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Quotations about People
Of course anyone can be a splotch of human protoplasm out of which a man might have been made, only wasn't. ~William Ellis, 1899
The total history of almost anyone would shock almost everyone. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1963
Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world. ~L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
What is a human being but a private soul hiding behind a public mask, asking for a little understanding. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door. ~Henry Ward Beecher
I love sinners dearly, and good people nearly as well. ~Simeon Carter (1824–1911), Poems and Aphorisms: A Woodman's Musings, 1893
I'm the strayest dog you'll ever meet. ~Daniel, @blindedpoet, tweet, 2011
I don't know that there are haunted houses. I know that there are dark staircases and haunted people. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Sometimes a man sheds tears as large as crab-apples; but in another minute he will smile a smile containing a vast amount of sunshine to the square inch. ~Puck, 1884 [a little altered
A hundred men together are the hundredth part of a man.~Antonio Porchia (1886–1968), Voces, 1943–1966, translated from the Spanish by W.S. Merwin (1927–2019), c.1968
I stalked her
in the grocery store: her crown
of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip,
her erect bearing, radiating tenderness...
beaming peace like the North Star.
I wanted to ask, "What aisle did you find
your serenity in, do you know
how to be married for fifty years or how to live alone,
excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to possess
some knowledge that makes the earth turn and burn on its axis—"
But we don't request such things from strangers
nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair."
~Alison Luterman, "I Confess" [Gosh, I have wanted to say something like this so many times to ladies, and men too, at the store.
...there are men you couldn't move with any inspiration more delicate than a stick of dynamite. ~William Ellis, 1899
[H]is sweet and generous sympathies, his refined taste for the excellent in letters, his grateful perception of the true good of being, his ideal spirit, dwells latently in every bosom. And all may brighten and radiate it, till life's cold pathway is warm with the sunshine of the soul. ~Henry T. Tuckerman, "Characteristics of Lamb," in American Quarterly Review, March 1836 [Referring to Charles Lamb (1775–1834)
And he is gone into the multitude as solitary as Jesus. In dismissing him I seem to have discharged an arrow into the heart of society. Wherever that young enthusiast goes he will astonish & disconcert men by dividing for them the cloud that covers the profound gulf that is in man. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838 [of Jones Very
Some men seem more desirous of making an impression upon a fool than upon a wise man. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
A man or woman... who loves poetry and great pictures and statues, who is familiar with Shakespeare, who has a sense of humor and a love of nature, knows a deal about the joy of living and is full of resources. ~Silas X. Floyd (1869–1923), "The Best Books for Children,"Floyd's Flowers: or, Duty and Beauty for Colored Children, 1905
No man is so idle that he cannot rouse himself just enough to get in the way of a busy person. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg proves to be of a fitful temperament: on one page the hypochondriac, on the next the optimist, now as practical as Franklin, now as whimsical as Lamb, here dwelling devoutly on the sombre music of the Psalms, there as gravely speculating what the mean reading of the barometer may be in Paradise; sceptical, superstitious, cynical and sentimental by turns. ~Norman Alliston, The Reflections of Lichtenberg, 1908
It is said that we are loved through the chinks in our armor, for our vulnerability, but often, I think, it is not so much the vulnerability that melts the heart as the brave face. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
When fortune smiles on you, neighbors will imitate both your vices and your virtues. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
Pompous people with nothing in them, who go about amid a brave flourish of words, throwing back the head, waving the arm magnificently, and walking with the stiff grace of an actor on the stage, are like those little toy balloons which are destroyed by the prick of a needle. They stare you in the face, and look so round and aldermanly and mighty that you are very apt to believe in them. But never be afraid of pomposity. 'Tis the easiest to reduce of any alarming symptoms you may encounter. Lance it. ~Thomas Clark Henley, A Handful of Paper Shavings, 1861
He was a man of two natures. His mother had been a woman of the Matsaki, and his father one of the Oñate's men, so that he was half of the Sun and half of the Moon, as we say... and his heart was pulled two ways, as I have heard the World Encompassing Water is pulled two ways by the Sun and the Moon. Therefore, he was called
