Tales Quotes - Page 26

• If history is deprived of the Truth, we are left with nothing but an idle, unprofitable tale.

  Polybius

  Idle, Left, Ifs

  Polybius (2003). “The Rise of the Roman Empire”, p.25, Penguin UK

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• The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself.

  Augustus

  Voice, Long, Humans

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• Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Civilization, Effort, Tragedy

  "Henry Kissinger and the American Approach to Foreign Policy". Book by Gregory D. Cleva, 1989.

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• It's only in fairy tales that princesses can afford to wait for the handsome prince to save them. In real life, they have to bust out of their own coffins and do the saving themselves.

  Meg Cabot

  Real, Princess, Waiting

  Meg Cabot (2013). “The Abandon Trilogy: Abandon, Underworld and Awaken”, p.58, Pan Macmillan

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• Yule—Yul log for the Christmas-fire tale-spinner—of fairy tales that can come true: Yul Brynner.

  Marianne Moore

  Christmas, Fire, Yule

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.228, Penguin

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• The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Love, Beautiful, Hero

  Leo Tolstoy (2012). “Collected Shorter Fiction, vol. 1”, p.210, Everyman's Library

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• It [the Earth] was breathtakingly beautiful, like something out of a fairy tale. There is no way to describe the joy of seeing the Earth. It is blue, and more beautiful than any other planet.

  Valentina Tereshkova

  Beautiful, Blue, Joy

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• Fantasy is, at its best, the purest access to storytelling that we have. It universalizes a tale, it evokes wonder and timeless narrative power, it touches upon inner journeys, it illuminates our collective and individual pasts, throws a focus beam on the present day, and presages the dangers and promises of the future.

  Guy Gavriel Kay

  Past, Journey, Focus

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• Only in imaginary experience (in the folk tale, for example), which neutralizes the sense of social realities, does the social world take the form of a universe of possibles equally possible for any possible subject.

  Pierre Bourdieu

  Reality, Example, Doe

  Pierre Bourdieu (1990). “The Logic of Practice”, p.64, Stanford University Press

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• The dead have need of fairy tales too.

  Zbigniew Herbert

  Needs, Fairy Tale, Fairy

  Zbigniew Herbert (2014). “The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998”, p.47, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams - day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing - are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.

  L. Frank Baum

  Dream, Children, Believe

  "The Lost Princess of Oz". Book by L. Frank Baum, 1917.

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• Then what shall I write? I can't just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I'll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.

  David Almond

  Book, Writing, Cat

  David Almond (2013). “My Name is Mina”, p.7, Hachette UK

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• THE NAME OF THE WIND marks the debut of a writer we would all do well to watch. Patrick Rothfuss has real talent, and his tale of Kvothe is deep and intricate and wondrous.

  Terry Brooks

  Real, Wind, Names

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• Ever since ROME, OPEN CITY, I have maintained a conscious, determined endeavor to try to understand the world in which I live, in a spirit of humility and respect for the facts and for history. What as the meaning of ROME, OPEN CITY? We were emerging from the tragedy of the war. We had all taken part in it, for we were all its victims. I sought only to picture the essence of things. I had absolutely no interest in telling a romanticized tale along the usual lives of film drama. The actual facts were each more dramatic than any screen cliche.

  Roberto Rossellini

  War, Drama, Taken

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• Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul. With a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal. Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale they say. He was made of snow but the children know how he came to life one day.

  Jack Nelson

  Christmas, Children, Eye

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• People have been modeling their lives after films for years, but the medium is somehow unsuited to moral lessons, cautionary tales or polemics of any kind.

  Renata Adler

  Kindness, Years, People

  Renata Adler (2015). “After the Tall Timber: Collected Nonfiction”, p.258, New York Review of Books

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• Books are the building blocks of civilization and a people without books are a people without history, a people with no story older than the tales of the oldest man or woman.

  Louis L'Amour

  Block, Book, Men

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• Life is a fairy tale. Live it with wonder and amazement.

  Welwyn Wilton Katz

  Inspirational, Meaning Of Life, Fairy Tale

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• Who would have listened to his tales of woe when his love was the flickering lamp over his own decaying tomb?

  Faraaz Kazi

  Love, Lamps, Woe

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• Evolution is a fairy tale for adults

  Paul Lemoine

  Adults, Fairy Tale, Evolution

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• The 'medical examination' to which abductees are said to be subjected, often accompanied by sadistic sexual manipulation, is reminiscient of the medieval tales of encounters with demons. It makes no sense in a sophisticated or technical framework: any intelligent being equipped with the scientific marvels that UFOs possess would be in a position to achieve any of these alleged scientific objectives in a shorter time and with fewer risks.

  Jacques Vallee

  Intelligent, Risk, Encounters

  "Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact". Book by Jacques Vallee, 1990.

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• I was born to catch dragons in their dens
  And pick flowers
  To tell tales and laugh away the morning
  To drift and dream like a lazy stream
  And walk barefoot across sunshine days.

  James Kavanaugh

  Dream, Morning, Flower

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• An Islamic writer recalls her joy in the clothes she wore as a young girl at a wedding: They were always in beautiful bright colors: crimson, pink, turquoise, purple, and embroidered with sparkling crystals, sequins and beads. ... The older girls and women would wear glamorous heavily-beaded silk blouses and long, princess-like skirts. I wanted to wear those fairy-tale clothes too. I longed even more to wear a sari which the women wore so elegantly and which flattered their curves.

  Shelina Zahra Janmohamed

  Beautiful, Girl, Fashion

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• Brendan O’Meara’s Six Weeks in Saratoga is a victory to be savored by those who treasure good writing in general and tales of the track in particular. Horses may win races, but they also win hearts as this impressive book proves beyond doubt. A memorable, sure-footed debut.

  Madeleine Blais

  Horse, Book, Memorable

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• A vivid tale of exploration set in a howling, deadly wilderness.

  T. J. Stiles

  Vivid, Wilderness, Exploration

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