Vexation Quotes - Page 2

• Epicurus was in favour of friendly sex but not of grand passions or marriage and children, viewing them as sources of trouble and vexation.

  Catherine Wilson

  Sex, Children, Passion

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• To be happy is not only to be freed from the pains and diseases of the body, but from anxiety and vexation of spirit; not only to enjoy the pleasures of sense, but peace of conscience and tranquillity of mind.

  John Tillotson

  Happiness, Pain, Anxiety

  John Tillotson (1819). “The wisdom of being religious”, p.26

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• Envy is of all others the most ungratifying and disconsolate passion. There is power for ambition, pleasure for luxury, and pelf even for covetousness; but envy gets no reward but vexation.

  Jeremy Collier

  Passion, Ambition, Luxury

  Jeremy COLLIER (the Nonjuror.), J. E. (1838). “Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of “Sir William Jones's Discourses,” etc. [The editor's preface signed: J. E., i.e. James Elmes.]”, p.108

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• Every loss which we incur leaves behind it vexation in the memory, save the greatest loss of all, that is, death, which annihilates the memory, together with life.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Death, Memories, Loss

  Leonardo Da Vinci (2015). “Thoughts on Art and Life: "Behind the Genius"”, p.81, eKitap Projesi

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• Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living.

  Rachel Carson

  Nature, Contentment, Earth

  Rachel Carson (2011). “The Sense of Wonder”, p.41, Open Road Media

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• The family is an early expedient and in many ways irrational. If the race had developed a special sexless class to be nurses, pedagogues, and slaves, like the workers among ants and bees, then the family would have been unnecessary. Such a division of labor would doubtless have involved evils of its own, but it would have obviated some drags and vexations proper to the family.

  George Santayana

  Family, Race, Class

  George Santayana (1954). “The Life of Reason: Or, The Phases of Human Progress”, p.184, Prabhat Prakashan

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• Other passions have objects to flatter them, and seem to content and satisfy them for a while; there is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury, and pelf in covetousness; but envy can gain nothing but vexation.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Passion, Ambition, Luxury

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• Cast out thy Jonah--every sleeping and secure sin that brings a tempest upon thy ship, vexation to thy spirit.

  Frederic Reynolds

  Sleep, Ships, Spirit

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• We are developing new types of destitutes-the automobileless, the yachtless, the Newportcottageless. The subtlest luxuries of today reaches very high in the social scale... The end of it all is vexation of spirit.

  Walter Weyl

  Luxury, Today, Spirit

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• Alas! fond child, How are thy thoughts beguil'd To hope for honey from a nest of wasps? Thou may'st as well Go seek for ease in hell, Or sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps. The world's a hive, From whence thou canst derive No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings: But case thou meet Some petty-petty sweet, Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.

  Francis Quarles

  Sweet, Children, Soul

  Francis Quarles, Robert Wilson (A. M.) (1839). “Emblems divine and moral”, p.17

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• The disappointments of life can never, any more than its pleasures, be estimated singly; and the healthiest and most agreeable of men is exposed to that coincidence of various vexations, each heightening the effect of the other, which may produce in him something corresponding to the spontaneous and externally unaccountable moodiness of the morbid and disagreeable.

  George Eliot

  Disappointment, May, Coincidence

  George Eliot (1866). “Felix Holt: The Radical”, p.127

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• A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation.

  Jane Austen

  Disappointment, Successful, Promise

  Jane Austen (1946). “PRIDE AND PREJUDICE”, p.143, PDFreeBooks.org

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• The more we can be raised above the petty vexations and pleasures of this world into the eternal life to come, the more shall we be prepared to enter into that eternal life whenever God shall please to call us hence.

  Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

  World, Eternity, Pleasure

  Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1863). “Sermons Preached Before His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales: During His Tour in the East in the Spring of 1862 with Notices of Some of the Localities Visited”, p.95

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• Whatever doubts or vexations one has in Japan, it is only necessary to ask one's self: "Well, who are the best people to live with?

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Japan, Self, People

  Lafcadio Hearn (2008). “The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Including the Japanese Letters”, p.160, Wildside Press LLC

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• Any other vexations to report?" he asks. "I love the word 'vexations.'" "It's the 'x.' Nice to jump off a 'v' and bite into an 'x' like that." "Just the usual ones," she says. "How was the weekend?" "Vexing. Not really, I just wanted to say it. You?

  Michael Cunningham

  Nice, Weekend, Usual

  Michael Cunningham (2010). “By Nightfall: A Novel”, p.72, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• Labor is rest--from the sorrow that greet us;
  Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
  Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
  Rest from the world-sirens that hire us to ill.
  Work--and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow;
  Work--thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow;
  Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow!
  Work with a stout heart and resolute will!

  Frances Sargent Osgood

  Lying, Heart, Waiting

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• Every relation to mankind, of hate or scorn or neglect, is full of vexation and torment.

  Orville Dewey

  Hate, Neglect, Relation

  Orville Dewey (1841). “Discourses on Human Life”, p.157

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• There are principles which govern our life-they are the principles of Life. If our life is lived according to these principles all is well, and harmony reigns in place of vexation and struggle.

  Henry Thomas Hamblin

  Struggle, Principles, Reign

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• The soul, cramped among the petty vexations of Earth, needs to keep its windows constantly open to the invigorating air of large and free ideas: and what thought is so grand as that of an ever-present God, in whom all that is vital in humanity breathes and grows?

  Lucy Larcom

  Air, Ideas, Soul

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• When I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.

  Martin Luther

  Anger, Writing, Temptation

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• When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty clothes of everyday, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Home, Clothes, Space

  "The Prince". Political treatise by Niccolo Machiavelli, 1532.

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• I am worn out by the insults and vexations that this work brings down on us.

  Jean le Rond d'Alembert

  Insult, Worn, Positive Atheism

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• None but those who have learned the art of subjecting their senses as well as reason to hypothetical systems can be persuaded by the most specious rhetorician that the lots of life are equal; yet it cannot be denied that every one has his peculiar pleasures and vexations, that external accidents operate variously upon different minds, and that no man can exactly judge from his own sensations what another would feel in the same circumstances.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Men, Judging

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Hester Mulson Chapone, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1785). “The Rambler”, p.292

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• I need not print a line, nor conjure with the painter's tools to prove myself an artist ... Whilst in other spheres of labor the greater part of our life's toil and moil will of a surety end, as the wise man predicted, in vanity and vexation of spirit, here is instant physical refreshment in the work the garden entails, and, in the end, our labor will be crowned with flowers.

  J. D. Sedding

  Life, Wise, Art

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• What is essential to practice the Tao is to get rid of cravings and vexations. If these afflictions are not removed, it is impossible to attain stability. This is like the case of the fertile field, which cannot produce good crops as long as the weeds are not cleared away. Cravings and ruminations are the weeds of the mind; if you do not clear them away, concentration and wisdom do not develop.

  Zhang Sanfeng

  Weed, Practice, Long

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