Alas Quotes - Page 10

• You didn't want to die. Most mortals don't, even if they find themselves in as desolate and soul-destroying a spot as you. Almost all of those who take their own lives wish at the last moment that they hadn't. They see at the end how much they've given up, how precious life is, even when it's treated them like dirt and crushed their dreams. Many think they've passed beyond hope, but they never really have, not until they pass beyond life itself. Alas, that knowledge comes too late for most would-be-suicides and they die with regret. Very few are offered the chance that you have been handed.

  Darren Shan

  Suicide, Dream, Regret

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• [Luke, holding stormtrooper helmet.] Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not,/ yet have I taken both uniform and life/ From thee. What manner of a man wert thou?/ A man of inf'nite jest or cruelty?/ A man with helpmate and with children too?/ A man who hath his Empire serv'd with pride?/ A man, perhaps, who wish'd for perfect peace?/ What'er thou wert, goodman, thy pardon grant/ Unto the one who took thy place: e'en me.

  Ian Doescher

  Children, Taken, Pride

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• Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Heart, Wings, Dove

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1871). “Poetical Works”, p.149

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• Are you in pain, Frodo?' said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo's side. 'Well, yes I am,' said Frodo. 'It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.' 'Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,' said Gandalf. 'I fear it may be so with mine,' said Frodo. 'There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?' Gandalf did not answer.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Pain, Memories, Real

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• Of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, alas! and the most darkness.

  Victor Hugo

  Heart, Light, Darkness

  Victor Hugo (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)”, p.3098, Delphi Classics

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• Alas, Siddhartha, I see you suffering, but you're suffering a pain at which one would like to laugh, at which you'll soon laugh for yourself.

  Hermann Hesse

  Pain, Laughing, Siddhartha

  Hermann Hesse (2016). “Siddhartha (World Classics, Unabridged)”, p.59, Vij Books India Pvt Ltd

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• Juno: "The heroes of olympus must unite! After your victory over kronos in manhattan...well I fear that wounded jupiter's self-esteem." Percy: Cause I was right and he was wrong" Juno: "He should be used to that after being married to me so long, but alas.

  Rick Riordan

  Self Esteem, Hero, Long

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• If it comes to that," retorted Frederica, with spirt, " I am continually shocked by the things you don't scruple to say to me,cousin! You are quite abominable!" He sighed. "Alas, I know it! The reflection gives me sleepless nights.

  Georgette Heyer

  Cousin, Reflection, Night

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• Alas, poor Yorick!" he said. "She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.

  Diana Wynne Jones

  Mermaid, Rotten, Denmark

  Diana Wynne Jones (2002). “Wizard's Castle”

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• Alas. I am not an option.

  Laini Taylor

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• We are told to walk noiselessly through the world, that we may waken neither hatred, nor envy; but, alas! what can we do when they never sleep!

  Jean Antoine Petit-Senn

  Sleep, Envy, Hatred

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• People, alas, are more impressed by statistics than they are by ideas.

  Margaret Millar

  Data, Ideas, People

  Margaret Millar (2016). “A Stranger in My Grave”, p.116, Soho Press

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• Death is not rare, alas! nor burials few,
  And soon the grassy coverlet of God
  Spreads equal green above their ashes pale.

  Bayard Taylor

  Death, Ashes, Green

  Bayard Taylor (1867). “The Picture of St. John”, p.168

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• Superficial to understand the journal as just a receptable for one's private, secret thoughts - like a confidante who is deaf, dumb, and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself. ... The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather - in many cases - offers an alternative to it.

  Susan Sontag

  Independent, Dumb, Secret

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• Alas how difficult is it to preserve a high reputation!

  Publilius Syrus

  Reputation, Difficult, Preserves

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• Alas, why will a man spend months trying to hand over his liberty to a woman--and the rest of his life trying to get it back again?

  Helen Rowland

  Men, Hands, Trying

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• Alas! we see that the small have always suffered for the follies of the great.
  [Fr., Helas! on voit que de tout temps
  Les Petits ont pati des sottises des grands.]

  Jean de La Fontaine

  Folly

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• Think not you are charitable if the love of Jesus and His brethren be not purely the motive of your gifts. Alas! you might not give your superfluities, but "bestow all your goods to feed the poor;" you might even "give your body to be burned" for them, and yet be utterly destitute of charity, if self-seeking, self-pleasing or self-ends guide you; and guide you they must, until the love of God be by the Holy Ghost shed abroad in your heart.

  Hugh Reginald Haweis

  Jesus, Heart, Thinking

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• Prosperity, alas! is often but another name for pride.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Pride, Names, Prosperity

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1838). “Select poems”, p.141

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• ... alas! in the exercise of the arts, industry scarce bears the name of merit.

  Elizabeth Inchbald

  Art, Exercise, Names

  Elizabeth Inchbald (1998). “A Simple Story”, p.30, OUP Oxford

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• Place (or put) a spider on top of a mountain, it will only try to catch flies; alas, they are many those who, in the figurative meaning, have spider's eyes.

  African Spir

  Eye, Trying, Mountain

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 52), 1937.

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• Writing is not, alas, like riding a bicycle: it does not get easier with practice.

  Nancy Mairs

  Writing, Practice, Riding

  Nancy Mairs (1994). “Voice Lessons: On Becoming a (woman) Writer”, Beacon Press (MA)

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• Removing prejudices is, alas! too often removing the boundary of a delightful near prospect in order to let in a shockingly extensive one.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Order, Prejudice, Boundaries

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• We live at a time that is notable for the polemical nature of discussions about identity, consciousness, rationality, agency, memory, and feeling. 'New atheists' and reductive materialists conduct gladiatorial debates against defenders of faith and enemies of reductionism. Lots of heat is produced, but, alas, little light is shed. How marvelous it is, then, to see this fine new book by Lenn E. Goodman and Gregory Caramenico. Here is a learned, illuminating, and decidedly non-polemical treatment of the classic questions of soul, mind, and brain-an exemplary work of scholarship.

  Robert P. George

  Atheist, Memories, Book

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• marrows - alas! - are arriving in a steady stream at the back door. ... Oddly enough, the majority of people who grow them in Fairacre say, as they hand them over: 'Funny thing! I don't care for them myself. In fact, none of the family likes them!' But still they plant them. It must be the fascination of seeing such a wonderful return for one small seed, that keeps marrow-growers at their dubious task.

  Miss Read

  Doors, Hands, Funny Things

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