To use a geographical metaphor, Poe's life was bounded on the north by sorrow, on the east by poverty, on the south by aspiration and on the west by calumny; his genius was unbounded. There are literary hyenas still prowling about his grave. But his pensive brow wears the garland of immortality. His soul was music and his very life-blood was purest art. His ear caught the cadences of that higher harmony which poets hear above the world's turmoil. In spite of detraction he is safely enshrined in memory while poetry shall live. Young poets will always have tears and roses for his grave. ~Chauncey C. Starkweather, "Special Introduction," Essays of American Essayists, 1900
Paradoxical as it sounds, many intellectuals prefer life in the mud to life in clear water. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
There are natures so dogmatically stubborn that, if worlds were smashing together, and could be saved by their yielding a point, they would let them smash. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
Sir John Colborne, whose mind appeared to me cast in the antique mould of chivalrous honour, and whom I never heard mentioned but with respect and veneration... ~Anna Brownell Jameson (1794–1860), Preface, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada, 1838
In the mythical age, before the dawn of civilization had illumined the world, men stood shoulder to shoulder, and wielded their clubs in common defence;—this was termed "clubbing together." Nowadays, people club together in a different sense; not for mutual protection, but for mutual enjoyment and the interchange of ideas and sympathies, characteristic of the various cliques into which they are formed. We have conservatives and reformers, united services and universities, artistic and literary coteries, yachting clubs, sports, pastimes, drama, science, law societies, city clubs, &c. ~Echoes from the Clubs: A Record of Political Topics & Social Amenities, 1867 [a little altered
The strange thing about seeing someone for the first time in nine years is the way they look totally different, just for a second, a split second, and then they look to you the way they always have, as if no time has passed between you. ~Rainbow Rowell, Attachments, 2011
Fools rush in where people are crowded. ~Student at Brookside School, Long Island, 1966, completing the first part of the proverb as given by Candid Camera, CBS
Greatness is a birthmark. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
You will find a great many things before you find a good man. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
The great statesman is rarely recognized until events have made him indispensable. ~"Poor Richard Junior's Philosophy," The Saturday Evening Post, 1903, George Horace Lorimer, editor
One of the marks of a gentleman is his refusal to make an issue out of every difference of opinion. ~Arnold H. Glasow (1905–1999)
While most everyone, doubtless, is a decent person deep down, it's nice to occasionally meet one where it's bubbled up to the surface. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
In the manner of the very young, she chattered on about herself... This was not exactly narcissism. She was at the age in which her own personality fascinated her so much that it eclipsed everything else. Her own capacity for creativity. Her own brand of intelligence. ~Abby Geni, The Lightkeepers, 2016
There are people, who, like houses, are beautiful in dilapidation. ~Logan Pearsall Smith
"Old fogies" are behind the times; fanatics, ahead of the times; and a greater part of the remainder of mankind is "waiting for something to turn up." ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
Dreaming, with one eye open,
He walks the ways of earth —
Detached as something broken
From that which gave it worth...
~Cave Outlaw (1900–1996), "Santayana," Each Day, 1942
A man of letters, but a man of the world, he had so cultivated his mind as both, that he was feared as the one, and liked as the other. As a man of letters he despised the world; as a man of the world he despised letters. As the representative of both, he revered himself. ~Edward George Earle Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions, 1873
Who call him spurious and shoddy
Shall do it o'er my lifeless body.
I heartily invite such birds
To come outside and say those words!
~Dorothy Parker, "A Pig's-Eye View of Literature: Charles Dickens," 1927
But Annie was simply herself, bright and exhilarating as the October sunshine, but as pure and strong. She was ready for jest and repartee. She showed almost a childish delight in every odd and pretty thing that met her eye, but never for a moment permitted her companion to lose respect for her. ~Edward Payson Roe, Opening a Chestnut Burr, 1874
Those humble, quiet, behind-the-scenes people are the reason anything ever gets done. ~Terri Guillemets
Janet is a dear soul and very nice-looking; tall, but not over-tall; stoutish, yet with a certain restraint of outline suggestive of a thrifty soul who is not going to be over-lavish even in the matter of avoirdupois. She has a knot of soft, crimpy, brown hair with a thread of gray in it, a sunny face with rosy cheeks, and big, kind eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. Moreover, she is one of those delightful, old-fashioned cooks who don't care a bit if they ruin your digestion as long as they can give you feasts of fat things. ~L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island, 1915
People look to tall people in emergencies. We're the lighthouses of society. ~The Middle, "Hecks on a Plane," 2011, written by Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline
"House full of lunatics!"...
