Peculiar Quotes - Page 6

• What is peculiar in the life of a man consists not in his obedience, but his opposition, to his instincts. In one direction or another he strives to live a supernatural life.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Men, One Direction

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.61, Heron Dance Press

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• It is very difficult to be a hero without an audience, although, in a sense, we are each the hero of a peculiar, half-ruined film called our life.

  Sebastian Barry

  Hero, Half, Film

  Sebastian Barry (2008). “The Secret Scripture”, p.184, Faber & Faber

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• I find the treatment of royalty distinctly peculiar. The royal family lives in palaces heavily screened from prying eyes by fences, grounds, gates, guards, all designed to ensure the family absolute privacy. And every newspaper in London carried headlines announcing PRINCESS ANNE HAS OVARIAN CYST REMOVED. I mean you're a young girl reared in heavily guarded seclusion and every beer drinker in every pub knows the precise state of your ovaries.

  Helene Hanff

  Girl, Princess, Eye

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• As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across premieval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor - and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Cousin, Uncles, Aunt

  The Inimitable Jeeves (1923) ch. 16

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• Dream is personalized myth, myth is depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problem and solutions shown are directly valid for all mankind.

  Joseph Campbell

  Dream, Way, Problem

  "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell, New World Library, (Ch. 1), 1949.

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• The progression of physical science is much more connected with your prosperity than is usually imagined. You owe to experimental philosophy some of the most important and peculiar of your advantages. It is not by foreign conquests chiefly that you are become great, but by a conquest of nature in your own country.

  Humphry Davy

  Country, Philosophy, Science

  Humphry Davy (1840). “The Collected Works of Sir Humphry Davy (etc.)”, p.358

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• In the world's history certain inventions and discoveries occurred, of peculiar value, on account of their great efficiency in facilitating all other inventions and discoveries. Of these were the art of writing and of printing - the discovery of America, and the introduction of Patent-laws. The date of the first ... is unknown; but it certainly was as much as fifteen hundred years before the Christian era; the second-printing-came in 1436, or nearly three thousand years after the first. The others followed more rapidly - the discovery of America in 1492, and the first patent laws in 1624.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Christian, Art, Writing

  "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 3" by Abraham Lincoln, New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1953.

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• In order to translate a sentence from English into French two things are necessary. First, we must understand thoroughly the English sentence. Second, we must be familiar with the forms of expression peculiar to the French language. The situation is very similar when we attempt to express in mathematical symbols a condition proposed in words. First, we must understand thoroughly the condition. Second, we must be familiar with the forms of mathematical expression.

  George Polya

  Expression, Order, Two

  George Pólya (1957). “How to solve it: a new aspect of mathematical method”

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• To an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends -- they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant.

  Beryl Markham

  Dog, Horse, Believe

  Beryl Markham (2012). “West with the Night”, p.122, Open Road Media

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• When she had gone upstairs, he walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one's head.

  Ayn Rand

  Uplifting, Sky, Gone

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.713, Penguin

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• Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world - the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented hair from turning gray, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack.

  Charles Dickens

  Hair, Foundation, Female

  Charles Dickens, General Press (2016). “A Tale of Two Cities: A Story of the French Revolution”, p.252, GENERAL PRESS

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• I used to comfort myself with the belief that it was only certain individuals and their peculiar notions that spoilt things for the rest of us. But how many individuals does it take before it's not the individuals who are prejudiced but society itself?

  Malorie Blackman

  Comfort, Doe, Noughts And Crosses

  Malorie Blackman (2007). “Black & White”, p.367, Simon and Schuster

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• Forgive me," he went on. "For a long time I have had the peculiar habit of not arriving but appearing.

  Milan Kundera

  Long, Forgive Me, Forgiving

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• This, then, is the ultimate, that is only, consolation: simply that someone shares some of your own feelings and has made of these a work of art which you have the insight, sensitivity, and — like it or not — peculiar set of experiences to appreciate. Amazing thing to say, the consolation of horror in art is that it actually intensifies our panic, loudens it on the sounding-board of our horror-hollowed hearts, turns terror up full blast, all the while reaching for that perfect and deafening amplitude at which we may dance to the bizarre music of our own misery.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Art, Appreciate, Perfect

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• Unless there exist peculiar institutions for the support of such inquirers, or unless the Government directly interfere, the contriver of a thaumatrope may derive profit from his ingenuity, whilst he who unravels the laws of light and vision, on which multitudes of phenomena depend, shall descend unrewarded to the tomb.

  Charles Babbage

  Science, Light, Government

  Charles Babbage (1830). “Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes”, p.19

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• The business of education has lay[ed] the foundations for nurseries of wise and good men, to adapt our modes of teaching to the peculiar form of our government . . . . He must be taught to love his fellow creatures in every part of the world, but he must cherish with a more intense and peculiar affection the citizens of Pennsylvania and of the United States.

  Benjamin Rush

  Education, Wise, Teaching

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• Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

  Rohinton Mistry

  Pain, Sadness, Sorrow

  Rohinton Mistry (2008). “A Fine Balance”, p.337, Faber & Faber

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• Man is a part of the world, and his spirit is part of the spirit of the world. We are merely a peculiar mode of Being, a living atom within it, or, rather, a cell that, if sufficiently open to itself and its own mystery, can also experience the mystery, the will, the pain, and the hope of the world.

  Vaclav Havel

  Pain, Men, Cells

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• Love is just a peculiar, fleeting affair that isn't very important, but in marriage there is always hostility between two different tribes of human beings. There are two opposing forces, who fight each other until one of them wins, and you and I, my poor old Alain, have been knocked out too easily.

  Irene Nemirovsky

  Breakup, Fighting, Winning

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• A man would never get the notion of writing a book on the peculiar situation of the human male.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Book, Writing, Men

  Simone de Beauvoir (1953). “The second sex”, Vintage

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• One of the peculiar ironies of being a human self in the Cosmos: A stranger approaching you in the street will in a second's glance see you whole, size you up, place you in a way in which you cannot and never will, even though you have spent a lifetime with yourself, live in the Century of the Self, and therefore ought to know yourself best of all.

  Walker Percy

  Self, Cosmos, Way

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book”, p.8, Open Road Media

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• Whenever people are certain they understand our peculiar situation here on this planet, it is because they have accepted a religious Faith or a secular Ideology (Ideologies are the modern form of Faiths) and just stopped thinking.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Faith, Religious, Thinking

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• But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. I felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objective of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Suicide, Years, Would Be

  Susanna Kaysen (2013). “Girl, Interrupted”, p.38, Vintage

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• Much as I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, my first obligation has not been to be nice but to be true to my perhaps peculiar memories, experiences and feelings.

  Edward Said

  Hurt, Memories, Nice

  Edward W. Said (2013). “Out Of Place: A Memoir”, p.1929, Granta Books

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• Intuition is the art, peculiar to the human mind, of working out the correct answer from data that is, in itself, incomplete or even, perhaps, misleading.

  Isaac Asimov

  Art, Data, Work Out

  Isaac Asimov (1991). “Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine”

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