Possessed Quotes - Page 21

• The fame of the rich man dies with him; the fame of the treasure, and not of the man who possessed it, remains.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Men, Treasure, Riches

  Leonardo da Vinci (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Leonardo da Vinci (Illustrated)”, p.965, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Possessed, as are all the fair daughters of Eve, of an hereditary propensity, transmitted to them undiminished through succeeding generations, to be 'soonmoved withtheslightesttouch of blame'; very little precept and practice will confirm them in the habit, and instruct them all the maxims, of self-justification.

  Maria Edgeworth

  Daughter, Self, Practice

  'An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification' (1787)

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Powerful, Believe, Writing

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.1, Routledge

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• People who have lived through a war know that as it approaches, an at first secret, unacknowledged, elation begins, as if an almost inaudible drum is beating ... an awful, illicit, violent excitement is abroad. Then the elation becomes too strong to be ignored or overlooked: then everyone is possessed by it.

  Doris Lessing

  Strong, War, People

  Doris Lessing (2013). “Prisons We Choose to Live Inside”, p.10, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• During the last quarter of a century all the authority associated with the function of spiritual guidance ... has seeped down into the lowest publications. ... Between a poem by Valéry and an advertisement for a beauty cream promising a rich marriage to anyone who used it there was at no point a breach of continuity. So as a result of literature's spiritual usurpation a beauty cream advertisement possessed, in the eyes of little village girls, the authority that was formerly attached to the words of priests.

  Simone Weil

  Girl, Spiritual, Eye

  "On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God". Book by Simone Weil. Translated by R. Rees, "Morality and literature," p. 164, 1968.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Tranquility, allied to loneliness, possessed no charms.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Loneliness, Tranquility, Charm

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1835). “Lodore, by the author of 'Frankenstein'.”, p.13

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The barbarians, who possessed no books, no secular knowledge, no education, except in the schools of the clergy, and who had scarcely acquired the rudiments of religious instruction, turned with childlike attachment to men whose minds were stored with the knowledge of Scripture, of Cicero, of St. Augustine; and in the scanty world of their ideas, the Church was felt to be something infinitely vaster, stronger, holier than their newly founded States.

  Lord Acton

  Religious, Book, School

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.29, VM eBooks

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Loving if the answering breast Seem not to be thus possessed, Still in hoping have a care; If it do, beware, beware! But if in yourself you find it, Above all things mind it, mind it!

  Arthur Hugh Clough

  Mind, Care, Breasts

  Arthur Hugh Clough (1874). “Poems: With a Memoir”, p.20

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stefan G. Bucher is a man possessed.

  Stefan G. Bucher

  Men

  4 Copy quote

• What has God given you? Moses had a stick, David had a slingshot, and Paul had a pen. Mother
  Teresa possessed a love for the poor; Billy Graham, a gift for preaching; and Joni Eareckson
  Tada, a disability. What did they have in common? A willingness to let God use whatever they
  had, even when it didn't seem very useful. If you will assess what you have to offer in terms
  of your time, your treasure, and your talents, you will have a better understanding of how you
  might uniquely serve.

  Richard Stearns

  Letting Go, Mother, Understanding

  Richard Stearns (2009). “The Hole in Our Gospel: What does God expect of Us? The Answer that Changed my Life and Might Just Change the World”, p.259, Thomas Nelson Inc

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Truly, whoever possesses little is that much less possessed: praised be a little poverty!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Littles, Poverty

  5 Copy quote

• Anyone, without any great penetration, may distinguish the dispositions consequent on wealth; for its possessors are insolent and overbearing, from being tainted in a certain way by the getting of their wealth. For they are affected as though they possessed every good; since wealth is a sort of standard of the worth of other things; whence every thing seems to be purchasable by it.

