Left Quotes - Page 29

• It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds.

  James Russell Lowell

  Reading, Thinking, Mind

  James Russell Lowell (1864). “Fireside Travels”, p.124

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• The bottom of being is left logically opaque to us, a datum in the strict sense of the word, something we simply come upon and find, and about which (if we wish to act) we should pause and wonder as little as possible. In this confession lies the lasting truth of empiricism.

  William James

  Lying, Data, Wish

  William James, Frederick Burkhardt, Fredson Bowers, Ignas K. Skrupskelis (1978). “Essays in Philosophy”, p.59, Harvard University Press

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• Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency, especially when it regards religion or party. In either of these cases, though a man perhaps does but his duty in changing his side, he not only makes himself hated by those he left, but is seldom heartily esteemed by those he comes over to.

  Joseph Addison

  Real, Party, Eye

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1854). “The Spectator”, p.30

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• England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God save the King than of stealing from a poor box.

  George Orwell

  Country, Horse, Kings

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.275, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Women have an extraordinary ability to withdraw from the sexual relationship, to immunize themselves against it, in such a way that their men can be left feeling let down and insulted without having anything tangible to complain of.

  Doris Lessing

  Men, Feelings, Complaining

  Doris Lessing (1973). “The Grass is Singing”, p.66, Heinemann

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• I believe that God is the Great Companion, that we are not left orphans, that we may have comradeship with him.

  Lyman Abbott

  Believe, May, Orphan

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• What's to become of the morally sound? Left out in the cold, I suppose. We must heal the sick.

  Henrik Ibsen

  Sick, Sound, Cold

  "A Doll's House". Play by Henrik Ibsen, Dr. Rank, Act I, 1879.

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• Humans turn the places they live into great crowded piles of mud and stone, like the nests termites build--but what happens when in all the world there are termite hills left but no bush?

  Tad Williams

  Cities, World, Nests

  Tad Williams (1998). “Otherland: City of Golden Shadow”, p.88, Penguin

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• When Christ was about to leave the world, He made His will. His soul He committed to His father; His body He bequeathed to Joseph to be decently interred; His clothes fell to the soldiers; His mother He left to the care of John; but what should He leave to His poor disciples that had left all for Him? Silver and gold He had none; but He left them that which was infinitely better, His peace.

  Matthew Henry

  Mother, Peace, Father

  Matthew Henry (2016). “Bible commentary - Gospel of John”, p.850, Bible Study Books

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• It's about the girlfriend who left me last year. I tried to put all my anger in those words, even though I'm just as much to blame for the break-up. 'Soma' is based on the idea that a love relationship is almost the same as opium: it slowly puts you to sleep, it soothes you, and gives you the illusion of sureness and security. Very deceivable.

  Billy Corgan

  Girlfriend, Sleep, Ideas

  "Smashing Pumpkins". Oor Magazine, June 10, 1993.

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• Deceiving world, that with alluring toysHast made my life the subject of thy scorn,And scornest now to lend thy fading joys,T'outlength my life, whom friends have left forlorn;How well are they that die ere they be born,And never see thy sleights, which few men shunTill unawares they helpless are undone!

  Robert Greene

  Men, Joy, Fading

  Robert Greene (1977). “The poetry of Robert Greene”

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• "How does one conquer fear, Don B.?"
  "One takes a frog and sews it to one's shoe," he said.
  "The left or the right?"
  Don B. gave me a pitying look.
  "Well, you'd look mighty funny going down the street with only one frog sewed to your shoes, wouldn't you?" he said. "One frog on each shoe."

  Donald Barthelme

  Shoes, Doe, Looks

  "The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme". Book by Donald Barthelme, 1992.

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• He that is to govern a whole Nation , must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Mankind; which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet, when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be only to consider, if he also find not the same in himself. For this kind of Doctrine, admitteth no other Demonstration.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Pain, Reading, Men

  Thomas Hobbes (2010). “Leviathan - Revised Edition”, p.39, Broadview Press

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• The best thing about the sciences is their philosophical ingredient, like life for an organic body. If one dephilosophizes the sciences, what remains left? Earth, air, and water.

  Novalis

  Philosophical, Air, Water

  "Pollen and Fragments". Book by Novalis. Fragment No. 62, 1798.

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• Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields, See how these names are fêted in the waving grass And by the streamers of the white cloud And whispers of the wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

  Stephen Spender

  Heart, Air, Wind

  'I think continually of those who were truly great' (1933)

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• There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives ... their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them.... Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die.

  Charles Bukowski

  Death, Country, Flower

  "The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors have taken over the Ship". Book by Charles Bukowski, 1998.

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• When the head of a goat is severed from its body, the trunk struggles for some time, still showing signs of life. Similarly, though ahamkara (egotism) is slain in the perfect man, yet enough of its vitality is left to make him carry on the functions of physical life; but it is not sufficient to bind him again into the world.

  Ramakrishna

  Struggle, Men, Perfect

  Ramakrishna (1965). “Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna: the most exhaustive collection of them, their number being 1120”

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• No more painters, no more scribblers, no more musicians, no more sculptors, no more religions, no more royalists, no more radicals, no more imperialists, no more anarchists, no more socialists, no more communists, no more proletariat, no more democrats, no more republicans, no more bourgeois, no more aristocrats, no more arms, no more police, no more nations, an end at last to all this stupidity, nothing left, nothing at all, nothing, nothing.

  Louis Aragon

  Stupidity, Police, Musician

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• On the left is the realist tradition of the 19th century, with its impulse to social description, radical criticism and meditation on things as they are... culminating in Courbet at his mightiest (The Studio, The Funeral at Ornans and a portrait of a trout that has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion).

  Gustave Courbet

  Funeral, Meditation, Criticism

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• I'm so glad Courtney Love is here; I left my crack in my other purse.

  Sarah Silverman

  Funny, Humor, Love Is

  "A Comic Sweet as Punch". www.washingtonpost.com. November 18, 2005.

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• When the storm is over and night falls and the moon is out in all its glory and all you're left with is the rhythm of the sea, of the waves, you know what God intended for the human race, you know what paradise is.

  Harold Pinter

  Fall, Moon, Night

  Harold Pinter (1993). “Party Time ; And, The New World Order: Two Plays”, p.27, Grove Press

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• The English mind is intelligent rather than intellectual. The French are intellectual in the sense that the intellect is emancipated and left free to run its own course.

  Ralph Barton Perry

  Running, Intelligent, Intellectual

  Ralph Barton Perry (1918). “The Present Conflict of Ideals: A Study of the Philosophical Background of the World War”

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• Canada is one of the few places left where the small decencies are observed. If, as a young man, I was scornful of the country because we always seemed so far behind style-setting New York, I now thank God for the cultural lag. Ours, after all, is the good neighbourhood. A society well worth preserving.

  Mordecai Richler

  Country, New York, Men

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• A friend of mine said to me a year ago, "You're so lucky, Nancy, because Ronnie left you the library," She said, "You have that to work on, and to go to, and, in a sense, to be with him." I had never thought of it like that, but it's true. I go to the library or work for the library all the time, because it's Ronnie. I'm working for Ronnie.

  Nancy Reagan

  Years, Library, Lucky

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• Though I have usually posed as a Catholic, I have not done my duty for 15 years, and have not the slightest tincture of faith left.

  James Connolly

  Years, Catholic, Done

  James Connolly's letter to John Carstairs Matheson (January 30, 1908), as quoted in "The Connolly & religion debate" by Niall Mulholland in "Socialism Today", No. 103, www.socialismtoday.org. September 2006.

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