Woe Quotes - Page 3

• Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print," it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Memories, Freedom, Heart

  Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's Nobel lecture in literature delivered only to the Swedish Academy, www.nobelprize.org. 1970.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Obedience, Claims, Refuse

  Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.228, Lulu.com

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.

  Lord Byron

  Life, Birthday, Time

  'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage' (1812-18) canto 2, st. 98

  8 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

  Alexander Pope

  Helping Others, Woe Is Me, Volunteer

  'The Universal Prayer' (1738)

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love.

  Pearl Bailey

  Love, Life, Heartbreak

  23 Copy quote

• In recounting our woes, we often soothe them.

  Pierre Corneille

  7 Copy quote

• A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

  John Updike

  Leadership, Men, People

  John Updike (2012). “The Coup: A Novel”, p.172, Random House

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is a sickness full of woes, all remedies refusing.

  Samuel Daniel

  Love Is, Sickness, Plant

  Samuel Daniel (1718). “The Poetical Works of Mr. Samuel Daniel, Author of the English History: To which is Prefix'd, Memoirs of His Life and Writings”, p.105

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• But our energy woes are in many ways the result of classic market failures that can only be addressed through collective action, and government is the vehicle for collective action in a democracy.

  Sherwood Boehlert

  Government, Democracy, Energy

  7 Copy quote

• Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement!

  John Piper

  Sex, Block, Kitchen

  9 Copy quote

• You go to the hospital your wife's in labor and you're doing the thing, and then it's very disorienting and scary and you beat yourself up and you go through a whole period of 'woe is me' and then you realize that this a gift, this child is the light, and if you can nourish that light and just let it shine, you have an opportunity to get closer to what I think is God.

  John C. McGinley

  Children, Opportunity, Thinking

  10 Copy quote

• Sainthood emerges when you can listen to someone's tale of woe and not respond with a description of your own.

  Andrew Mason

  Listening, Saint, Description

  7 Copy quote

• Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!

  Luigi Pirandello

  Kings, Pope, Mask

  Luigi Pirandello (2016). “Henry IV”, p.36, Luigi Pirandello

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Of the woes Of unhappy poverty, none is more difficult to bear Than that it heaps men with ridicule.

  Juvenal

  Men, Unhappy, Poverty

  10 Copy quote

• Healing of the world's woes will not come through this or that social or political theory; not through violent changes in government, but in the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the heart.

  Arthur James Moore

  Healing, Heart, Government

  7 Copy quote

• Woe be to him that reads but one book.

  George Herbert

  Book, Reading, Statistics

  George Herbert (1856). “The Works of George Herbert, in Prose and Verse: Edited by the Rev. Robert Aris Willmott, Incumbent of Bear Wood. With Illustrations”, p.224

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there were reason for these miseries, then into limits could I bind my woes. If the winds rages, doth not the sea wax mad, threat'ning the welkin with its big-swoll'n face? And wilt though have a reason for this coil? I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth blow. She is the weeping welkin, I the earth.

  William Shakespeare

  Blow, Wind, Sea

  William Shakespeare (2016). “The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works”, p.218, Oxford University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee, as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.

  Herman Melville

  Fire, Giving, Madness

  Herman Melville (1892). “Moby Dick”, p.400

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Johnny was sobbing in shuddering gasps, telling me his small tale of woe, that the world was suddently different, and that he wanted me to make it better, right now please." --Liadan's interpretation of her baby's cries.

  Juliet Marillier

  Baby, Different, World

  4 Copy quote

• Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I go To heal my heart and drown my woe Rain may fall, and wind may blow And many miles be still to go But under a tall tree will I lie And let the clouds go sailing by

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Lying, Drinking, Rain

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings”, p.72, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• This is the tragedy and woe of the hour--that we neglect the most important One who could possibly be in our midst--the Holy Spirit of God. Then, in order to make up for His absence, we have to do something to keep up our own spirits.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Order, Tragedy, Important

  9 Copy quote

• Love burdens itself with the wants and woes and losses and even the wrongs of others.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Loss, Want, Burden

  Fulton J. Sheen (2008). “Life of Christ”, p.275, Image

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• SHE is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine. She has more hair than she needs; In the sun ’tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea. She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my ways resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Valentine, Men, Hands

  Edna St. Vincent Millay (2011). “Renascence and Other Poems”, p.36, Courier Corporation

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me was the task of power divine, Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I shall endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

  Dante Alighieri

  Pain, Cities, People

  Dante Alighieri (1846). “The vision; or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, tr. by H.F. Cary. With notes”, p.18

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the prophet, a complacent fat man, Arrived at the mountain-top He cried: "Woe to my knowledge! I intended to see good white lands And bad black lands— But the scene is grey.

  Stephen Crane

  Men, Land, White

  Stephen Crane (1899). “War Is Kind”, p.9, Library of Alexandria

  21 Copy quote

  Show source