Banquets Quotes - Page 6

• ... I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life.

  Elaine Dundy

  Spectators, Disinterested

  Elaine Dundy (2010). “The Dud Avocado”, p.37, New York Review of Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great make its feel, first of all, the indifference of circumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and subdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions find their objects everywhere; only the low habits need palaces and banquets.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Greatness, Luxury, Perception

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1912). “Society and solitude”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Parents do not, indeed, live by bread alone. We feast daily on banquets of our own words.

  Sarah Bird

  Parent, Bread, Live By

  4 Copy quote

• [When criticized for appearing bare-shouldered Madonna-like at a banquet:] A comparison between Madonna and me is a comparison between a strapless evening gown and a gownless evening strap.

  Kim Campbell

  Gowns, Evening, Wit

  13 Copy quote

• In part of Lord Kames' Elements of Criticism, he says that "music improves the relish of a banquet." That I deny,--any more than painting might do. They may both be additional pleasures, as well as conversation is, but are perfectly distinct notices; and cannot, with the least propriety, be said to mix or blend with the repast, as none of them serve to raise the flavor of the wine, the sauce, the meat, or help to quicken appetite. But music and painting both add a spirit to devotion, and elevate the ardor.

  Laurence Sterne

  Music, Wine, Criticism

  7 Copy quote

• One of the booby traps of freedom - which is bordered on all sides by isolation - is that we think so well of ourselves. I now see that I have helped myself to the best cuts at life's banquet.

  Saul Bellow

  Freedom, Cutting, Thinking

  Saul Bellow (2015). “There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction”, p.301, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A banquet is probably the most fatiguing thing in the world except ditchdigging. It is the insanest of all recreations. The inventor of it overlooked no detail that could furnish weariness, distress, harassment, and acute and long-sustained misery of mind and body.

  Mark Twain

  Food, Long, Cooking

  Mark Twain (2015). “Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3: The Complete and Authoritative Edition”, p.85, Univ of California Press

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Banquet: a plate of cold, hairy chicken and artificially coloured green peas completely surrounded by dreary speeches and appeals for donations.

  Bennett Cerf

  Food, Cooking, Speech

  9 Copy quote

• Sometimes, the simple things are more fun and meaningful than all the banquets in the world.

  E. A. Bucchianeri

  Meaningful, Fun, Simple

  5 Copy quote

• To live
  On means not yours--be brave in silks and laces,
  Gallant in steeds; splendid in banquets; all
  Not yours. Given, uninherited, unpaid for;
  This is to be a trickster; and to filch
  Men's art and labour, which to them is wealth,
  Life, daily bread;--quitting all scores with "friend,
  You're troublesome!" Why this, forgive me,
  Is what, when done with a less dainty grace,
  Plain folks call "Theft.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Art, Mean, Men

  7 Copy quote

• The music, and the banquet, and the wine-- The garlands, the rose odors, and the flowers, The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments-- The white arms and the raven hair--the braids, And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace, An India in itself, yet dazzling not.

  Lord Byron

  Flower, Wine, Eye

  17 Copy quote

• I am as one who is left alone at a banquet, the lights dead and the flowers faded.

  Edward George, Baron George

  Flower, Light, Solitude

  "The last days of Pompeii". Book by Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1834.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them.

  Aaron Hill

  Joy, Deception, Vices

  Aaron Hill (1760). “Works”, p.21

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sabi is the color of haikai. It is different from tranquility. For example, if an old man dresses up in armor and helmet and goes to the battlefield, or in colorful brocade kimono, attending (his lord) at a banquet, [sabi] is like this old figure.

  Matsuo Basho

  Men, Color, Example

  66 Copy quote

• In such a world as ours the idle man is not so much a biped as a bivalve; and the wealth which breeds idleness, of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country, is only a sort of human oyster bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worms' banquet.

  Horace Mann

  Country, Men, Oysters

  Horace Mann (1850). “A Few Thoughts for a Young Man: A Lecture, Delivered Before the Boston Mercantile Library Association, on Its 29th Anniversary”, p.49

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Reformers have long observed city people loitering on busy corners, hanging around in candy stores and bars and drinking soda popon stoops, and have passed a judgment, the gist of which is: "This is deplorable! If these people had decent homes and a more private or bosky outdoor place, they wouldn't be on the street!" That judgment represents a profound misunderstanding of cities. It makes no more sense than to drop in at a testimonial banquet in a hotel and conclude that if these people had wives who could cook, they would give their parties at home.

  Jane Jacobs

  Party, Drinking, Home

  Jane Jacobs (1989). “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Vintage

  20 Copy quote

  Show source