanity.

  William Matthews

  Teacher, Men, Lakes

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• America's a hard school, I know, but hard schools make excellent graduates.

  Oriana Fallaci

  School, America, United States

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• Unpopularity is a excellent salve to the conscience; it is delicious to be misunderstood.

  Stella Benson

  Misunderstood, Delicious, Conscience

  Stella Benson (1916). “I Pose”

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• The little and short sayings of nice And excellent men are of great value, like the dust of gold, or the least sparks of diamonds.

  John Tillotson

  Nice, Men, Dust

  John Tillotson (1712). “The works of the most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: containing fifty four sermons and discourses ... Together with the rule of faith”, p.386

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• a writer's first duty is to be clear. Clarity is an excellent virtue. Like all virtues it can be pursued at ruinous cost. Paid, so far as I am concerned, joyfully.

  Storm Jameson

  Cost, Firsts, Clarity

  Storm Jameson (2011). “Parthian Words”, p.118, A&C Black

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• Whoever would entitle himself after death through the merits of his Redeemer, to the noblest of rewards, let him serve God throughout life in this most excellent of all duties, doing good to our brethren. Whoever is sensible of his offences, let him take this way especially of evidencing his repentance.

  Thomas Secker

  Charity, Rewards, Way

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• ... I have always been a disappointment to my friends. I have no gift of talk, not much to say; and though I have always been an excellent listener, that only succeeds under auspicious circumstances.

  Margaret Oliphant

  Disappointment, Succeed, Circumstances

  Margaret Oliphant (2002). “The Autobiography of Margaret Oliphant”, p.185, Broadview Press

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• Atheists have an excellent longevity record because we have no place to go after we die, so we take good care of ourselves and our world while we are here.

  Madalyn Murray O'Hair

  Atheist, Our World, Records

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• The London property market has excellent investment opportunities.

  Wang Jianlin

  Opportunity, London, Investment

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• Ever tried putting a caramel candy in a cup of hot tea? It's excellent! Not only does it give a little different taste to the tea, but it takes the place of the sugar and cream which you ordinarily add.

  Heloise

  Giving, Tea, Taste

  Heloise (1963). “Heloise's Kitchen Hints”

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• Both poverty and wealth are excellent things, because they are extremes, but the middle ground is damaging to the soul.

  Pamela Moore

  Money, Soul, Poverty

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