Wavering Quotes - Page 3

• Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

  William Shakespeare

  Play, Rumor, Monsters

  'Henry IV, Part 2' (1597) induction, l. 15

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• Any weapon touched by a woman, even by accident, must be cleansed with both water and prayer so that her essence would not linger, diverting the warrior who might use it next, for even the faintest touch could bring lust to that man's heart. Perhaps that meant a woman who was well trained in arms would be the superior warrior, her attention never wavering from her task.

  Alice Hoffman

  Prayer, Heart, Warrior

  Alice Hoffman (2011). “The Dovekeepers: A Novel”, p.235, Simon and Schuster

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• Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.

  Maya Angelou

  Life, Growing Up, Years

  Maya Angelou (2009). “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”, p.267, Random House

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• It is when we try to grapple with another man's intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun. It is as if loneliness were a hard and absolute condition of existence; the envelope of flesh and blood on which our eyes are fixed melts before the outstretched hand, and there remains only the capricious, unconsolable and elusive spirit that no eye can follow, no hand can grasp.

  Joseph Conrad

  Stars, Loneliness, Eye

  Joseph Conrad (1905). “Lord Jim”, p.167, McClure, Phillips & Company

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• I am alone in the world, and yet not alone enough to make each hour holy. I am lowly in this world, and yet not lowly enough for me to be just a thing to you, dark and shrewd. I want my will and I want to go with my will as it moves towards action. And I want, in those silent, somehow faltering times, to be with someone who knows, or else alone. I want to reflect everything about you, and I never want to be too blind or too ancient to keep your profound wavering image with me. I want to unfold. I don't want to be folded anywhere, because there, where I'm folded, I am a lie.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Lying, Moving, Dark

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• They will be like shadows, they will be like wraiths, gray members of a congregation of nightmare; hark! his long wavering howl . . . an aria of fear made audible. The wolfsong is the sound of the rending you will suffer, in itself a murdering.

  Angela Carter

  Long, Suffering, Shadow

  Angela Carter (1997). “Burning your boats: the collected short stories”, Penguin Group USA

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• The vestibule door opens onto a June morning so fine and scrubbed Classira pauses at the threshold as she would at the edge of a pool, watching the turquoise water lapping at the tiles, the liquid nets of sun wavering in the blue depths. As if standing at the edge of a pool she delays for a moment the plunge, the quick membrane of chill, the plain shock of immersion.

  Michael Cunningham

  Morning, June, Blue

  Michael Cunningham (1998). “The Hours: A Novel”, p.9, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

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• It was a standard fantasy when you fell in love to imagine you could go back in time and find your beloved growing up, appear there, save him or her, get together as adolescents, by magic, and go on together, fighting for one another, into old age, never wavering.

  Norman Rush

  Growing Up, Fighting, Magic

  Norman Rush (2013). “Subtle Bodies”, p.11, Granta Books

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• See, they return; ah, see the tentative Movements, and the slow feet, The trouble in the pace and the uncertain Wavering! See, they return, one, and by one, With fear, as half-awakened; As if the snow should hesitate And murmur in the wind, and half turn back.

  Ezra Pound

  Fear, Wind, Feet

  Ezra Pound (1957). “Selected Poems”, p.24, New Directions Publishing

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• Sometimes at night I think that my husband is with me again, coming gently through the mists, and we are tranquil together. Then the morning comes, the wavering grey turns to gold, there is stirring within me as the sleepers awake, and he softly departs.

  Kamala Markandaya

  Morning, Husband, Night

  Kamala Markandaya (1954). “Nectar in a Sieve: A Novel”

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• Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mean, Men, Light

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.480

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• People never hurt others in moments of personal strength and bravery, when they are feeling good about themselves, when they are strong and confident. If we spent all of our waking moments in that place, then fighting for social justice would be redundant; we would simply have social justice and be done with it, and we could all go swimming, or fishing, or bowling, or dancing, or whatever people do. But it is because we spend so much of our time in that other place, that place of diminished capacity, of flagging energy, or wavering and somewhat flaccid commitment, that we have to be careful.

  Tim Wise

  Strong, Hurt, Commitment

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• Theology, I am persuaded, derives its initial impulse from a religious wavering; for there is quite as much, or more, that is mysterious and calculated to awaken scientific curiosity in the intercourse with God, and it [is] a problem quite analogous to that of theology.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Religious, Curiosity, Mysterious

  Charles Sanders Peirce “Scientific meta-physics”

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• Yoga is about the will, working with intelligence and self-reflexive consciousness, can free us from the inevitability of the wavering mind and outwardly directed senses.

  B.K.S. Iyengar

  Yoga, Self, Mind

  B.K.S. Iyengar, John J. Evans, Douglas Abrams (2006). “Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom”, p.13, Rodale

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• It was by faith, nothing wavering, that Joseph saw God our Eternal Father and Jesus Christ, His Son.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Jesus, Father, Son

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• Women are of two sorts. Some of them are wiser, better learned, discreeter, and more constant than a number of men. But another and a worse sort of them...are fond, foolish, wanton, flibbergibs, tatlers, triflers, wavering, witless, without council, feeble, careless, rash, proud, dainty, nice, talebearers, eavesdroppers, rumor-raisers, evil-tongued, worse-minded, and in every way doltified with the dregs of the Devil's dunghill.

  John Aylmer

  Nice, Women, Two

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• The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything is has to face without wavering. If we take this view, life becomes one great romance, a glorious opportunity for seeing marvelous things all the time.
  God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.

  Oswald Chambers

  Real, Opportunity, Views

  Oswald Chambers (1994). “My Utmost for His Highest: The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers : Features the Author's Daily Prayers”, Discovery House Pub

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• What is life? A gulf of troubled waters, where the soul, like a vexed bark, is tossed upon the waves of pain and pleasure by the wavering breath of passions.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Life, Pain, Passion

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1841). “Life and literary remains of L.E.L. [ed.] by L. Blanchard”

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• Through personal prayer, through family prayer, by trusting in God with faith, nothing wavering, we can call down to our rescue His mighty power.

  Thomas S. Monson

  Prayer, Trust In God, Rescue

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• Where unclarity resides, there is temptation, and there it proves only too easily the stronger. Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is wavering, there is disobedience down at the bottom.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Christian, Temptation, Stronger

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• I don’t think we ever really live in the present; instead, we’re either just this side of the past or future, wavering anxiously between anticipation and recollection. That’s where I lived my life, always wanting, longing, wishing.

  Jonathan Hull

  Past, Thinking, Wish

  Jonathan Hull (2001). “Losing Julia”, Island Books

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• There is only one way to receive transmission. When I tell you something, do it immediately, without the least wavering thought. That's it. Learn. Open your heart and act. Thought stops action. It perverts it into calculated gesture stripped of grace and efficiency.

  Daniel Odier

  Heart, Grace, Gestures

  Daniel Odier (1997). “Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

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• They never played games with each other, they never had tow worry where they stood, because if either of them had a moment of wavering, the other would say I love you and would mean it and all doubts were forgiven because in this one case it was found that love conquers all.

  David Levithan

  Love You, Mean, Games

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• America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

  Barack Obama

  Hope, Children, Cities

  Democratic National Convention Presidential Nomination Acceptance, delivered 28 August 2008, INVESCO Field at Mile High Stadium, Denver, Colorado

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• Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and changeable; they even dance; and yet God in his wisdom has made them a part of oaks. And in so doing he has given us a lesson, not to deny the stout-heartedness within because we see the lightsomeness without.

  Augustus William Hare

  Wise, Light, Useless

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