Refuse Quotes - Page 38

• But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of collapsing when full blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to melt away in the sunshine of a smile.

  Agnes Repplier

  Sunshine, Self, Ugly

  Agnes Repplier (1888). “Books and Men”

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• Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.

  John Ruskin

  Passion, Sacrifice, Men

  John Ruskin (1907). “The Religion of Ruskin: The Life and Works of John Ruskin; a Biographical and Anthological Study”

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• I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence.

  Ayn Rand

  Guilt, Facts, Accepting

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.368, Hamilton Books

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• A woman's body works as if it knew something she didn't, and does not have her best interests at heart. If you need to look your best it will deliver you a pimple; if you don't want it to, your period will start early; if you want a baby badly your body refuses to give you one; if you are content in your life, lo, you are pregnant.

  Fay Weldon

  Baby, Heart, Giving

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• I suspect anyone self-satisfied enough to refuse lawful pleasures: we are not sufficiently rich in our separate resources to reject the graces of the universe when offered.

  Freya Stark

  Self, Grace, Rich

  Freya Stark (1964). “The Journey's Echo: Selections”

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• You have to realize there is nothing more you can do to convince someone you love to turn their life around. You simply have to say, "Look. I love you, but I cannot stand by and watch you kill yourself slowly. When you want help I'm here. Until then, goodbye." That may sound cruel, but self-preservation is paramount to helping someone else. If you're a wreck, you're useless to them, anyway. And if they refuse help, despite knowing the likely outcome, they will head down that path anyway.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Goodbye, Love You, Self

  Source: monsterlibrarian.com

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• The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.

  Edmund Burke

  Fate, Men, Evil

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• ... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

  George Sand

  Thinking, Misunderstood, Able

  Gustave Flaubert, George Sand (1999). “Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert & George Sand”, Harvill Press

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• Better that we should err in action than wholly refuse to perform. The storm is so much better than the calm, as it declares the presence of a living principle. Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption also.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Storm, Principles, Action

  William Gilmore Simms (1853). “Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside”, p.37

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• Smart writers never understand why their satires on our town are never successful. What they refuse to accept is that you can't satirize a satire.

  Hedda Hopper

  Smart, Successful, Hollywood

  Hedda Hopper (1952). “From under my hat”

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• When we refuse to accept our limitations, Nature, who is a stern realist, pays us out.

  Phyllis Bottome

  Pay, Realist, Accepting

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• You will do very well to refuse offices; for a man seldom fails to give offense in them. It ought to weary you simply to hear them mentioned.

  St. Catherine of Siena

  Men, Giving, Office

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• When a man loses superiority, he loses potency. That's what all this talk about castrating women is about. Castrating women are those who refuse to pretend men are better than they are and better than women are. The simple truth - that men are only equal - can undermine a culture more devastatingly than any bomb. Subversion is telling the truth.

  Marilyn French

  Simple, Men, Culture

  Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.267, Hachette UK

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• the old ploy of the powerful: never refuse when you can confuse. Distraction and delay are always better than obstruction.

  Helen McCloy

  Powerful, Delay, Distraction

  Helen McCloy (1977). “The Impostor: A Novel of Suspense”, Dodd Mead

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• The muses crown virtue when fortune refuses to do it.

  Elizabeth Montagu

  Crowns, Muse, Virtue

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• Science has salvaged scrap metal and even found vitamins and valuable oils in refuse, but old people are extravagantly wasted.

  Anzia Yezierska

  Oil, People, Age

  Anzia Yezierska (1985). “Hungry hearts and other stories”, Persea Books

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• There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.

  Hartley Shawcross, Baron Shawcross

  Leadership, Men, Answers

  "The Nuremberg Trials". Book by Ann Tusa and John Tusa, 1983.

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• people who refuse to take risks live with a feeling of dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless - only they don't know it!

  Susan Jeffers

  People, Feelings, Risk

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• Imagine a ship that is sinking and needs all the available power to run the pumps to drain out the rising waters. The first class passengers refuse to cooperate because they feel hot and want to use the air-conditioner and other electrical appliances. The second-class passengers spend all their time trying to be upgraded to first-class status. The boat sinks and the passengers all drown. That is where the present approach to climate change is leading.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Running, Air, Class

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• Why should we refuse the happiness this hour gives us, because some other hour might take it away?

  Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie

  Giving, Might, Hours

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• Guilt is one of those useless emotions I refuse to indulge.

  Rosemary Daniell

  Guilt, Useless, Emotion

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• I refuse to pronounce the names of possession and nonpossession.

  Monique Wittig

  Names, Possession

  Monique Wittig (2007). “Les Guerilleres”, p.88, University of Illinois Press

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• First tweet, best tweet, I always think. I try not to work them too much or else they get Pie Dough Disease, which is where the dough has been to too much college and doesn't understand that it is dough anymore and refuses to be shaped. Pie Dough Disease! Poems get that too.

  Patricia Lockwood

  College, Thinking, Pie

  Source: logger.believermag.com

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• Everyone has a story, the air is full of stories. The creative process is mysterious, I don't know why it is that suddenly a theme will take hold of me and refuse to leave me in peace until I investigate it and write it.

  Isabel Allende

  Writing, Air, Creative

  Interview with Marisel Mendoza, www.ventanalatina.co.uk. April 10, 2013.

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• I refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced. I'm not going to ask students and seniors and middle-class families to pay down the entire deficit while people like me, making over $250,000, aren't asked to pay a dime more in taxes.

  Barack Obama

  Senior, Class, People

  "Congress Barrels Toward Fiscal Cliff". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with Rachel Martin, www.npr.org. November 11, 2012.

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