Vexation Quotes - Page 3

• 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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Keep your mouth shut, and close up the doors of sight and sound, and as long as you live you will have no vexation. But open your mouth, or become inquisitive, and you will be in trouble all your life long.

  Laozi

  Sight, Doors, Long

  Laozi (1905). “The Simple Way”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Headwinds are sore vexations and the more passengers the sorer.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sailing, Nautical, Passengers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1910). “Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson: with annotations”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us; from all the petty vexations that meet us; from the sin-promptings that assail us; from the world-sirens that lure us to ill

  Frances Sargent Osgood

  Sorrow, World, Sirens

  4 Copy quote

• Vexation of spirit is a waste of time Negative thinking, don't you waste your thoughts Verbal conflict is a waste of word Physical conflict is a waste of flesh People will always be who they want And that's what really makes the world go round Unconditional love is scarce.

  Damian Marley

  Unconditional Love, Love Is, Thinking

  Song: There For You, Album: Welcome to Jamrock, 2005

  145 Copy quote

  Show source

• As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Character, School, People

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1963). “Goethe's world view: presented in his reflections and maxims”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury...but envy can gain nothing but vexation.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Gratitude, Ambition, Luxury

  4 Copy quote

• A sacrament by virtue of which each imparts nothing but vexations to the other.

  Honore de Balzac

  Marriage, Virtue, Impart

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  11 Copy quote

• In recognizing that words have power to define and to compel, the semanticists are actually testifying to the philosophic quality of language which is the source of their vexation. In an attempt to get rid of that quality, they are looking for some neutral means which will be a nonconductor of the current called "emotion" and its concomitant of evaluation.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Mean, Quality, Evaluation

  Richard M. Weaver (2013). “Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition”, p.138, University of Chicago Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Despondency is not a state of humility; on the contrary, it is the vexation and despair of a cowardly pride--nothing is worse; whether we stumble or whether we fall, we must only think of rising again and going on in our course.

  Francois Fenelon

  Fall, Humility, Pride

  5 Copy quote

• Do not quarrel ... with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with.

  William Henry Drummond

  Worry, Soul, Complaining

  4 Copy quote

• Gloom and sadness are poison to us, and the origin of hysterics. You are right in thinking that this disease is in the imagination; you have defined it perfectly; it is vexation which causes it to spring up, and fear that supports it.

  Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sevigne

  Spring, Sadness, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• However you must have sensed a lurking 'but' skulking beneath my happy, blithe, and chipper exterior. A minuscule vexation, like the teeniest lump of raw liver sticking to the inside of my boot.

  Neil Gaiman

  Boots, Blithe, Exterior

  6 Copy quote

• Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Eye, Piercings, Letters

  7 Copy quote

• Pride dries the tears of anger and vexation; humility, those of grief. The one is indignant that we should suffer; the other calms us by the reminder that we deserve nothing else.

  Sophie Swetchine

  Grief, Humility, Pride

  5 Copy quote

• The artist's personality must be left in his dressing-room; his soul must be denuded of its own sensations and clothed with the base or noble qualities he is called upon to exhibit.... [he] must leave behind him the cares and vexations of life, throw aside his personality for several hours, and move in the dream of another life, forgetting everything.

  Sarah Bernhardt

  Dream, Moving, Artist

  26 Copy quote

• For all-around, everyday, all-season wear, farmers can't be beat. They are inclined to chafe under the burden of leisure (a minor vexation on the farm), but they thrive on neglect and adversity.

  Patricia Penton Leimbach

  Adversity, Everyday, Leisure

  Patricia Penton Leimbach (1987). “All my meadows”, Harpercollins

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was needless, after this, to say that all was vanity and vexation of spirit; for it is impossible to derive happiness from the company of those whom we deprive of happiness.

  Thomas Paine

  Vanity, Spirit, Impossible

  Thomas Paine (1995). “Collected Writings”, p.771, Library of America

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let pessimism once take hold of the mind, and life is all topsy-turvy, all vanity and vexation of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social disorder, except in forgetfulness and annihilation.

  Helen Keller

  Vanity, Mind, Spirit

  Helen Keller (2010). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.102, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is nothing so insupportable to man as to be in entire repose, without passion, occupation, amusement, or application. Then it is that he feels his own nothingness, isolation, insignificance, dependent nature, powerless, emptiness. Immediately there issue from his soul ennui, sadness, chagrin, vexation, despair.

  Blaise Pascal

  Sadness, Passion, Men

  26 Copy quote

• Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.

  Blaise Pascal

  Passion, Heart, Sadness

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pascal's Pensees”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• My friends are much more dangerous than my enemies. These latter - with infinite subtlety - spin webs to keep me out of places where I hate to go, - and tell stories of me to people whom it would be vanity and vexation to meet; - and they help me so much by their unconscious aid that I almost love them.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Hate, Vanity, People

  Lafcadio Hearn (2008). “The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Including the Japanese Letters”, p.147, Wildside Press LLC

  4 Copy quote

  Show source