Finest Quotes - Page 16

• 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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• A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.

  Joseph Addison

  Reading, Men, Example

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1822). “The Spectator: with notes and illustrations. In six volumes”, p.305

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• You believe
  In God, for your part?--that He who makes
  Can make good things from ill things, best from worst,
  As men plant tulips upon dunghills when
  They wish them finest.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Believe, Men, Wish

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1871). “Poetical Works”, p.343

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• Large eyes were admired in Greece, where they still prevail. They are the finest of all when they have the internal look, which is not common. The stag or antelope eye of the Orientals is beautiful and lamping, but is accused of looking skittish and indifferent. "The epithet of 'stag-eyed,'" says Lady Wortley Montgu, speaking of a Turkish love-song, "pleases me extremely; and I think it a very lively image of the fire and indifference in his mistress' eye.

  Leigh Hunt

  Beautiful, Song, Eye

  Leigh Hunt (1873). “Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs, from His Uncollected Prose Writings”, p.216

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• The finest life is spent creating oneself, not procreating.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  Creativity, Creating, Life Is

  Natalie Clifford Barney, Anna Livia (1992). “A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie Clifford Barney”, p.130, New Victoria Publishers

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• Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak--above all, any little child--to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste--never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer--crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature.

  Charles Kingsley

  Crush, Children, Selfish

  Charles Kingsley (2008). “Daily Thoughts (EasyRead Super Large 18pt Edition)”, p.253, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect, but not the image of God.

  William Dean Howells

  Giving, Water, Cups

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• The richness and endless variety of human relationships ... that's what authors, even the finest and greatest, only succeed in hinting at. It's a hopeless business, like trying to dip up the ocean with a tea-spoon.

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher

  Ocean, Tea, Trying

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Mark J. Madigan (1993). “Keeping Fires Night and Day: Selected Letters of Dorothy Canfield Fisher”, p.94, University of Missouri Press

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• the pyramids were built for pharaohs on the happy theory that they could take their stuff with them. Versailles was built for kings on the theory that they should live surrounded by the finest stuff. The Mall of America is built on the premise that we should all be able to afford this stuff. It may be a shallow culture, but it's by-God democratic. Sneer if you dare; this is something new in world history.

  Molly Ivins

  Kings, Shopping, Pyramids

  Molly Ivins (2010). “You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You”, p.94, Vintage

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• the finest achievements are those of the pen. ... To me God the Father is a writer.

  Leslie Caron

  Father, Achievement, Pens

  Leslie Caron (1983). “Vengeance”, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

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• Many of the finest and most interesting emotions perish forever, because too complex and fugitive for expression. Of all things relating to man, his feelings are perhaps the most evanescent, the greater part dying in the moment of their birth. But while emotions perish, thought blended in diction is immortal.

  William Benton Clulow

  Men, Expression, Interesting

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• Eating in Italy is essentially a family art, practiced for and by the family. The finest accomplishments of the home cook are not reserved like the good silver and china for special occasions or for impressing guests, but are offered daily for the pleasure and happiness of the family group.

  Marcella Hazan

  Art, Home, Accomplishment

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• EXTREME LUXURY ISN'T THE MOST BLING-BLING, IT'S EXTREME REFINEMENT, WHICH IS COUTURE AT ITS FINEST.

  Karl Lagerfeld

  Luxury, Bling, Couture

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• Steve Yarbrough is a masterful storyteller-one of our finest-and Safe from the Neighbors is a masterpiece. . . . This is a spellbinding, powerful novel.

  Jill McCorkle

  Powerful, Safe, Neighbor

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• Maya Jasanoff's Liberty's Exiles places the loyalist experience and the aftermath of the American Revolution in an entirely new light. Alongside the Spirit of 1776, Jasanoff gives us the Spirit of 1783, dedicated to remaking the mighty British Empire, and then offers a stunning reinterpretation of the Loyalists' complicated role in that remaking. Her meticulously researched and superbly written account is historical revision at its finest, and it affirms her place as one of the very finest historians of the rising generation.

  Sean Wilentz

  Light, Giving, Historical

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• We are somehow the children of the planet, we are somehow its finest hour; we bind time, we bind the past, we anticipate the future - we are going hyper-spatial; we are claiming a whole new dimension for biology that it never claimed before. We are actually becoming a fourth-dimensional kind of creature. Our future is somehow with us, as we seem to be able to move through metamorphosis into our own imaginations - a super civilization spread throughout space and time. Our future is a mystery, our destiny is to live in the imagination.

  Terence McKenna

  Children, Moving, Past

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• Freedom is the very essence of life, the impelling force in all intellectual and social development, the creator of every new outlook for the future of mankind. The liberation of man from economic exploitation and from intellectual and political oppression, which finds its finest expression in the world-philosophy of Anarchism, is the first prerequisite for the evolution of a higher social culture and a new humanity.

  Rudolf Rocker

  Philosophy, Men, Expression

  Rudolf Rocker (2004). “Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice”, p.18, AK Press

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• I can afford to get Tescos finest sandwiches rather than the basic ones.

  Taron Egerton

  Sandwiches, Tesco, I Can

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• Season of Migration to the North, by Tayeb Salih, is an eloquent and restrained portrait of one man's exile. It is a rare narrative in that it charts a life divided between England and Sudan. Without a doubt it is one of the finest Arabic novels of the 20th century, and Denys Johnson-Davies' translationdoes the original justice.

  Hisham Matar

  Men, Justice, Doubt

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• Drudgery is one of the finest touchstones of character there is. Drudgery is work that is very far removed from anything to do with the ideal - the utterly mean grubby things; and when we come in contact with them we know instantly whether or not we are spiritually real.

  Oswald Chambers

  Real, Character, Mean

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “The Quotable Oswald Chambers”, p.115, Discovery House

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• My father loved poetry and music. But deep in himself he thought teaching the finest thing a person could do.

  George Steiner

  Father, Teaching, Poetry And Music

  "George and his dragons" by Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. March 17, 2001.

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• All artists are crackpots. And it's their finest feature.

  Irving Stone

  Artist, Crackpots, Features

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• In my opinion, education is the finest gift an individual can give a young person.

  Donald Bren

  Giving, Opinion, Individual

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• The entity that gives life and motion to the human body is finer still and lies infinitely beyond the reach of our finest scientific instruments. When this entity deserts the body, the body is like a ship without a rudder - deserted, motionless, dead.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Lying, Giving, Soul

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• One must be oneself very little of a philosopher not to feel that the finest privilege of our reason consists in not believing in anything by the impulsion of a blind and mechanical instinct, and that it is to dishonour reason to put it in bonds as the Chaldeans did. Man is born to think for himself.

  Denis Diderot

  Believe, Men, Thinking

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