Alas Quotes - Page 17

• Like driftwood spares which meet and pass Upon the boundless ocean-plain, So on the sea of life, alas! Man nears man, meets, and leaves again.

  Matthew Arnold

  Ocean, Men, Sea

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• Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play!

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Stars, Play, Shining

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1873). “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.288

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• Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another!

  Pythagoras

  Vegetarianism, Wickedness, Body

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• The flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books.

  Stephane Mallarme

  Book, Flesh

  1887 'Brise marine', in Poe sies, Du Parnasse Contemporain (1893).

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• Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?" Malvolio: "Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art." Feste: "But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in you wits than a fool.

  William Shakespeare

  Art, Men, Mad

  William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Story Donno (2004). “Twelfth Night Or What You Will”, p.141, Cambridge University Press

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• Alas! if the principles of contentment are not within us, the height of station and worldly grandeur will as soon add a cubit to a man's stature as to his happiness.

  Laurence Sterne

  Men, Principles, Add

  Laurence Sterne (1811). “The Beauties of Sterne: With Some Account of His Life”, p.240

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• Alas, poor men, their destiny. When all goes well a shadow will overthrow it. If it be unkind one stroke of a wet sponge wipes all the picture out.

  Aeschylus

  Destiny, Men, Shadow

  Aeschylus (2013). “Aeschylus II: The Oresteia”, p.66, University of Chicago Press

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• Alas! fond child, How are thy thoughts beguil'd To hope for honey from a nest of wasps? Thou may'st as well Go seek for ease in hell, Or sprightly nectar from the mouths of asps. The world's a hive, From whence thou canst derive No good, but what thy soul's vexation brings: But case thou meet Some petty-petty sweet, Each drop is guarded with a thousand stings.

  Francis Quarles

  Sweet, Children, Soul

  Francis Quarles, Robert Wilson (A. M.) (1839). “Emblems divine and moral”, p.17

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• Alas! we makeA ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,But sleep ourselves at the foot: our high resolvesLook down upon our slumbering acts.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Sleep, Angel, Feet

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1829). “The Venetian bracelet: the lost pleiad ; a history of the lyre, and other poems”, p.111

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• Love is sublime, truly, a precious gift. But also, alas, one of God's little pranks. It's naive of you to confuse love with happiness, as if they were somehow the samae thing. In fact love, once found, is more akin to gravity: too strong, too close, and it will crush you. Unless you're careful, always.

  Wil McCarthy

  Crush, Strong, Love Is

  Wil McCarthy (2009). “The Collapsium”, p.319, Bantam

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• If a pot can multiply. One day Nasrudin lent his cooking pots to a neighbour, who was giving a feast. The neighbour returned them, together with one extra one – a very tiny pot. 'What is this?' asked Nasrudin. 'According to law, I have given you the offspring of your property which was born when the pots were in my care,' said the joker. Shortly afterwards Nasrudin borrowed his neighbour's pots, but did not return them. The man came round to get them back. 'Alas!' said Nasrudin, 'they are dead. We have established, have we not, that pots are mortal?'.

  Idries Shah

  Men, Law, Giving

  Idries Shah (2015). “The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin”, p.15, ISF Publishing

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• Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams, words!

  Charles Baudelaire

  Dream, Desire, Action

  "Le Gouffre". Poem by Charles Baudelaire, 1862.

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• Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Meditation, Sage, Calm

  'Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples' (1818)

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• Those that have wealth must be watchful and wary,
  Power, alas! naught but misery brings!

  Thomas Haynes Bayly

  Misery, Wealth

  "I'd be a Butterfly". "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations", 10th edition, 1919.

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• Alas, all traditions lose their primal purity and we all fail our founders.

  Karen Armstrong

  Failing, Tradition, Purity

  "Prejudices about Islam will be shaken by this show". www.theguardian.com. January 22, 2012.

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• Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!

  William Shakespeare

  Hopeless, Friendless

  William Shakespeare (1826). “Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.604

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• The natural idealism of youth is an idealism, alas, for which we do not always provide as many outlets as we should.

  Sargent Shriver

  Youth, Natural, Should

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• The animals share with us the privilege of having a soul Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another! In the midst of such wealth as earth, the best of mothers, provides, yet nothing satisfies you, but to behave like the Cyclopes, inflicting sorry wounds with cruel teeth! You cannot appease the hungry cravings of your wicked, gluttonous stomachs except by destroying some other life.

  Pythagoras

  Mother, Sorry, Philosophical

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• two souls, alas, are housed within my breast, and each will wrestle for the mastery there.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Two, Soul, Mastery

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1984). “Faust”

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• ...alas, raising a young lady is a mystery even beyond an enchanter's skill.

  Lloyd Alexander

  Skills, Mystery, Young

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• Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.

  Franz Kafka

  Running, Wall, Cat

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• She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.

  Jane Austen

  Wise, Being Wise, Reasonable

  Jane Austen (1833). “Northanger abbey [followed by] Persuasion”, p.372

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• And of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no "after", in the "ever after" of a Witch there is no "happily"; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is-alas, or perhaps thank mercy-no telling. She was dead, dead, and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice.

  Gregory Maguire

  Wicked, Gone, Stories

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• Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)

  Dorothy Parker

  Love, Lying, Party

  "The Flaw in Paganism" l. 1 (1931)

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• Morgant?" Taran asked, turning a puzzled glance to Gwydion. "How can there be honor for such a man?" "It is easy to judge evil unmixed," replied Gwydion. "But, alas, in most of us good and bad are closely woven as the threads on a loom; greater wisdom than mine is needed for the judging.

  Lloyd Alexander

  Men, Evil, Judging

  Lloyd Alexander (2013). “The Chronicles of Prydain”, p.351, Macmillan

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