Lament Quotes - Page 6

• When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements … while remaining heedless of the world’s barbarism. I don’t say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn’t notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be.

  Julian Barnes

  Regret, Thinking, Ignorant

  Julian Barnes (1984). “Flaubert's parrot”, Vintage

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• One can always lament, you know — but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian.

  Martha Graham

  Laughing, Comedian, Faces

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

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• She kindly laments that I am not of the party, and to be sure I honour great ladies, and I admire great wits, but I am of the same opinion in regard to assemblies that is held concerning oysters, that they are never good in a month that has not the letter R in it.

  Elizabeth Montagu

  Party, Oysters, Letters

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• If your everyday life appears to be unworthy subject matter, do not complain to life. Complain to yourself, Lament that you are not poet enough to call up its wealth.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Everyday, Matter, Complaining

  Rainer Maria Rilke (2010). “Letters to a Young Poet”, p.12, New World Library

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• We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice; but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable.

  Thomas Paine

  Errors, Consistency, Vices

  Thomas Paine (1990). “The Crisis Papers, 1776-1783”, p.136, Rowman & Littlefield

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• Babylon, Learned and wise, hath perished utterly, Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh That would lament her.

  William Wordsworth

  Wise, Learning, Speech

  William Wordsworth (1847). “The Poems of William Wordsworth”, p.316

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• If a man lives to any considerable age, it can not be denied that he laments his imprudences, but I notice he often laments his youth a deal more bitterly and with a more genuine intonation.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Men, Age, Youth

  Robert Louis Stevenson (1968). “Selected Poetry and Prose of Robert Louis Stevenson”

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• Living sites are only as good as today's update. If the words are dull, nobody will read them, and nobody will come back. If the words are wrong, people will be misled, disappointed, infuriated. If the words aren't there, people will shake their heads and lament your untimely demise.

  Mark Bernstein

  People, Demise, Dull

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• Most women lament not the death of their lovers so much out of real affection for them, as because they would appear worthy of love.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Real, Lovers, Affection

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• Don't cry pretty girl. Who you are is why you're so good at everything. You won't let yourself be otherwise. And thats what fascinates me." Duke- Lament

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Girl, Dukes, Cry

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• Sri Yukteswar used to poke gentle fun at the commonly inadequate conceptions of renunciation."A beggar cannot renounce wealth," Master would say. "If a man laments: 'My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,' to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!"Saints like Gandhi, on the other hand, have made not only tangible material sacrifices, but also the more difficult renunciation of selfish motive and private goal, merging their inmost being in the stream of humanity as a whole.

  Paramahansa Yogananda

  Fun, Selfish, Sacrifice

  Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda (2008). “Autobiography of a Yogi”, p.425, Diamond Pocket Books (P) Ltd.

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• Thou wilt lament
  Hereafter, when the evil shall be done
  And shall admit no cure.

  Homer

  Regret, Evil, Done

  Homer (1871). “The Iliad of Homer”, p.231

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• Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation td posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.

  Jonathan Swift

  Book, Omission, Authorship

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• With childhood comes a brief grace period of ignorant bliss -- when you're not aware of the pain around you. That is the most special, truly unique time. It is the core of adult lament.

  Barry Privett

  Pain, Unique, Childhood

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• I write in a hurry, because the little one, who has been sleeping a long time, begins to call for me. Poor thing! when I am sad, I lament that all my affections grow on me, till they become too strong for my peace, though they all afford me snatches of exquisite enjoyment.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Strong, Writing, Sleep

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2014). “Posthumous Works: of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, p.135, Simon and Schuster

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• Hast thou fallen? Do not groan and lament: rather be thankful for the opportunity given thee to rise once more.

  Ivan Panin

  Failure, Opportunity, Being Thankful

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• October's bellowing anger breakes and cleavesThe bronzed battalions of the stricken woodIn whose lament I hear a voice that grievesFor battle's fruitless harvest, and the feudOf outrage men. Their lives are like the leavesScattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blownAlong the westering furnace flaring red.O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,The burden of your wrongs is on my head.

  Siegfried Sassoon

  Men, Voice, Battle

  Siegfried Sassoon, “Autumn”

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• Gradually, the night stumbled as if stunned and wandering aimlessly into an overcast day -- limped through the wilderland of transition as though there were no knowing where the waste of darkness ended and the ashes of light began. The low clouds seemed full of grief -- tense and uneasy with accumulated woe -- and yet affectless, unable to rain, as if the air clenched itself too hard for tears. And through the dawn, Atiaran and Covenant moved heavily, unevenly, like pieces of a broken lament.

  Stephen R. Donaldson

  Grief, Rain, Night

  Stephen R. Donaldson (2012). “Lord Foul's Bane”, p.97, Del Rey

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• Is yours an honest lament? ... Most are not, you know. Most self-imposed burdens are founded on misperceptions. We - at least we of sincere character - always judge ourselves by stricter standards than we expect others to abide by. It is a curse, I suppose, or a blessing, depending on how one views it... Take it as a blessing, my friend, an inner calling that forces you to strive to unattainable heights.

  R. A. Salvatore

  Character, Blessing, Self

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• Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.

  Cheryl Strayed

  Book, Writing, Blue

  Cheryl Strayed (2015). “Brave Enough: A Mini Instruction Manual for the Soul”, p.71, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Greene

  David McCullough

  Ignorance, Want, Mist

  David McCullough (2011). “David McCullough Library E-book Box Set: 1776, Brave Companions, The Great Bridge, John Adams, The Johnstown Flood, Mornings on Horseback, Path Between the Seas, Truman, The Course of Human Events”, p.24, Simon and Schuster

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• In our whole life melody the music is broken off here and there by rests, and we foolishly think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure, a time of sickness and disappointed plans, and makes a sudden pause in the hymns of our lives, and we lament that our voice must be silent and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of our Creator. Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time and not be dismayed at the rests. If we look up, God will beat the time for us.

  John Ruskin

  Writing, Thinking, Hymns

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• A loss, but who still mourns the breath of one woman, or laments one wife? Though my heart never can forget, how, for one look, she gave up her life.

  Anna Akhmatova

  Heart, Loss, Wife

  "Lot's Wife". Poem by Anna Akhmatova, translated by A.S.Kline,

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• A little time, and thou shalt close thy eyes; and him who has attended thee to thy grave, another soon will lament.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Eye, Littles, Graves

  Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (2016). “Stoic Six Pack: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Golden Sayings, Fragments and Discourses of Epictetus, Letters from a Stoic and The Enchiridion”, p.116, Enhanced Media Publishing

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• When someone is force to realize that the road he'd been working hard to make progress on was no different from the place he'd started, and when he realized that he had in fact gone backward, all that person can do is face the pale sky and lament.

  Mizuki Nomura

  Sky, Progress, Faces

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