Hands Quotes - Page 22

• True taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, casting its shoes from off its feet because it finds all ground holy.

  John Ruskin

  Reading, Feet, Shoes

  John Ruskin (1849). “Of ideas of beauty”, p.25

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• Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization. ... The first thing a woman does when she gets a little money into her hands is to hire some other poor wretch to do her housework.

  Rebecca West

  Civilization, Hatred, Doe

  Rebecca West (1982). “The young Rebecca: writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, Not Avail

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• My memory is certainly in my hands. I can remember things only if I have a pencil and I can write with it and I can play with it. ... I think your hand concentrates for you. I don't know why it should be so.

  Rebecca West

  Memories, Writing, Thinking

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• Neurotics, who cause less distress to themselves and their neighbours than those in the other category, are at war with their own natures. Their right hands are in conflict with their left. Psychotics, and it is those who commit purposeless crimes and prefer death to life, are at war with their environment. Right and left hands strike against the womb that carries them.

  Rebecca West

  War, Psychology, Left Hand

  Rebecca West (1952). “The meaning of treason”

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• When those of our army whose voices are likely to coo tell us that the day of sex antagonism is over and that henceforth we only have to advance hand in hand with the male, I do not believe it.

  Rebecca West

  Sex, Believe, Army

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• I have never been able to write with anything more than the left hand of my mind; the right hand has always been engaged in something to do with personal relationships. I don't complain, because I think my left hand's power, as much as it has, is due to its knowledge of what my right hand is doing.

  Rebecca West

  Writing, Thinking, Mind

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• Pain and suffering are a kind of currency passed from hand to hand until they reach someone who receives them but does not pass them on.

  Simone Weil

  Pain, Suffering, Doe

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• The ocean is a place of paradoxes. It is the home of the great white shark, two-thousand-pound killer of the seas, and of the hundred-foot blue whale, the largest animal that ever lived. It is also the home of living things so small that your two hands might scoop up as many of them as there are stars in the Milky Way.

  Rachel Carson

  Stars, Ocean, Home

  Rachel Carson (2011). “Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson”, p.6, Beacon Press

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• I come out before an audience and maybe my house burned down an hour ago, maybe my husband stayed out all night, but I stand there. ... I got them with me, right there in my hand and comfortable. That's my job, to make them comfortable, because if they wanted to be nervous they could have stayed home and added up their bills.

  Fanny Brice

  Jobs, Husband, Home

  "The Fabulous Fanny : The Story of Fanny Brice". Book by Norman Katkov (p. 71), 1953.

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• Many people make their own God; and he is much what the French may mean when they talk of le bon Dieu,--very indulgent, rather weak, near at hand when we want anything, but far away out of sight when we have a mind to do wrong. Such a God is as much an idol as if he were an image of stone.

  Julius Charles Hare

  Mean, Sight, Idols

  Julius Charles Hare, Augustus William Hare (1861). “Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers: From the Fifth London Ed”, p.475

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• We all experience 'soul moments' in life-when we see a magnificent sunrise, hear the call of the loon, see the wrinkles in our mother's hands, or smell the sweetness of a baby. During these moments, our body, as well as our brain, resonates as we experience the glory of being a human being.

  Marion Woodman

  Mother, Baby, Wrinkles

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• When parents put gold into the hands of youth, when they should put a rod under their girdle--when instead of awe they make them past grace, and leave them rich executors of goods, and poor executors of godliness, then it is no marvel that the son being left rich by his father's will, becomes reckless by his own will.

  John Lyly

  Father, Son, Past

  John Lyly, Leah Scragg (2003). “John Lyly 'Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit' and 'Euphues and His England': An Annotated, Modern-Spelling Edition”, p.33, Manchester University Press

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• Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it; it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hand.

  Laurence Sterne

  Death, Men, Envy

  Laurence Sterne (1849). “The Works of Laurence Sterne: Containing The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy ... [etc.] ; with a Life of the Author Written by Himself”, p.155

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• It were well if there were fewer heroes; for I scarcely ever heard of any, excepting Hercules, but did more mischief than good. These overgrown mortals commonly use their will with their right hand; and their reason with their left.

  Jeremy Collier

  Hero, Use, Reason

  Jeremy Collier (1722). “Essays Upon Several Moral Subjects: In Two Parts. ...”

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• Hands have not tears to flow.

  Dylan Thomas

  Tears, Flow

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• I think with my right hand.

  Edmund Wilson

  Thinking

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• Life takes hold of us with strong hands and makes us greater than we thought.

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher

  Strong, Strong Hands, Greater

  Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1926). “The Bent Twig”

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• That's what I want to be when I grow up, just a peaceful wreck holding hands with other peaceful wrecks.

  Tillie Olsen

  Peace, Growing Up, Wrecks

  Tillie Olsen (2013). “Tell Me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Works”, p.22, U of Nebraska Press

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• In America, snobs who wouldn't be seen dead with a lottery ticket play the stock market. We like to gamble. Winning, we have closed our eyes, leapt across the yawning abyss, and landed knee-deep in daisies. Even losing has a certain gloomy glamour: the gods of chance are worthy opponents; we have engaged them in hand-to-hand combat and though we lost, at least we shrank not from the contest.

  Barbara Holland

  Eye, Winning, Yawning

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• Sometimes I try my hand at turning out small profundities and uncertain short stories, but I always end up with just one single word: God.

  Etty Hillesum

  God, Trying, Stories

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.640, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• I keep remembering from my early student days how I would walk at night through the streets, my hands bunched into fists in the pocket of my coat, my head hunched deep into my collar, and how I used to say, 'I want to work, I shall work'--and then I would come back home and be so exhausted by my determination that I had no strength left to do the actual work.

  Etty Hillesum

  Determination, Home, Night

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.317, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• Part of America's industrial problems is the aim of its corporate managers. Most American executives think they are in the business to make money, rather than products or service. The Japanese corporate credo, on the other hand, is that a company should become the world's most efficient provider of whatever product and service it offers. Once it becomes the world leader and continues to offer good products, profits follow.

  W. Edwards Deming

  Thinking, America, Leader

  "Out Of The Crisis". Book by W. Edwards Deming, p. 99, 1982.

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• Education must be taken out of the hands of rich illiterates, third rate politicians, and put where it belongs: in the care of scholars. At present the whole University system is rotten to the core, and an appalling waste of time, energy and money.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Education, Taken, Energy

  Katherine Anne Porter, Isabel Bayley (1994). “Letters of Katherine Anne Porter”, p.148, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• advance money is really a delusion, that is to say, I get no more until it is paid out in sales, but still, living from hand to mouth and day to day as I do, a nickel in the hand is more useful than the same nickel next year. What do I know about next year? I've never been there. I don't know any one who has.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Future, Years, Mouths

  Katherine Anne Porter, Isabel Bayley (1994). “Letters of Katherine Anne Porter”, p.370, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Nice is a pallid virtue. Not like honesty or courage or perseverance. On the other hand, in a nation notably lacking in civility, there is much to be said for nice.

  Molly Ivins

  Perseverance, Honesty, Nice

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