Phrases Quotes - Page 15

• All serious art, music, literature is a critical act. It is so, firstly, in the sense of Matthew Arnold's phrase: "a criticism of life." Be it realistic, fantastic, Utopian or satiric, the construct of the artist is a counter-statement to the world.

  George Steiner

  Art, Criticism, Literature

  George Steiner (2010). “Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?”, p.11, Faber & Faber

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• A phrase begins life as a literary expression; its felicity leads to its lazy repetition, and repetition soon establishes it as a legal formula, undiscriminatingly used to express different and sometimes contradictory ideas.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Expression, Ideas, Lazy

  "Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 318 U.S. 54". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. February 1, 1943.

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• Seldom do we experience the charisma and character of a dynamic personality such as Lou Holtz, the very successful former football coach of Notre Dame. Lou has left his distinctive mark of success everywhere he has coached. Winning Every Day is not just a catchy phrase, but with Coach Holtz, a way of life.

  Carl Pohlad

  Football, Character, Successful

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• I write as clearly as I am able to. I sometimes tackle ideas and notions that are relatively complex, and it is very difficult to be sure that I am conveying them in the best way. Anyone who goes beyond cliche phrases and cliche ideas will have this trouble.

  R. A. Lafferty

  Writing, Ideas, Able

  "The Alien Critic" Journal, August 1973.

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• Always, in epochs when the languages and dialects of a culture have become outstripped by development of a practical sort, these languages become repetitive, formalised -- and ridiculous. Phrases, words, associations of sentences spin themselves out automatically, but have no effect: they have lost their power, their energy.

  Doris Lessing

  Dialect, Development, Association

  Doris Lessing (1979). “Shikasta: Re, Colonised Planet 5 : Personal, Psychological, Historical Documents Relating to Visit by Johor (George Sherban) Emissary (grade 9) 87th of the Period of the Last Days”

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• I’ve chosen not to challenge the rule of law, because in our system there really is no intermediate step between a Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. When the Supreme Court makes a decision, no matter how strongly one disagrees with it, one faces a choice –are we, in John Adams’ phrase, a nation of laws, or is it a contest made on raw power?

  Al Gore

  Law, Choices, Decision

  "Gore Sees No Reason to Run" by Patrick Healy, thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com. May 25, 2007.

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• If ever anybody dedicated his whole life to the "enthusiasm for truth and justice" using this phrase in the good sense it was Diderot.

  Denis Diderot

  Justice, Enthusiasm, Dedicated

  Denis Diderot (1963). “Diderot, interpreter of nature: selected writings”

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• The selective instinct of the artist tells him when his language should be homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.

  George Henry Lewes

  Artist, Use, Suggestions

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• The art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind.

  George Henry Lewes

  Art, Writing, Order

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• Continual improvement involves an appreciation that there is always a better way to do things irrespective of how much you have achieved or how comfortable you might be with where you currently are in life. As a young international rugby player I learnt a valuable lesson about sacrifice. The bottom line was the phrase 'long after the price is forgotten the quality remains'. Undertaking JOLT Challenge involves sacrifice but it is well worth it as you explore creative and innovative ways of challenging yourself for constant improvement in many areas of life.

  Nick Farr-Jones

  Appreciation, Sacrifice, Player

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• I wanted to develop a guitar style where phrases and lines get there just in the nick of time, like with Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. Subtleties mean so much, and there is a stunning beauty in them.

  Robbie Robertson

  Mean, Guitar, Style

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• Young love-making--that gossamer web! Even the points it clings to--the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung--are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of finger-tips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.

  George Eliot

  Love, Dark, Blue

  George Eliot (2006). “Middlemarch: Easyread Edition”, p.35, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls, The burial-ground God's-Acre.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Acres, Ancient, Burial

  'God's-Acre' (1841)

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• I was one of the first people to almost actually vomit over hearing the use of the phrase "family values" and I pride myself on never having fallen for the idea that Barbara Bush was sweet and grandmotherly. I met Barbara Bush and, as I expected, she was a tank with eyes, not a nice person at all and why should that blow anybody away?

  Paula Poundstone

  Sweet, Nice, Eye

  "MotherJones MA93: Hey Paula!". www.motherjones.com. March/April 1993.

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• Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate itself in empty phrases.

  Isaac Asimov

  Gratitude, Doe, Empty

  Isaac Asimov (2004). “Foundation and Empire”, p.122, Spectra

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• How truly language must be regarded as a hindrance to thought, though the necessary instrument of it, we shall clearly perceive on remembering the comparative force with which simple ideas are communicated by signs. To say, "Leave the room," is less expressive than to point to the door. Place a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, "Do not speak." A beck of the hand is better than, "Come here." No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.

  Herbert Spencer

  Eye, Simple, Doors

  Herbert Spencer (1871). “Essays: Moral, Political and Aesthetic”, p.11

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• That the religious right completely took over the word Christian is a given. At one time, phrases such as Christian charity and Christian tolerance were used to denote kindness and compassion. To perform a "Christian" act meant an act of giving, of acceptance, of toleration. Now, Christian is invariably linked to right-wing conservative political thought -- Christian nation, Christian morality, Christian values, Christian family.

  Peter McWilliams

  Christian, Religious, Freedom

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• A truce to idle phrases!

  Aristophanes

  Idle, Truce

  Aristophanes (2004). “Plutus (Sparklesoup Classics)”, p.22, Sparklesoup LLC

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• The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all.

  Theodor Adorno

  Fall, Eye, Self

  Theodor W Adorno (2005). “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture”, p.103, Routledge

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• Breathe slumbrous music round me, sweet and slow,To honied phrases set!Into the land of dreams I long to go.Bid me forget!

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

  Dream, Sweet, Land

  Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1900). “Fancy's Following”

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• [Coining the phrase "test of significance"] Critical tests of this kind may be called tests of significance, and when such tests are available we may discover whether a second sample is or is not significantly different from the first.

  Ronald Fisher

  Different, May, Tests

  "Statistical Methods for Research Workers". Book by Ronald Fisher, 1925.

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• The phrase "may you live in interesting times" is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue "may you come to the attention of those in authority" and finish with "may the gods give you everything you ask for." I have no idea about its authenticity.

  Terry Pratchett

  Ideas, Giving, Interesting

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• In fact, a very similar phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood, metal, plastic and concrete into an explosive condition, which was "nonlinear, catastrophic structural exasperation," or to put it another way--as a junior cabinet minister did on television the following night in a phrase which was to haunt the rest of his career--the check-in desk had just got "fundamentally fed up with being where it was.

  Douglas Adams

  Night, Careers, Transition

  "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul". Book by Douglas Adams, 1988.

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• My opinion is that we have, in the person of Da Free John, a Spiritual Master and religious genius of the ultimate degree. I assure you I do not mean that lightly. I am not tossing out high-powered phrases to 'hype' the works of Da Free John. I am simply offering to you my own considered opinion: Da Free John's teaching is, I believe, unsurpassed by that of any other spiritual Hero, of any period, of any place, of any time, of any persuasion.

  Ken Wilber

  Spiritual, Religious, Believe

  "Scientific Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House". Book by Da Free John, December 1, 1980.

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• i keep drinking the ink from my pen and i'm balancing history books up on my head but it all boils down to one quotable phrase if you love something give it away

  Conor Oberst

  Drinking, Book, Giving

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