  Aristotle

  Way, May, Wealth

  Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes (1823). “Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric”, p.167

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still, And calm, and self-possessed.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Stars, Self, Calm

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1849). “The Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; Complete in One Volume”, p.9

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It will at least be a recommendation to the proposed constitution that it is provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny, and those of a nature less liable to be surmounted, than any government hitherto instituted among mortals hath possessed.

  George Washington

  Government, Constitution, Checks

  George Washington (1997). “Writings”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• You now have learned enough to see That Cats are much like you and me And other people whom we find Possessed of various types of mind. For some are sane and some are mad And some are good and some are bad And some are better, some are worse — But all may be described in verse.

  Garrison Keillor

  Cat, People, Mad

  4 Copy quote

• Apart from any other basis which might justify a superiority, education, as a power, raised him who possessed it over the weak, who lacked it, and the educated man counted in his circle, however large or small it was, as the mighty, the powerful, the imposing one: for he was an authority.

  Max Stirner

  Education, Powerful, Men

  Max Stirner (1967). “The False Principle of Our Education: Or, Humanism and Realism”, Ralph Myles Pub

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The gift of self cannot be given to us. It is an incomparable gift that has already been given. We have possessed it from the beginning.

  Gerry Spence

  Self, Given, Incomparable

  Gerry Spence (1999). “Give Me Liberty: Freeing Ourselves in the Twenty-First Century”, p.151, Macmillan

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Up to that time I never realized that I possessed any particular gift of discovery, but Lord Rayleigh, whom I always considered as an ideal man of science, had said so and if that was the case, I felt that I should concentrate on some big idea.

  Nikola Tesla

  Men, Discovery, Ideas

  Nikola Tesla (2016). “My Inventions: And Other Writings”, p.40, Courier Dover Publications

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Hitherto without being; hidden away in the womb of eternity; possessed neither of thought nor feeling; remote from the range of human ken -- the Man bursts, in some unknown manner, the bars of non-existence, and announces with a cry the beginning of his brief life. In the night of non-existence there bursts forth also a little candle, lit by an unseen hand. Mark well its flame: for it is the life of that Man.

  Leonid Andreyev

  Night, Men, Flames

  4 Copy quote

• Alas! how many souls there are full of self, and yet desirous of doing good and serving God, but in such a way as to suit themselves; who desire to impose rules upon God as to His manner of drawing them to Himself. They want to serve and possess Him, but they are not willing to be possessed by Him.

  Francois Fenelon

  Self, Drawing, Soul

  14 Copy quote

• To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?

  Henrik Ibsen

  World, Spirit, Revolt

  Henrik Ibsen (2012). “Ghosts”, p.19, Courier Corporation

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who are successfully to lead their fellow-men, should have once possessed the nobler feelings. We have all known individuals whose magnanimity was not likely to be troublesome on any occasion; but then they betrayed their own interests by unwisely omitting the consideration, that such feelings might exist in the breasts of those whom they had to guide and govern: for they themselves cannot even remember the time when in their eyes justice appeared preferable to expediency, the happiness of others to self-interest, or the welfare of a State to the advancement of a party.

  Arthur Helps

  Leadership, Party, Eye

  Sir Arthur Helps (1883). “Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others, for the knowledge of the truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.

  Maimonides

  Eye, Men, Sight

  Moses Maimonides (2016). “Guide for the perplexed”, p.1029, Moses Maimonides

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• For me, it was like this: pronounced antipathy to conversing about matters of practical life, the future, dates, politics. You are fixated on the intellectual sphere as a man possessed may be fixated on the sexual: under its spell, sucked into it.

  Walter Benjamin

  Men, Intellectual, May

  Walter Benjamin (2006). “On Hashish”, p.21, Harvard University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Money is neither god nor devil, that it should make one noble and another vile. It is an accident, and if honestly possessed, may pass from you to me, or from me to you, without a stain.

  Anthony Trollope

  Devil, Noble, May

  Anthony Trollope (2014). “Phineas Finn: The Irish Member”, p.578, Simon and Schuster

  6 Copy quote

  Show source