"Yes, artists, writers, poets, reporters… God knows what!…"
~James Oppenheim, The Beloved, 1915
But his voice wrapped me round, all hurt as I was, like something good and quiet and sheltering. ~Barbra Ring, Før kulden kommer, 1915, translated from the Norwegian by
For there was something more than human in his voice. It was unreal. It had in it the sweetness of honey, the song of gushing water, the sting of an insect. It carried a queer ring and it seemed to be addressing God — or the devil. ~A. B. Shiffrin, "The Black Laugh," 1924
The voice is a remarkably expressive organ of sentiment and emotion, capable of infinite modulation. The most common-place word is susceptible of as many meanings as the heart has moods of feeling. ~Thomas Clark Henley, A Handful of Paper Shavings, 1861
We should as soon forget our friends' faces as their voices. ~Thomas Clark Henley, A Handful of Paper Shavings, 1861
She smelled Roy before she saw him. She liked to imagine that it was the perfume of his good heart. ~Abby Geni, The Wildlands, 2018
My mother often went
Up and down those selfsame stairs,
From the room where by the window
She would sit all day and listlessly
Look on the world that had destroyed her,
She would go down in the evening
To the room where she would sleep,
Or rather, not sleep, but all night
Lie staring fiercely at the ceiling.
~John Gould Fletcher, "The Ghosts of an Old House"
I remember the moment I saw him I could not help thinking of the forests... quiet and calm and strong... earnest eyes, with a colour like that of wooded hills in the distance; not the farthest of all, they are lighter, but the ones so near that the dark green of the forest shades over into the deep blue...
It is that quiet safeness of yours, Stein Aakre, that makes you akin to the forest. ~Barbra Ring, Før kulden kommer, 1915, translated from the Norwegian by
A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engraffed with a foreign stock. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1823
Do you suppose it's true, that St. Patrick was a parselmouth, and his muggle friends never knew? ~David J. Beard (1947–2016), @Raqhun, tweet, 2012
There is in him a sort of quiet rotation of seasons, with each of them passing overland and then going underground and re-emerging in a kind of rhythm, refreshed and full of renewed vigor. ~Marlene Dietrich, of Ernest Hemingway
Iridescent imagination, intuition from a hundred lifetimes remembered, crystal honesty and steel fearless determination... ~Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever:
When we look on the characters of man and woman, we cannot but perceive that neither is perfect by itself, but that each needs the other for its perfection.... Hence the one must be softened by tender emotions, and the other strengthened by firmness. ~Frederick A. Rauch, Psychology; or, A View of the Human Soul: Including Anthropology, Being the Substance of a Course of Lectures, Delivered to the Junior Class Marshall College, Penn., 1840
The present ideal is the worship of the gents who sing like canaries and the women who bellow like lions. ~Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962)
So I wanted him to get in Mr. Graves, the Vicar. Such a nice man, and so kind to children. I always tell Godfrey he may not be the salt of the earth, but he's certainly its sugar. ~Ronald A. Knox, Other Eyes Than Ours, 1926
There is in Euripides some kind of learning that is always at the boiling point. ~Anne Carson, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides, 2006
He wasn't the sort of man who'd ever seemed to have had a mother; you know what I mean. ~Marion Hill, "Just Like That," 1909
Have you ever thought about the different ways in which different persons affect you, simply by their presence; and before you have had an opportunity to form any just idea of their character? How one attracts and another repels? How one stirs in you the latent evil, and another the latent good? How tender and pious emotions are felt with one, and sterner and colder feelings with another?... Every natural body has a natural sphere, that gives token of its life and quality, and is perceived by the natural senses; so, likewise, has every spiritual body — every human soul, spiritually organized and clothed with spiritual substance — a spiritual sphere affecting our spiritual senses, and perceived by us with a distinctness that every one's experience can verify. ~"Through the Valley," Arthur's Illustrated Home Magazine, 1878
"I think he's lovely," said Anne reproachfully. "He is so very sympathetic. He didn't mind how much I talked — he seemed to like it. I felt that he was a kindred spirit as soon as ever I saw him."
