Limbs Quotes - Page 14

• The origin of Homo sapiens, as a tiny twig on an improbable branch of a contingent limb on a fortunate tree, lies well below the boundary.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Tree, Branches, Tiny

  "Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History".

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• To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the living banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God?

  Thomas Carlyle

  Life, Devil, Rolling

  Thomas Carlyle (2009). “Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.230, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs―the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limbs, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate―the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Children, Artist, Flames

  Vladimir Nabokov (2011). “The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated”, p.72, Vintage

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• She had lost all our memories for ever, and it was as though by dying she had robbed me of part of myself. I was losing my individuality. It was the first stage of my own death, the memories dropping off like gangrened limbs.

  Graham Greene

  Memories, Individuality, Dying

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• Very well, but remember this... I'll be looking at you when you're laid on the cross and the twelve blows are crashing down on your limbs. When the crowd is finally tired of your screams and wandered home, I will climb up through your blood and sit beside you. I will look deep into your eyes... and drop by drop I will trickle my disgust into them like burning acid until... finally... you perish.

  Patrick Süskind

  Eye, Home, Tired

  Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, www.imdb.com. 2006.

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• ...it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.

  George MacDonald

  Strong, Silly, Mean

  George Macdonald (2015). “MacDonalds’ Fairy-Tale Treasure Chest”, p.101, Simon and Schuster

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• Without you the instruments would die. One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss. The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself. Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone, that what died last night can be whole today. Why live some soberer way, and feel you ebbing out? I won't do it. Either give me enough wine or leave me alone, now that I know how it is to be with you in constant conversation.

  Rumi

  Wine, Kissing, Night

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• ...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.

  Diane Ackerman

  Children, Pain, Memories

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• I joke, but I only half joke, that if you come to one of our hospitals missing a limb, no one will believe you till they get a CAT scan, MRI, or orthopedic consult.

  Abraham Verghese

  Motivation, Believe, Inspiration

  "A doctor's touch". TED Talk, www.ted.com. July 2011.

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• If you have seen nothing but the beauty of their markings and limbs, their true beauty is hidden from you.

  Al-Mutanabbi

  Horse, True Beauty, Ifs

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• In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches.

  Paul R. Ehrlich

  Humanity, Extinction, Pushing

  Elizabeth Kolbert (2014). “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History”, p.268, A&C Black

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• Pine trees with low limbs spread over fresh snow made a stronger vault for the spirit than pews and pulpits ever could.

  Daniel Woodrell

  Snow, Tree, Stronger

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• It is eminently a weariable faculty, eminently delicate, and incapable of bearing fatigue; so that if we give it too many objects at a time to employ itself upon, or very grand ones for a long time together, it fails under the effort, becomes jaded, exactly as the limbs do by bodily fatigue, and incapable of answering any farther appeal till it has had rest.

  John Ruskin

  Time, Failure, Long

  John Ruskin (1850). “Modern Painters: pt. 4. Of many things”, p.139

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• ROMEO to BALTHASAR But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry In what I further shall intend to do, By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs: The time and my intents are savage-wild, More fierce and more inexorable far Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

  William Shakespeare

  Time, Jealous, Sea

  William Shakespeare, Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson, David Scott Kastan (1998). “The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works”, p.1037, Cengage Learning EMEA

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• Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instruments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet will it never discover any inventions more beautiful, more simple or more practical than those of nature, because in her inventions there is nothing lacking and nothing superfluous; and she makes use of no counterpoise when she constructs the limbs of animals in such a way as to correspond to the motion of their bodies, but she puts into them the soul of the body.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Beautiful, Nature, Science

  Leonardo da Vinci (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Leonardo da Vinci (Illustrated)”, p.971, Delphi Classics

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• In form and feature, face and limb, I grew so like my brother That folks got taking me for him And each for one another. For one of us was born a twin And not a soul knew which. . . .

  Henry Sambrooke Leigh

  Brother, Soul, Faces

  Henry Sambrooke Leigh (1869). “Carols of Cockayne”, p.9

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• We are here for what amounts to a few/hours,/a day at most./We feel around making sense of the terrain,/our own new limbs,/Bumping up against a herd of bodies/until one becomes home./Moments sweep past. The grass bends/then learns again to stand.

  Tracy K. Smith

  Home, Past, Body

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• When you go out on a limb, that's when you really know you're living

  Robin Quivers

  Knows

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• I had often thought that if I managed to live through the war I wouldn't expect too much of life. How could one resent disappointment in love if life itself was continuously in doubt? Since Belgorod, terror had overturned all my preconceptions, and the pace of life had been so intense one no longer knew what elements of ordinary life to abandon in order to maintain some semblance of balance. I was still unresigned to the idea of death, but I had already sworn to myself during moments of intense fear that I would exchange anything - fortune, love, even a limb - if I could simply survive.

  Guy Sajer

  Love, Disappointment, War

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• O men, grown sick with toil and care, Leave for awhile the crowded mart; O women, sinking with despair, Weary of limb and faint of heart, Forget your years to-day and come As children back to childhood's house.

  Phoebe Cary

  Children, Heart, Men

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• Not many women will go out on a limb to make themselves really unattractive and unfeminine so you can get the laughs, but it's a great thing to do in my book.

  Jo Brand

  Book, Laughing, Unattractive

  "This much I know" by John Hind, www.theguardian.com. March 11, 2007.

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• The limb that a person most needs to purify is his tongue.

  Abu Nu`aym

  Needs, Tongue, Persons

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• Some people's joints articulate in a manner that allows them to benefit greatly from squats; others may not benefit at all. If you're not too tall and have short limbs, it may be the best exercise for you, but if you're tall with long legs, it might be both ineffective and dangerous.I was stubbornly faithful to squats for years until I finally realized they were not well-suited for my body structure. After I switched tomore muscle-intensive movements, my gains in leg size were astounding.

  Dorian Yates

  Exercise, Years, Long

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• As someone who's spent time with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan on USO tours and met wounded warriors at Walter Reed and Bethesda, I feel a deep obligation to the men and women who have risked life and limb on our behalf.

  Al Franken

  Warrior, Men, Iraq

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• I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the 'monkey mind' -- the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Buddhist, Swings, Mind

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.138, Bloomsbury Publishing

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