Pluck Quotes

• Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning.

  George Eliot

  Fighting, Winning, Coward

  George Eliot (1873). “Wit and Wisdom of George Eliot”, p.27

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• If you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

  Robertson Davies

  Happiness, Happy, Worry

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• Everything depends on whether we have for opponents those French tricksters or those daring rascals, the English. I prefer the English. Frequently their daring can only be described as stupidity. In their eyes it may be pluck and daring.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  Eye, Swag, Stupidity

  Manfred von Richthofen (2009). “The Red Baron”, p.128, BoD – Books on Demand

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• Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain

  William Shakespeare

  Memories, Brain, Mind

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 5, sc. 3, l. 37

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• Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove.

  Jeremy Bentham

  Able, Misery, Remove

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• If you have any shame, forbear to pluck the beard of a dead lion.

  Martial

  Respect, Lions, Beard

  Martial (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Martial (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

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• As though prayer could simply pluck sin out. But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

  Hannah Kent

  Prayer, Mistake, Woven

  Hannah Kent (2013). “Burial Rites”, p.73, Pan Macmillan

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• Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.

  Karl Marx

  Fashion, Flower, Moving

  "Collected Works", v. 3, " Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right" by Karl Marx, 1843.

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• The good Husbandman may pluck His rose & gather in His lily.

  Samuel Rutherford

  Rose, Lilies, May

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• I love eulogies. They are the most moving kind of speech because they attempt to pluck meaning from the fog, and on short order, when the emotions are still ragged and raw and susceptible to leaps.

  Peggy Noonan

  Love, Moving, Fog

  Peggy Noonan (1990). “What I Saw at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era”, Random House (NY)

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• Oh roses for the flush of youth, And laurel for the perfect prime; But pluck an ivy branch for me Grown old before my time.

  Christina Rossetti

  Time, Ivy, Perfect

  'Oh Roses for the Flush'

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• I find the whole concept of being 'sexy' embarrassing and confusing. If I do a photo-shoot, people desperately want to change me - dye my hair blonder, pluck my eyebrows, give me a fringe. Then there's the choice of clothes. I know everyone wants a picture of me in a mini-skirt. But that's not me.

  Emma Watson

  Sexy, Clothes, Hair

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• I have likewise made many 'skies' and effects - for I wish it could be said of me as Fuselli says of Rembrandt, 'he followed nature in her calmest abodes and could pluck a flower on every hedge - yet he was born to cast a steadfast eye on the bolder phenomena of nature'... We have had noble clouds & effects of light & dark & color.

  John Constable

  Flower, Eye, Dark

  John Constable (1968). “John Constable's Correspondence”

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• By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Beauty, Flower, Carpe Diem

  Rabindranath Tagore, Mohit Kumar Ray (2007). “Poems”, p.414, Atlantic Publishers & Dist

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• Baseball is the exponent of American Courage, Confidence, Combativeness, American Dash, Discipline, Determination, American Energy, Eagerness, Enthusiasm, American Pluck, Persistency, Performance, American Spirit, Sagacity, Success, American Vim, Vigor, Virility.

  Albert Goodwill Spalding

  Baseball, Determination, Discipline

  Albert Goodwill Spalding, Samm Coombs (1991). “America's national game: historic facts concerning the beginning evolution, development, and popularity of base ball, with personal reminiscences of its vicissitudes, its victories, and its votaries”

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• Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has the pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.

  George Eliot

  Inspirational, Success, Uplifting

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.3734, Delphi Classics

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• She had already allowed her delectable lover to pluck that flower which, so different from the rose to which it is nevertheless sometimes compared, has not the same faculty of being reborn each spring.

  Marquis de Sade

  Spring, Flower, Rose

  marquis de Sade (1963). “De Sade Quartet [four Stories from Cortes Et Fabliaux”

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• Our job is to sell our clients' merchandise... not ourselves. Our job is to kill the cleverness that makes us shine instead of the product. Our job is to simplify, to tear away the unrelated, to pluck out the weeds that are smothering the product message.

  William Bernbach

  Weed, Jobs, Shining

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• All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Flower, Garden, Mind

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• Since love first made the breast an instrument Of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart Was molten to a mirror, like a rose I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang This mirror in your sight.

  Muhammad Iqbal

  Heart, Mirrors, Sight

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• Out of this nettle - danger - we pluck this flower - safety.

  William Shakespeare

  Teacher, Appreciation, Flower

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 2, sc. 3, l. [11]

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• We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved.

  Paul Morley

  Mother, Flower, Cutting

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• A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.

  James A. Garfield

  Inspirational, Humor, Good Luck

  "President Garfield and Education: Hiram College Memorial". Book by Burke Aaron Hinsdale, 1882.

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• There are many victories worse than a defeat.

  George Eliot

  Sports, Winning, Fearless

  George Eliot (1869). “Silas Marner and Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.261

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• Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red.

  William Shakespeare

  Ocean, Blood, Hands

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 2, sc. 2, l. 61

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