Whim Quotes - Page 10

• I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope that it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Mother, Brother, Father

  "Self-Reliance". Essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, en.wikisource.org. 1847.

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• The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios. If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Grandmother, Science, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.59

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• As the House is designed to provide a reflection of the mood of the moment, the Senate is meant to reflect the continuity of the past--to preserve the delicate balance of justice between the majority's whims and the minority's rights.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Reflection, Past, Equality

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• Making films is too big an undertaking to be doing it on a whim, so you're waiting all the time, until you finally meet the person who gets it.

  Crispian Mills

  Waiting, Film, Bigs

  Source: www.denofgeek.com

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• I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.

  Thomas Merton

  People, Body, Fancy

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.24, Shambhala Publications

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• I do not often follow my characters off on tangents or change my story on a whim. I have an outline which I follow quite sternly...for a good long while. Then it turns out in some way to be insurmountably wrong and I am forced to re-think every component. Usually at this point I throw hundreds of pages away.

  Megan Chance

  Character, Thinking, Long

  "Kristin Hannah and Megan Chance on 'The Nightingale'". Interview With Erin Kodicek, www.amazonbookreview.com. January 28, 2015.

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• Truly, whoever we are, wherever we reside, we exist upon the whim of murderers.

  Alan Moore

  Murderer

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• How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.

  Annie Dillard

  Motivational, Hands, Order

  "The Writing Life". Book by Annie Dillard, 1989.

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• Love is not a whim. Love is not a flower that fades with a few fleeting years. Love is a choice wedded to action, my husband, and I choose you, and I will choose you every day for the rest of my life.

  Brent Weeks

  Wedding, Husband, Flower

  Brent Weeks (2012). “The Blinding Knife: Book 2 of Lightbringer”, p.475, Hachette UK

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• Charity is commendable; everyone should be charitable. But justice aims to create a social order in which, if individuals choose not to be charitable, people still don't go hungry, unschooled or sick without care. Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance.

  Bill Moyers

  Commitment, Order, Sick

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• Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to "society," to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine of that kind is by means of brute force - and statism has always been the poltical corollary of collectivism.

  Ayn Rand

  Mean, Sacrifice, Rights

  Ayn Rand (1964). “The Virtue of Selfishness”, p.122, Penguin

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• As for me, I rarely write a song. But when I do write a song, like "Ain't No Chimneys in the Projects," which came to me at three a.m. one morning, on a whim - I get a percentage.

  Sharon Jones

  Song, Morning, Writing

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay

  E. B. White

  Needs, Use, Cows

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• More than illness or death, the American journalist fears standing alone against the whim of his owners or the prejudices of his audience. Deprive William Safire of the insignia of the New York Times, and he would have a hard time selling his truths to a weekly broadsheet in suburban Duluth.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Death, New York, Hard Times

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• Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers -- obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.

  Edward Abbey

  Giants, Fool, Institutions

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.18, RosettaBooks

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• Nobody wants a judge to be subject to the political whim of the moment.

  Stephen Breyer

  Umpires, Judging, Political

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• And who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others? When people devoid of whatsoever competence are made judges over experts and are granted authority to treat them as they please? These are the novelties which are apt to bring about the ruin of commonwealths and the subversion of the state.

  Galileo Galilei

  Math, People, Judging

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• But I can tell you what I believe: When tens of thousands of innocent souls have perished in Darfur-when 11 million children are without health insurance-when our colossal debt subjects our economic future to the whims of Asian bankers-no one can tell me that faith demands this Senate spend its time arguing over a handful of judges. No one with those priorities can use my faith to intimidate me.

  John F. Kerry

  Children, Believe, Judging

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• Let no-one define how you see yourself...save God alone. See yourself through His eyes and His strength, and you'll see who you can be despite being who you are. But see yourself through your own eyes, and you'll be left to question, and to doubt, subject to the whims and wishes of others who will not have your best at heart.

  Tamera Alexander

  Religious, Heart, Eye

  Tamera Alexander (2011). “A Lasting Impression (A Belmont Mansion Novel Book #1)”, p.417, Baker Books

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• If Britney Spears can party it up in Vegas with one of her boys and go get married on a whim and annul her marriage the next day, why can't a loving same sex couple tie the knot?

  Brendon Ayanbadejo

  Sex, Couple, Party

  "Same Sex Marriages: What’s the Big Deal?". www.huffingtonpost.com. May 24, 2009.

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• Applause lavished at a whim and without discernment, often proves the ruin of young people training for a stage career.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Careers, People, Ballet

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• In America, We have surrendered our middle class to the whims of foreign countries. We take care of them better than we take care of ourselves.

  Donald Trump

  Country, Class, America

  Source: www.npr.org

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• Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; faith-based justice offers a place at the table.

  Bill Moyers

  Commitment, Justice, Charity

  Jim Wallis, Bill Moyers (2001). “Faith Works: How Faith-based Organizations are Changing Lives, Neighborhoods, and America”, p.18, Council Oak Books

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• Nature is not something to be fought, conquered and changed according to any human whims. To some extent, of course, it has to be used. But what man should seek in regard to nature is not a complete domination but a modus vivendi - that is, a manner of living together, a coming to terms with something that was here before our time and will be here after it. The important corollary of this doctrine, it seems to me, is that man is not the lord of creation, with an omnipotent will, but a part of creation, with limitations, who ought to observe a decent humility in the face of the inscrutable.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Humility, Men, Important

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• Organizations are about putting ideas through one or more types of gating procedures. In this way, ideas go from being a whim to becoming a project, from being a "skunk works" effort to becoming an official, mainstream effort, from being an unfounded program to a funded process, and so on.

  John Kao

  Organization, Ideas, Effort

  Interview with Joel Kurtzman, www.strategy-business.com. October 1, 1996.

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