"You're both queer enough, if that's what you mean by kindred spirits," said Marilla with a sniff.
~L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
There are souls, of every age and every clime, which are contemporaries and compatriots. ~Madame Swetchine, translated by Harriet W. Preston
Some people never say "Amen" to anything. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
Give me a barefooted peasant-girl from Cataluña, or a poor chiquilla from the darkest calle of Madrid, for real passion, sentiment and devotion! And you'll find more truth and love in her ignorance than in all your Saxon subtlety and humbug. Oh, I know your type, the Burne-Jones, Gabriel-Rossetti woman, always trying to find a background for her profile; always trying to discover new poses for her body, and new vices for her soul. ~Anita Vivanti Chartres (1866–1942), The Hunt for Happiness, 1896
This is Scott Fitzgerald: very romantic writer—big with English majors, college girls, nymphomaniacs... ~Woody Allen, Sleeper, 1973
If it has anything to do with honesty, compassion, appreciating the silence of a winter morning, remembering to listen when the leaves fall and believing in magic, then my parents were, and still are, hippies. ~Cecily Schmidt, "Common Threads," in Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture edited by Chelsea Cain, 1999
A sweetheart, a hundred and fifty books, a couple of friends, and a prospect of about one statute mile in diameter — that was his whole world. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Norman Alliston, 1908
How many people are like dogs who seem to be looking for a master! ~Madame Swetchine, translated by Harriet W. Preston
He is great who speaks great, greater who thinks great, and greatest who lives great. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
Bysshe was serious, thoughtful, enthusiastic; melancholy even, with a poet's sadness: he loved to discourse gravely of matters of importance and deep concernment... ~Thomas Jefferson Hogg, The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1858
Alexander had a powerful but unregulated mentality that was continually flying off tangent into space... ~William Armstrong Fairburn, Mentality and Freedom, 1917
She was one of those women... who our instinct tells us at a glance have survived a great sorrow that has altered their nature, and that is ever present with them as their shadow, which they have learned to bear from sheer necessity, but which they have never accepted or got resigned to. ~Marguerite A. Power, "The Wedding-Dress," 1857
CELEBRITY. One who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know. ~H. L. Mencken
As a youth, on dusky winter afternoons I escaped with irresponsible zeal into the glow of Mr. Lowell's learned lamplight, the particular incidence of which, in the small, still lecture-room, and the illumination of his head and hands, I recall with extreme vividness. He talked communicatively of style. It made a romance of the hour — it made even a picture of the scene. He was American enough in Europe, in America he was abundantly European. He was so steeped in history and literature that to some yearning young persons he made the taste of knowledge sweeter, almost, than it was ever to be again. He had lived in long intimacy with Dante and Calderon; he embodied, to envious aspirants, the happy intellectual fortune — independent years of acquisition without haste and without rest, a robust love of study which went sociably arm in arm with a robust love of life. This love of life was so strong in him that he could lose himself in little diversions as well as in big books. He was fond of everything human and natural, everything that had color and character, and no gayety, no sense of comedy, was ever more easily kindled by contact. When he was not surrounded by great pleasures he could find his account in small ones, and no situation could be dull for a man in whom all reflection, all reaction, was witty. ~Henry James, "James Russell Lowell," in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1892 [a little altered
We have been called so of many; not that our heads
are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,
but that our wits are so diversely coloured: and
truly I think if all our wits were to issue out of
one skull, they would fly east, west, north, south,
and their consent of one direct way should be at
once to all the points o' the compass.
