Withering Quotes - Page 3

• She's pretty." (It's amazing how girls can say this and make it the most withering insult.)

  Ned Vizzini

  Girl, Insult

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• So, let's make a deal: If you do not voice all the withering comments about the weight or uselessness of this jacket that are no doubt swirling in that big brain of yours, then I will not mention the super-laser episode again. Agreed?" This jacket is really cutting into my shoulders, thought Artemis. And it's so heavy that I could not outrun a slug. But he said, "Agreed.

  Eoin Colfer

  Cutting, Voice, Brain

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• To know that nothing hurts the godly, is a matter of comfort; but to be assured that all things which fall out shall co-operate for their good, that their crosses shall be turned into blessings, that showers of affliction water the withering root of their grace and make it flourish more; this may fill their hearts with joy till they run over.

  Thomas Watson

  Running, Religious, Hurt

  Thomas Watson (2015). “All Things for Good: An Exposition of Romans 8:28”, p.6, Gideon House Books

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• We believe that our truly urgent need is to make our nation secure, our economy strong and our dollar sound. For every American this matter of the sound dollar is crucial. Without a sound dollar, every American family would face a renewal of inflation, an ever-increasing cost of living, the withering away of savings and life insurance policies.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Strong, Believe, Cost Of Living

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• The socially pernicious, racially wasteful, and soul-withering consequences of the working of mothers outside the home must cease. And this can only come to pass, either through the programme of institutional upbringing, or through the intimate renaissance of the home.

  Ellen Key

  Mother, Women, Home

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• If there is one abiding theme in the gym, it's the withering work in the ring. Those not fit do not survive.

  Emanuel Steward

  Strength, Sports, Fitness

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• Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,- Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies: They fall successive, and successive rise.

  Homer

  Spring, Fall, Men

  Homer (1822). “The Iliad of Homer”, p.170

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• the curse of human nature is imagination. When a long anticipated moment comes, we always find it pitched a note too low, for the wings of imagination are crushed into its withering sides under the crowding hordes of petty realities.

  Gertrude Atherton

  Reality, Wings, Long

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• Even as rigorous a determinist as Karl Marx, who at times described the social behaviour of the bourgeoisie in terms which suggested a problem in social physics, could subject it at other times to a withering scorn which only the presupposition of moral responsibility could justify.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Responsibility, Bourgeoisie, Behaviour

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2012). “An Interpretation of Christian Ethics”, p.81, Westminster John Knox Press

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• It means eating your words, this thing of refusing to be a fence-sitter, but I'd rather eat my words than get calluses from sitting.
  No one who has not experienced the condescension of a buyer toward an ordinary salesgirl can have any conception of its withering effect.

  Mary Barnett Gilson

  Mean, Ordinary, Sitting

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• I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots.

  Henry Miller

  Night, Mushrooms, Roots

  Henry Miller (2007). “Black Spring”, p.24, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Nothing can describe the withering horror of this. You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light. You see a kind of insanity, something so obscene the very obscenity of it (rather than its threat) terrifies you. It was so new I could not take my eyes from the man's face. I felt like saying: "What in God's name are you doing to yourself?

  John Howard Griffin

  Fear, Heart, Eye

  John Howard Griffin (2006). “Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition”, p.49, Wings Press

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• But I wasn't happy... when I heard you two had assaulted Castle Macindaw with just thirty men,' [said Halt]. 'Thirty-three,' mumbled Horace... The Ranger gave him a withering look. 'Oh, pardon me... three more men does make a lot of difference.

  John Flanagan

  Men, Two, Differences

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• ...my boredom might be described as a malady affecting external objects and consisting of a withering process; an almost instantaneous loss of vitality--just as though one saw a flower change in a few seconds from a bud to decay and dust.

  Alberto Moravia

  Flower, Loss, Dust

  Alberto Moravia (2011). “Boredom”, p.5, New York Review of Books

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• Well, the news has got around. The Duchess of Keepsake has invited us to a ball, Sir Henry and Lady Withering have invited us to a ball, and Lord and Lady Hangfinger have invited us to... yes, a ball." "Well, that's a lot of..." "Don't you dare, Sam.

  Terry Pratchett

  Balls, News, Lords And Ladies

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• Either to die the death or to abjure For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

  William Shakespeare

  Father, Blessed, Moon

  William Shakespeare (1864). “The Works of William Shakespeare”, p.162

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• I admit," Morgan said with another withering look, "it's no donut.

  Jim Butcher

  Looks, Said, Donuts

  Jim Butcher (2009). “Turn Coat: A Novel of the Dresden Files”, p.128, Penguin

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• Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother's love is withering.

  Anne Lamott

  Mother, Children, Love Is

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• This is myself, baby. All of my selves. I own each and every one of them. I know who I'm pretending to be and who I am." The look he gives me is withering. "Do you?

  Gayle Forman

  Baby, Self, Who I Am

  Gayle Forman (2013). “Just One Day”, p.130, Penguin

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• A picture without sky has no glory. This present, unless we see gleaming beyond it the eternal calm of the heavens, above the tossing tree tops with withering leaves, and the smoky chimneys, is a poor thing for our eyes to gaze at, or our hearts to love, or our hands to toil on.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Life, Heart, Eye

  Alexander MacLaren “MacLaren's Commentary- Expositions of Holy Scripture”, Delmarva Publications, Inc.

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• Herein would I live; herein would I die; hereon would I dwell in my thoughts and affections; to the withering and consumption of all the painted beauties of this world, unto the crucifying all things here below, until they become unto me a dead and deformed thing, no way meet for affectionate embraces.

  John Owen

  World, Way, Affection

  "Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ".

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• However you look at it, in these books "power" tends to be an expression of the essential nature of the person or being whose power it is. On those occasions when we've seen Lord Foul act directly, he seems to exert the withering force of pure scorn. IMHO, that's pretty intense.

  Stephen R. Donaldson

  Hate, Book, Expression

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• We go in withering July
  To ply the hard incessant hoe;
  Panting beneath the brazen sky
  We sweat and grumble, but we go.

  Ruth Pitter

  Summer, July, Sky

  Ruth Pitter (1969). “Collected poems”

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• Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature increases bring crop-withering heat waves, more-destructive storms, more-intense droughts, more forest fires, and, of course, ice melting. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize.

  Lester R. Brown

  Fall, Ice, Fire

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• So Spring comes merry towards me here, but earns
  No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd
  With the dead boughs that winter still must bind,
  And whom today the Spring no more concerns.
  Behold, this crocus is a withering flame;
  This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part
  To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art.
  Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,
  Nor stay till on the year's last lily-stem
  The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Art, Spring, Flower

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frank Laurence Lucas (1933). “Dante Gabriel Rossetti: An Anthology”, p.169, CUP Archive

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