Languish Quotes - Page 2

• Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes.

  Richard Steele

  Modesty, Rage, Ill

  Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison (1774). “The Tatler; Or, Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq”, p.106

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• In our country they do not permit any information to be X-rayed through and through, nor any discussion to encompass all the facets of a subject. All this is invariably suppressed at the very beginning, so no ray of light should fall on the naked body of truth. And then all this is piled up in one formless heap covering many years, where it languishes for whole decades, until all interest and all means of sorting out the rusty blocks from all this trash are lost.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Country, Block, Fall

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• Every desire bears its death in its very gratification. Curiosity languishes under repeated stimulants, and novelties cease to excite and surprise, until at length we cannot wonder even at a miracle.

  Washington Irving

  Miracle, Curiosity, Desire

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• Every time is a time for comedy in a world of tension that would languish without it. But I cannot confine myself to lightness in a period of human life that demands light. We all know that, as the old adage has it, "It is later than you think." But I also say occasionally: "It is lighter than you think." In this light let's not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

  James Thurber

  Thinking, Light, Looks

  "Lanterns and Lances". Book by James Thurber. Foreword, 1961.

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• And yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Sight, Effort, Being Thankful

  First Inaugural Address, Delivered 4 March 1933

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• Thus I reel from desire to fulfillment and in fulfillment languish for desire.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Desire, Fulfillment

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1976). “Faust: a tragedy : backgrounds and sources, the author on the drama, contemporary reactions, modern criticism”, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Getting the economy back on its feet is properly viewed as an investment in future prosperity. When businesses and consumers confront attractive investment opportunities, often the only way to seize them is by borrowing. The same is true for government. Contrary to the pronouncements of critics of economic stimulus, these investments will not impoverish our grandchildren. Continuing to allow the economy to languish in recession is the surest way to impoverish them.

  Robert H. Frank

  Opportunity, Grandchildren, Feet

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• I believe we're at the verge of the greatest time to be alive in this world. But Washington is holding us back. How we tax, how we regulate. We're not embracing the energy revolution in our midst, a broken immigration system that has been politicized rather than turning it into an economic driver. We're not protecting and preserving our entitlement system or reforming for the next generation. All these things languish while we have politicians in Washington using these as wedge issues.

  Jeb Bush

  Believe, Issues, Broken

  "Transcript of the 2015 GOP debate (9 pm)". www.cbsnews.com. August 6, 2015.

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• Leaving American disaster victims to languish is morally reprehensible and un-American.

  Cedric Richmond

  Leaving, Victim, Disaster

  "Season of Calamities Necessitates Compassion Aid: Don’t Require Offsets for Emergency Disaster Relief" by Cedric L. Richmond, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 1, 2011.

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• Foul jealousy! that turnest love divine to joyless dread, and makest the loving heart with hateful thoughts to languish and to pine.

  Edmund Spenser

  Jealousy, Heart, Hateful

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• Fame and admiration weigh not a feather in the scale against friendship and love, for the heart languishes all the same.

  George Sand

  Heart, Love And Friendship, And Love

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• Whichever way we look the prospect is disagreeable. Behind, we have left pleasures we shall never enjoy, and therefore regret; and before, we see pleasures which we languish to possess, and are consequently uneasy till we possess them.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Regret, Looks, Way

  Oliver Goldsmith, David Masson (1869). “The Miscellaneous Works of Oliver Goldsmith”, p.157

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• A lot of us have all sorts of ideas, and we select some rather than others and give expression to those... and some works of art are more successful than others. Some languish in obscurity and are never heard of again, while others form the foundation of a whole school of art.

  Rupert Sheldrake

  Art, School, Successful

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• Doing, a filthy pleasure is, and short; And done, we straight repent us of the sport: Let us not rush blindly on unto it, Like lustful beasts, that only know to do it: For lust will languish, and that heat decay, But thus, thus, keeping endless Holy-.

  Ben Jonson

  Sports, Lust, Decay

  Ben Jonson (1838). “The Works of Ben Jonson”, p.740

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• Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you're innocent than to languish in a cell hoping that the police---who already think you're guilty---will find it for you.

  Douglas Adams

  Believe, Thinking, Cells

  Douglas Adams (2016). “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Box Set: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul”, p.132, Simon and Schuster

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• How can I ever trust you? (Acheron) You can’t. But I have lived inside your memories for the last three years. I know the pain you hide. I know the pain I caused. If I stay here, I will go mad from the screams. If I return to the Vanishing Isle, I’ll languish there alone and in time I will probably learn to hate you all over again. I don’t want to hate you anymore, Acheron. You are a god who can control human fate. Is it not possible that there was a reason why we were joined together? Surely the Fates meant for us to be brothers. (Styxx)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Brother, Pain, Memories

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• Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Distance, Soul, Mind

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2017). “The Sorrows of Young Werther (English German Edition, illustrated): Die Leiden des jungen Werther (Englisch Deutsch Ausgabe illustriert)”, p.51, Clap Publishing, LLC.

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• Most dreams die a slow death. They're conceived in a moment of passion, with the prospect of endless possibility, but often languish and are not pursued with the same heartfelt intensity as when first born. Slowly, subtly, a dream becomes elusive and ephemeral. People who've lost their own dreams become pessimists and cynics. They feel like the time and devotion spent on chasing their dreams were wasted. The emotional scars last forever.

  Dean Karnazes

  Dream, Passion, Emotional

  Dean Karnazes (2017). “Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner”, p.78, Atlantic Books

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• When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, these only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope, nor deserted sorrow.

  Washington Irving

  Cheer, True Friend, Real

  Washington Irving (1840). “The Works of Washington Irving”, p.192

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• I am like a mariner born and bred on board a buccaneer brig whose soul has become so inured to storm and strife that if cast ashore he would weary and languish no matter how alluring the shady groves and how bright the gentle sun.

  Mikhail Lermontov

  Soul, Storm, Boards

  "A Hero of Our Time". Book by Mikhail Lermontov, 1841.

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• I am very defective in all duties... In prayer I wander and am formal... I soon tire; devotion languishes; and I do not walk with God.

  William Carey

  Prayer, Missionary, Tire

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• If we are to elevate the game of chess to a popular sport, grandmasters must become gladiators, otherwise the game will languish on the periphery, a voice crying in the wilderness, condemned to live and die on a cold arctic shore.

  Michael Basman

  Sports, Games, Voice

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• He [man] abuses equally other animals and his own species, the rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable vanity of this human being who, destroying others by want, destroys himself by excess.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Animal, Men, Vanity

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• Applaud us when we prevail, correct us when we fail; but, above all, do not let this indispensable, irreplaceable institution wither, languish or perish as a result of Member States' indifference, inattention or financial starvation.

  Kofi Annan

  Inattention, Financial, Indifference

  Kofi Atta Annan (1998). “The quotable Kofi Annan: selections from speeches and statements by the Secretary-General”, United Nations

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• Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball And tear our pleasures with rough strife Through the iron gates of life: Thus, while we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

  Andrew Marvell

  Sports, Running, Morning

  c.1650-1652 'To His Coy Mistress' (published 1681).

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