~William Shakespeare
...her innocences falling from her soul like a bunch of primroses untied... ~Anita Vivanti Chartres (1866–1942), The Hunt for Happiness, 1896 [a.k.a. Annie Vivanti
I love him because he's the kind of a guy that gets drunk on a glass of buttermilk. ~Ball of Fire, 1941, screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, from an original story by Thomas Monroe, spoken by the character Katherine "Sugarpuss" O'Shea, about Professor Bertram Potts
For Junior, nerd is the new black. Sorry, orange. ~Kenya Barris, Ian Edwards, and Njeri Brown, `black·ish, "The Nod" (season 1, episode 3, original airdate 2014 October 8th, spoken by Dre)
There is something in every person's character that cannot be broken — the bony structure of his character. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799), translated by Franz H. Mautner and Henry Hatfield, 1959
"That old berk," muttered Aberforth, taking another swig of mead. "Thought the sun shone out of my brother's every orifice, he did." ~J.K. Rowling, "The Missing Mirror," Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007
Here's to the man who invented stairs
And taught our feet to soar!
He was the first who ever burst
Into a second floor.
The world would be downstairs to-day
Had he not found the key;
So let his name go down to fame,
Whatever it may be.
~Oliver Herford, "Stairs: A Toast," Happy Days, illustrated by John Cecil Clay, 1917
There were times when Anne's information was more interesting than reliable. ~Mary Hunter Austin, The Ford, 1917
We are interested in others, when they are interested in us. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
He told me that the guy from the alleyway was one Ireneo Funes, known for certain peculiarities such as avoiding people and always knowing the time, like a clock. ~Jorge Luis Borges, "Funes the Memorious," 1942, translated from the Spanish
There is a superlative temperament which has no medium range, but swiftly oscillates from the freezing to the boiling point, and which affects the manners of those who share it with a certain desperation... They go tearing, convulsed through life, — wailing, praying, exclaiming, swearing. We talk, sometimes, with people whose conversation would lead you to suppose that they had lived in a museum, where all the objects were monsters and extremes... If the talker lose a tooth, he thinks the universal thaw and dissolution of things has come... ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Superlative," 1882
But the truth is, that no man is much regarded by the rest of the world, except where the interest of others is involved in his fortune. The common employments or pleasures of life, love or opposition, loss or gain, keep almost every mind in perpetual agitation. If any man would consider how little he dwells upon the condition of others, he would learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. When we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excite our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng; that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment upon another; and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear, is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten. ~Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, 1751 September 24th
But when a rosy mouth or cheek
Was turned to him he had a panic;
For though his heart was Pagan Greek
His soul was strictly Puritanic.
~Arthur Guiterman, "Rhymed Reviews: The Garden Without Walls by Coningsby Dawson," in Life, 1913
One of your charms is that you are unbitten by the poisonous tooth of the world. ~Kate Stephens, A Woman's Heart, 1906
People never notice anything. ~J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951
But if Statues, Obelisks, Piramids, or divine honours were ever merited by Men, of Cities or Nations. James Otis, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock deserved these from the Town of Boston and the United States. — Such Adulations, however, are monopolized by profligate Libellers, by cringing Flatterers, by unprincipled Ambition, by sordid Avarice, by griping Usurers, by scheming speculators, by plundering Bankers, by blind Enthusiasts, by Superstitious Bigots, by Puppies and Butterflies, and by every Thing but Honour and Virtue. ~John Adams, 1817
He brooded upon the subject night and day, and gradually there grew and developed in his soul, like a hideous serpent, a deadly and appalling scheme worthy the conception of Satan himself. ~Leon Lewis (1833–1920), Found Guilty; or, The Hidden Crime, 1878
Man-thunder, woman-lightning... ~Emanuel Morgan (Witter Bynner), "Opus 17," Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments, 1916
Holly: "Do you think she's talented, deeply and importantly talented?"
Paul: "No. Amusingly and superficially talented, yes. But deeply and importantly, no."
