Alas Quotes - Page 11

• Virtue, vain word, futile shadow, slave of chance! Alas! I believe in thee!

  Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger

  Believe, Shadow, Chance

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• Alas! Much has been done of late to promote the production of dwarfish Christians. Poor, sickly believers turn the church into an hospital, rather than an army. Oh, to have a church built up with the deep godliness of people who know the Lord in their very hearts, and will seek to follow the Lamb wherever he goes!

  Charles Spurgeon

  Christian, Heart, Army

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• The chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us, and in prudently cultivating our undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let on long leases.

  Richard Sharp

  Lying, Long, Secret

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• Yes!--still I love thee: Time, who sets
  His signet on my brow,
  And dims my sunken eye, forgets,
  The heart he could not bow;--
  Where love, that cannot perish, grows
  For one, Alas! that little knows
  How love may sometimes last;
  Like sunshine wasting in the skies
  When clouds are overcast.

  Rufus Dawes

  Heart, Eye, Sunshine

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• Truth always has a bewitching savor of newness in it, and novelty at the first taste recalls that original sweetness to the tongue; but alas for him who would make the one a substitute for the other.

  James Russell Lowell

  Truth, Taste, Tongue

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “My Study Windows”, p.107

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• Alas! this time is never the time for self-denial, it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indulgence.

  George MacDonald

  Self, Next, Sides

  George Macdonald (2016). “Sir Gibbie”, p.30, George Macdonald

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• And now, when I have summed up all my store, Thinking (so I myself deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas! I find the serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast, About the flowers disguised does fold With wreaths of fame and interest.

  Andrew Marvell

  Kings, Flower, Thinking

  c.1650-1652 'The Coronet' (published 1681).

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• And where, on earth, dwell hope and truth? In childhood's uncorrupted heart; Alas! too soon to guileless youth The world doth its dark code impart!

  Luc de Clapiers

  Children, Heart, Dark

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• The simple truth is that there isn't a single civil right I would deny to an evangelical Christian. I've defended their freedom of religion, of association, of disassociation, and believe they should be treated with respect. I wouldn't dream of drumming them out of the military, firing them for their faith, tearing up their relationships, or taking their children away from them. The favor, alas, is not returned.

  Andrew Sullivan

  Christian, Dream, Children

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• Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.

  John Milton

  Sports, Thinking, Hair

  'Lycidas' (1638) l. 64

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• When I thinkof my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there; But alas! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair.

  William Cowper

  Hands, Land, Despair

  1782 Poems,'Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Selkirk, During His Solitary Abode in the Island of Juan Fernandez'.

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• Alas, criticism has always been what human beings, especially leaders, most hate to hear.

  David Brin

  Hate, Leader, Criticism

  David Brin (1999). “The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?”, p.11, Basic Books

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• The dumpling is indeed of more ancient institution, and of foreign origin; but alas, what were those dumplings? Nothing but a few lentils sodden together, moisten'd and cemented with a little seeth'd fat.

  John Arbuthnot

  Together, Littles, Ancient

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• Great wealth may be to its owner a blessing or a curse. Alas! I fear it is too often the latter. It hardens the heart, blunts the finer susceptibilities, and transforms into a fiend what under more favourable circumstances might have been a human being.

  Arnold Bennett

  Heart, Blessing, May

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• I was brought up Catholic. I'm lapsed. From the age of three I was with the nuns. Now I'm an atheist. I think religion does a lot for us but I can't quite believe it, alas... It's just a personal choice. I love the idea of heaven though. Who doesn't? It's lovely.

  Paul Bettany

  Atheist, Believe, Thinking

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• If hell has no answer for the questioning dead, it is not because it refuses to answer (for rigorous, alas, in observance, is the imperishable fire), but it is because hell has nothing to say, will say nothing eternally.

  Georges Bernanos

  Fire, Answers, Hell

  "Joy". Book by Georges Bernanos, 1929.

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• Where are the marks of the cross in your life? Are there any points of identification with your Lord? Alas, too many Christians wear medals but carry no scars.

  Vance Havner

  Faith, Christian, Religious

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• One could do with a longer year - so much to do, so little done, alas.

  Rose Macaulay

  Time, Years, Done

  Rose Macaulay (Dame.), John Hamilton Cowper Johnson (1963). “Last letters to a friend, 1952-1958”

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• Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters.

  Honore de Balzac

  Character, Men, Two

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• It is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may these patient angels hover around us, watching for the spell which is so soon forgotten!

  Charles Dickens

  Beautiful, Death, Memories

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• Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another; by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave!

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Self, Cells, Knaves

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• Queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and your sons, queens of higher mystery to the world beyond. . . . But alas, you are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Queens, Husband, Women

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• Alas, that we should be so unwilling to listen to the still and holy yearnings of the heart! A god whispers quite softly in our breast, softly yet audibly; telling us what we ought to seek and what to shun.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Heart, Holy, Should

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• Alas! the scientific conscience had got into the debasing company of money obligation and selfish respects.

  George Eliot

  Selfish, Science, Obligation

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.483, Penguin

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• I remember watching steak being cooked on TV and wanting to try it. As a special treat, my mother cooked it for me, and I thought this would be the time I would eat with a knife and fork. Alas, I ate it with chopsticks!

  Nobu Matsuhisa

  Mother, Knives, Special

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