Extremity Quotes

• So great was the extremity of his pain and anguish, that he did not only sigh but roar.

  Matthew Henry

  Pain, Sigh, Anguish

  Matthew Henry (1839). “An Exposition of the Old and New Testament: Wherein Each Chapter is Summed Up in Its Contents: Job-Solomon's Song. 1839”, p.24

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• A fiery soul, which working out its way,
  Fretted the pygmy-body to decay:
  And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
  A daring pilot in extremity;
  Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high
  He sought the storms...

  John Dryden

  Work Out, Soul, Storm

  John Dryden, “Absalom And Achitophel”

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• Sam took another sip of the pruno. It went down smoother this time, possibly because he no longer had feeling in his extremities.

  Tod Goldberg

  Alcohol, Feelings

  Tod Goldberg (2011). “Burn Notice: The Reformed”, p.36, Penguin

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• Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Ignorance, Hands, Circles

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• I would rather a romantic relationship turn into contempt than turn into apathy. The passion in the extremities make it appear as though it once meant something. We grow from hot or cold, but lukewarm is the biggest insult.

  Criss Jami

  Passion, Apathy, Hot

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.89, Criss Jami

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• I find titles the hardest thing. I was worried that 'Waste Land' was too much of a downer. For me, 'The Crash Reel' confronts what the film is about: it's not just about the reality of a crash, it's about the extremity we all face, and what happens when life crashes on you.

  Lucy Walker

  Reality, Land, Titles

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• I was taught as a young person that the far political right and the far political left aren't located on a spectrum but on a circle, where they inevitably meet in their extremity.

  C.E. Morgan

  Circles, Political, Taught

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• You know that it never has been easy
  Whether you do or do not resign
  Whether you travel the breadth of the extremities
  Or stick to some straighter line.

  Joni Mitchell

  Lines, Sticks, Easy

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• If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Sweet, Heart

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.70, Xist Publishing

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• Between extremities
  Man runs his course;
  A brand, or flaming breath,
  Comes to destroy
  All those antinomies
  Of day and night.

  William Butler Yeats

  Running, Night, Men

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.254, Simon and Schuster

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• I find myself at the extremity of a long beach. How gladly does the spirit leap forth, and suddenly enlarge its sense of being to the full extent of the broad, blue, sunny deep! A greeting and a homage to the Sea! I descend over its margin, and dip my hand into the wave that meets me, and bathe my brow. That far-resounding roar is the Ocean’s voice of welcome. His salt breath brings a blessing along with it.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Beach, Ocean, Blessing

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1982). “Tales and Sketches”, p.561, Library of America

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• Perfect reason flees all extremity, and leads one to be wise with sobriety.

  Moliere

  Inspirational, Wise, Perfect

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• Very often the law of extremity demands an attention to irrelevance.

  Janet Frame

  Irrelevance, Law, Attention

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• Secession, like any other REVOLUTIONARY ACT, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms.

  Andrew Jackson

  War, May, Revolutionary

  Andrew Jackson (1835). “Annual messages, veto messages, protest, &c. of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States”, p.113

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• No bit of the natural world is more valuable or more vulnerable than the tree bit. Nothing is more like ourselves, standing upright, caught between heaven and earth, frail at the extremities, yet strong at the central trunk, and nothing is closer to us at the beginning and at the end, providing the timber boards that frame both the cradle and the coffin.

  Seamus Heaney

  Strong, Tree, Heaven

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• Where is your ancient courage? You were used to say extremities was the trier of spirits; That common chances common men could bear; That when the sea was calm all boats alike showed mastership in floating.

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Sea, Floating

  William Shakespeare, Joseph Dennie, Isaac Reed, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1809). “The plays of William Shakespeare: With the corrections and illustrations of various commentators”, p.123

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• At issue in the Hiss Case was the question whether this sick society, which we call Western civilization, could in its extremity still cast up a man whose faith in it was so great that he would voluntarily abandon those things which men hold good, including life, to defend it.

  Whittaker Chambers

  Men, Civilization, Issues

  Whittaker Chambers (2014). “Witness”, p.4, Regnery Publishing

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• While women may look different, as some wear suits and others wear saris, or some cover their hair while others wear their hair loose, women need to stand together because they all face the central point of discrimination, although the extremity of which may be different from Kigali to Kabul.

  Zainab Salbi

  Hair, Together, May

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• In man's most dark extremity Oft succour dawns from Heaven.

  Walter Scott

  Dark, Men, Heaven

  Walter Scott (1847). “The Poetical Works of Walter Scott: Complete in One Volume with All His Introductions and Notes Also Various Readings and the Editor's Notes”, p.414

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• A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

  Blaise Pascal

  Greatness, Men, Touching

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• At the extremity of hardship comes relief and at the tightening of the chains of trials and tribulations comes ease.

  Boonaa Mohammed

  Relief, Trials, Hardship

  Twitter post from Aug 20, 2015

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• I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.

  Harriet Ann Jacobs

  Daughter, Father, Son

  Harriet Ann Jacobs (1861). “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, p.81

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• I am not sure but I should betake myself in extremities to the liberal divinities of Greece, rather than to my country's God. Jehovah, though with us he has acquired new attributes, is more absolute and unapproachable, but hardly more divine, than Jove. He is not so much of a gentleman, not so gracious and catholic, he does not exert so intimate and genial an influence on nature, as many a god of the Greeks.

  Henry David Thoreau

  God, Country, Catholic

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “The Most Alive is the Wildest – Thoreau’s Complete Works on Living in Harmony with the Nature: Walden, Walking, Night and Moonlight, The Highland Light, A Winter Walk, The Maine Woods, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples…”, p.274, e-artnow

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• Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone by.

  Mark Twain

  Gratitude, Two, Gone

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.482, Courier Corporation

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• My parents were not affluent people and were not - didn't come from the extremities of education. My mother had a high school diploma. I often think I so wish she'd come out of the hills in Appalachia and been able to go on to college. I think she would have made a wonderful teacher.

  Dwight Yoakam

  Mother, Teacher, School

  "Singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. September 18, 2012.

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