~From the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961, screenplay by George Axelrod, based on the novella by Truman Capote
When I'm out and about, people are annoying idiots. When I'm home alone, all mankind is loving and good. ~Terri Guillemets, "Humanity on the streets," 2006
Evidently the reformers think that the inalienable right to pursue happiness warrants them in attempting to chase it off the earth. ~Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 1920
A great many persons groan and grow weary under the burden of their own nothingness. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
She could see the thoughts of a man while they were still in his heart... ~Mary Hunter Austin, The Trail Book, 1918
[N]o man is a dullard... every man is a philosopher. ~Joseph Kita, "What I Know," Wisdom of Our Fathers, 1999
I'm Black. God knew my people would go through struggles so he gave us a lifetime supply of cool to compensate. ~Scrubs, "His Story III," 2006, written by Angela Nissel [S5, E19,
People are who they are — give or take 15%. ~Modern Family, "Fifteen Percent," written by Steven Levitan, spoken by the character Mitchell Pritchett, original airdate 2010 January 20th
...one of a charmed pair must always supply what the other might lack. ~Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever:
He spoke softly and soothingly, "The wild animal in you is attracted to the tame, ruminating animal in me." ~Marie Corelli (Mary Mills Mackay), The Secret Power, 1921
[O]ur final thought of James Russell Lowell is that what he consistently lived for remains of him. There is nothing ineffectual in his name and fame — they stand for delightful things. He is one of the happy figures of literature. He had his trammels and his sorrows, but he drank deep of the full, sweet cup, and he will long count as an erect fighting figure on the side of optimism and beauty. He was strong without narrowness; he was wise without bitterness and bright without folly. That appears for the most part the clearest ideal of those who handle the English form... ~Henry James, "James Russell Lowell," in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1892
Am I a good person? I hope so, and I know there are people in whose company the probability greatly increases. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Groups of people are like a massive Rock, Paper, Scissors war. ~Daniel, @blindedpoet, tweet, 2011
Robin Williams was the Tasmanian devil of standup comedy. ~Paula Poundstone, on Superstar: Robin Williams, ABC, 2021
He would swallow the world, and then it would come firing out like a cannon, Williamized. ~Henry Winkler, about Robin Williams, on Superstar, S1 E5, ABC, 2021
Society in shipwreck is a comfort to all. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
Desgenais... was firm and serious, although a smile hovered about his lips. He was a man of heart, but as dry as a pumice-stone. ~Alfred de Musset, The Confession of a Child of the Century/La Confession d'un enfant du siècle, 1836, translated from French by Kendall Warren
...the cherub, alas, proved to be pasted on tough gingerbread which was too hard for many to bite into. ~Vladimir Nabokov, The Gift, 1963, translated from Russian by Michael Scammell
Grab-all. — An avaricious person, greedy-guts. A bag to carry odds and ends. ~Slang and its Analogues: A Dictionary of Heterodox Speech, John S. Farmer and W. E. Henley, 1890s
He had tragic bones and a lifelong lease on a dark cloud. ~Terri Guillemets
Her radiating antagonism, she feels, is the proof of her intellectual distinction.
Handsome faces and corrupt hearts act a large portion of the drama of human life. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Sparks from the Philosopher's Stone, 1882
He who is bent on doing evil, can never want occasion. ~Publilius Syrus, 1st century BCE, from the Latin by D. Lyman, 1856
Foremost among the singers who take part... is Miss Margaret Ober... A more brilliant piece of work has not been enjoyed here for a long time. The fire, vivacity and youthful ardor, the mischievous comic spirit of her acting, the adroitness with which she carries off the somewhat difficult task of a young woman representing a young man disguised as a young woman, are wholly delightful. ~The Theatre, July 1914
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sun-light expands my blood?
Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
~Walt Whitman
Aaron Burr... the only U.S. vice president ever to kill a man while in office (though Dick Cheney gave it his best shot)... ~Patrick J. Kiger, "Aaron Burr: Yes, He Killed Hamilton, But What Else Did He Do?," history.howstuffworks.com, 2020
I know people who are sure they're going to heaven, and I know people who are sure they're going to hell, and while I still hope to go to heaven, it won't be so much for the company. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
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published 2003 Dec 21
revised 2021 Mar 12
last saved 2024 Sep 11
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