Seeking Quotes - Page 26

• The recovery of freedom is so splendid a thing that we must not shun even death when seeking to recover it.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Freedom, Recovery, Splendid

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1856). “Select Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero”, p.439

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• I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull; and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.

  James Weldon Johnson

  Spring, Fighting, Law

  James Weldon Johnson, “Brothers”

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• When panting sighs the bosom fill,
  And hands by chance united thrill
  At once with one delicious pain
  The pulses and the nerves of twain;
  When eyes that erst could meet with ease,
  Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun
  Ecstatic conscious unison, -
  The sure beginnings, say, be these
  Prelusive to the strain of love
  Which angels sing in heaven above?

  Arthur Hugh Clough

  Pain, Angel, Eye

  "Love and Reason". Poem by Arthur Hugh Clough, 1844.

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• We study the glory of God, and the honour and liberty of parliament, for which we unanimously fight, without seeking our own interests... I profess I could never satisfy myself on the justness of this war, but from the authority of the parliament to maintain itself in its rights; and in this cause I hope to prove myself an honest man and single-hearted.

  Oliver Cromwell

  War, Fighting, Men

  Oliver Cromwell (18??). “Oliver Cromwell's letters & speeches: with elucidations”

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• Moral crusade: Public activity undertaken by middle-aged men who are cheating on their wives or diddling little boys. Moral crusades are particularly popular among those seeking power for their own personal pleasure, politicians who can't think of anything useful to do with their mandates, and religious professionals suffering from a personal inability to communicate with their god.

  John Ralston Saul

  Cheating, Religious, Boys

  "The Doubter's Companion". Book by John Ralston Saul, 1994.

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• Elderly people are like heat-seeking missiles for people who really have an interest in listening.

  Robert M. Edsel

  Elderly, People, Listening

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• I am not seeking anything but service to my creator. I do not need a house, I do not need a car, I do not need any of that, but to be present with each guest that sits across from me, and I am committed to a bigger thing than me, which is the vision of own, because own is going to outlive all of us.

  Iyanla Vanzant

  Car, House, Vision

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• What is creative is the seeking of perfection - and not attaining it.

  Semir Zeki

  Perfection, Creative

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• I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose.
  We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.

  Mario Cuomo

  Believe, Catholic, Atheism

  "Religious Belief and Public Morality: A Catholic Governor's Perspective". John A. O'Brien Lecture in the University of Notre Dame's Department of Theology, archives.nd.edu. September 13, 1984.

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• What's true for us as individual humans is true for the civilization we create:
  a sprint culture, seeking ever greater speed and power in all things cannot endure.

  Ed Ayres

  Civilization, Culture, Speed

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• Mexican police will round up illegal American migrants surging into Mexico seeking work as field hands.

  Michael Oppenheimer

  Hands, Mexican, Police

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• The peace that we are looking for is not peace that crumbles as soon as there is difficulty or chaos. Whether we’re seeking inner peace or global peace or a combination of the two, the way to experience it is to build on the foundation of unconditional openness to all that arises. Peace isn’t an experience free of challenges, free of rough and smooth, it’s an experience that’s expansive enough to include all that arises without feeling threatened.

  Pema Chodron

  Two, Challenges, Inner Peace

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• Seeking those elusive individuals is like mining for rare gems. It will take hard work, patience, and a persistent attitude. To find that rich seam of colourful stones, you will have to chip through dirt and rock. You will have to learn how to hold rubble in your hands and see the fortune inside.

  Chris Murray

  Attitude, Hard Work, Rocks

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• The truly apocalyptic view of the world is that things do not repeat themselves. It isn't absurd, e.g., to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity; that the idea of great progress is delusion, along with the idea that the truth will ultimately be known; that there is nothing good or desirable about scientific knowledge and that mankind, in seeking it, is falling into a trap. It is by no means obvious that this is not how things are.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Believe, Fall, Mean

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• Where love exists with self-respect and joy, where a fine environment is provided for the child, where the parents live under conditions that neither stunt the imagination nor let it run to uncontrolled fantasy, there you have the family that modern men are seeking to create.

  Walter Lippmann

  Running, Children, Men

  Walter Lippmann, Julien C. Sprott (2015). “Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest”, p.143, University of Wisconsin Pres

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• Now we will no longer concede so easily that anyone has the truth; the rigorous methods of inquiry have spread sufficient distrust and caution, so that we experience every man who represents opinions violently in word and deed as any enemy of our present culture, or at least as a backward person. And in fact, the fervor about having the truth counts very little today in relation to that other fervor, more gentle and silent, to be sure, for seeking the truth, a search that does not tire of learning afresh and testing anew.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Enemy, Culture

  "Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits". Book by Friedrich Nietzsche, transl. by Helen Zimmern, Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself"/ aphorism 633, 1909-1913.

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• In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational (blood and sex).

  Cesare Pavese

  Art, Strong, Sex

  Cesare Pavese (2017). “This Business of Living: Diaries 1935-1950”, p.286, Routledge

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• Sacred love is selfless, seeking not its own. The lover serves his beloved and seeks perfect communion of oneness with her.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Love, Oneness, Perfect

  D. H. Lawrence, Michael Herbert (1988). “Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays”, p.9, Cambridge University Press

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• A village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to conquer the earth. Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicated to the sayings of Confucius.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Country, Pain, Ignorance

  "Main Street". Book by Sinclair Lewis, 1920.

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• There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,Can circumvent or hinder or controlThe firm resolve of a determined soul.Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;All things give way before it soon or late.What obstacle can stay the mighty forceOf the sea seeking river in its course,Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Fate, Destiny, Sea

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2012). “Leafs On An Idle Breeze - My Inspirational Poems (Annotated Edition)”, p.497, Jazzybee Verlag

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• In the Gospels, for instance, we sometimes find the kingdom of heaven illustrated by principles drawn from observation of this world rather than from an ideal conception of justice; ... They remind us that the God we are seeking is present and active, that he is the living God; they are doubtless necessary if we are to keep religion from passing into a mere idealism and God into the vanishing point of our thought and endeavour.

  George Santayana

  Justice, Heaven, World

  "Interpretations of Poetry and Religion" by George Santayana, (p. 54), 1900.

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• If you are seeking the right path, you are already on the right path.

  Yehuda Berg

  Path, Right Path, Ifs

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• All pleasure is a vice, for seeking pleasure is what everybody does in life, and the only dark vice is doing what everybody does.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Dark, Vices, Doe

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p. 265, 1982.

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• I like to inquire into everything. Hercule Poirot is a good dog. The good dog follows the scent, and if, regrettably, there is no scent to follow, he noses around - seeking always something that is not very nice.

  Agatha Christie

  Dog, Nice, Noses

  Agatha Christie (1986). “5 Complete Novels of Murder and Detection”, Wings

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• President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.

  William Safire

  Empathy, President, Politician

  1990 LanguageMaven Strikes Again.

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