Succession Quotes - Page 5

• It is not the repeated mistakes, the long succession of petty betrayals--though, God knows, they would give cause enough for anxiety and self-contempt--but the huge elementary mistake, the betrayal of that within me which is greater than I--in complacent adjustment to alien demands.

  Dag Hammarskjold

  Betrayal, Mistake, Self

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• A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible.

  Abigail Adams

  Country, People, Liberty

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• The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in nature, in society, in man himself.

  Leon Trotsky

  Nature, Taken, Men

  Leon Trotsky (1980). “The History of the Russian Revolution”, Anchor Foundation

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• What a wonderful song, she thought-everything was wonderful tonight, most of all this romantic scene in the den with their hands clinging and the inevitable looming charmingly close. The future vista of her life seemed an unending succession of scenes like this: under moonlight and pale starlight, and in the backs of warm limousines and in low cosy roadsters stopped under sheltering trees-only the boy might change, and this one was so nice.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Song, Nice, Boys

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works”, p.159, e-artnow

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• Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass!

  Milan Kundera

  Running, Children, Nice

  "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Book by Milan Kundera, 1984.

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• The secrets of evolution are death and time-the deaths of enormous numbers of lifeforms that were imperfectly adapted to the environment; and time for a long succession of small mutations.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Numbers, Long

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.49, Ballantine Books

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• The history of any nation is not only a succession of events, but also a chain of ideas.

  Pyotr Chaadayev

  Freedom, Ideas, Democracy

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• I have devoted my whole life to the study of Nature, and yet a single sentence may express all that I have done. I have shown that there is a correspondence between the succession of Fishes in geological times and the different stages of their growth in the egg,-this is all. It chanced to be a result that was found to apply to other groups and has led to other conclusions of a like nature.

  Louis Agassiz

  Nature, Science, Eggs

  Louis Agassiz (2003). “Agassiz on Evolution: Methods of study in natural history”

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• Evolution on the large scale unfolds, like much of human history, as a succession of dynasties.

  Edmund Beecher Wilson

  Science, History, Dynasty

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• The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen-this again offers contradiction to constant succession of germs in progress.

  Charles Darwin

  Science, Tree, Progress

  Charles Darwin, Thomas F. Glick, David Kohn (1996). “On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection”, p.54, Hackett Publishing

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• Routine shortens and variety lengthens time, and it is therefore in the power of men to do something to regulate its pace. A life with many landmarks, a life which is much subdivided when those subdivisions are not of the same kind, and when new and diverse interests, impressions, and labours follow each other in swift and distinct successions, seems the most long.

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky

  Happiness, Men, Long

  William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1909). “The Map of Life”

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• In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.

  Simon Schama

  Illumination, History, Narrators

  Simon Schama (2000). “A History of Britain: At the edge of the world? 3000 BC-AD 1603”, Miramax

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• There is a cropping-time in the races of men, as in the fruits of the field; and sometimes, if the stock be good, there springs up for a time a succession of splendid men; and then comes a period of barrenness.

  Aristotle

  Life, Spring, Men

  "Rhetoric", II. 15. Par, III in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (pp. 440-455), 1922.

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• Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

  George Eliot

  Life, Change, Influence

  George Eliot (2016). “Complete Works Of George Eliot”, p.2578, ShandonPress

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• Life is habit. Or rather life is a succession of habits.

  Samuel Beckett

  Life Is, Habit

  Samuel Beckett, Georges Duthuit (1965). “Proust”, Riverrun Press

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• ...and the red sun of desire and decision (the two things that create a live world) rose higher and higher, while upon a succession of balconies a succession of libertines, sparkling glass in hand, toasted the bliss of past and future nights.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Past, Night, Glasses

  Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.38, Hamilton Books

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• It's a cyclical thing. When they make one, everyone loves them. Different genres come around in succession. People always welcome the western. It's America's genre.

  Robert Duvall

  America, People, Different

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• Life is a succession of lessons enforced by immediate reward, or, oftener, by immediate chastisement.

  Ernest Dimnet

  Life, Lessons, Rewards

  Ernest Dimnet (1954). “The Art of Thinking”, p.49, Prabhat Prakashan

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• For some people, there is no succession plan. They just leave, and there's no getting over it.

  Hugh Hefner

  People, Plans, Over It

  "The House of Hugh Hefner" by Chris Jones, www.esquire.com. September 28, 2017.

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• We have a priori reasons for believing that in every sentence there is some one order of words more effective than any other; and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.

  Herbert Spencer

  Believe, Order, Together

  Herbert Spencer (1858). “Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative”, p.234

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• Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make a property of it; it is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  People, Absurd, Sovereignty

  "Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts" collected and published by Cte. A. G. de Liancourt; edited by James Alexander Manning, (p. 246), 1848.

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• The history of creation is but a succession of battles between amateurs of genius-inspired heretics- and orthodox professionals.

  Jacques Barzun

  Battle, Genius, Inspired

  Jacques Barzun (1984). “Critical Questions: On Music and Letters, Culture and Biography, 1940-1980”, p.35, University of Chicago Press

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• Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to another, in regular succession, dashes our joy.

  Plutarch

  Men, Thinking, Reflection

  Plutarch (2012). “Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Complete”, p.371, Simon and Schuster

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• The monotony of a long heroic poem may often be pleasantly relieved by judicious interruptions in the perfect successions of rhymes, just as the metre may sometimes be adorned with occasional triplets and Alexandrines.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Often Is, Long, Perfect

  H.P. Lovecraft, Digital Papyrus (2014). “H.P. Lovecraft: The Ultimate Collection (160 Works Including Early Writings, Fiction, Collaborations, Poetry, Essays & Bonus Audiobook Links)”, p.1651, eBookIt.com

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• It has been observed before that images, however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately represented in words, do not of themselves characterize the poet. They become proofs of original genius only as far as they are modified by a predominant passion; or by associated thoughts or images awakened by that passion; or when they have the effect of reducing multitude to unity, or succession to an instant; or lastly, when a human and intellectual life is transferred to them from the poet's spirit.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Beautiful, Passion, Unity

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1834). “Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions”, p.183, Classic Books Company

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