Barbarians Quotes - Page 5

• We must think of human progress, not as of something going on in the race in general, but as something going on in a small minority, perpetually beleaguered in a few walled towns. Now and then the horde of barbarians outside breaks through, and we have an armed effort to halt the process. That is, we have a Reformation, a French Revolution, a war for democracy, a Great Awakening. The minority is decimated and driven to cover. But a few survive- and a few are enough to carry on.

  H. L. Mencken

  War, Thinking, Break Through

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• The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex of order and freedom, culture and peace, can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within.

  Will Durant

  Islamic, Order, Civilization

  "Story of Civilization Our Oriental Heritage". Book by Will Durant, 1935.

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• Many readers simply can't stomach fantasy. They immediately picture elves with broadswords or mighty-thewed barbarians with battle axes, seeking the bejeweled Coronet of Obeisance ... (But) the best fantasies pull aside the velvet curtain of mere appearance. ... In most instances, fantasy ultimately returns us to our own now re-enchanted world, reminding us that it is neither prosaic nor meaningless, and that how we live and what we do truly matters.

  Michael Dirda

  Axes, Battle, Velvet

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• We are all youthful barbarians, and only our new toys bring us excitement. That has been the sole purpose of our flights. This one flies higher, that one faster. But now we will make ourselves at home. We will forget the machine, the tool. It is no longer complex; it does what it is supposed to do, unnoticed. And through this tool we will find again the old nature, the nature of the gardener, the navigator, the poet.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Home, Machines, Toys

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• The barbarian chieftain, who defended his country against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of Britain, and stimulating his followers to battle, by all that has power of persuasion upon the human heart, concludes his exhortation by an appeal to these irresistible feelings - "Think of your forefathers and of your posterity."

  John Quincy Adams

  Country, Heart, Thinking

  John Quincy Adams's Oration delivered at Plymouth at The Anniversary Commemoration of The Landing Of The Pilgrims, December 22, 1802.

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• Passion and courtesy are two polar opposite traits that serve to balance each other into a full-blooded whole. Without socialization, passion is a crude barbarian, and without passion, the elegant and polite are dead. Allow both passion and courtesy into your life in equal measure, and be complete.

  Vera Nazarian

  Passion, Opposites, Two

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• Why is she afraid?" he asked. "She's not Anjin-san. Just a little nervous. Please excuse her. She's never seen a foreigner close to before." "Tell her when the moon's full, barbarians sprout horns and fire comes out of our mouths like dragons.

  James Clavell

  Moon, Fire, Dragons

  James Clavell (1975). “Shogun a Novel of Japan”

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• Barbarian --A Code of Conduct honored by all true barbarian warriors, requiring excellent coordination with weapons, closeness to nature, awkwardness with women, common sense, and completion of the mission.

  Piers Anthony

  Warrior, Common Sense, Weapons

  Piers Anthony (2002). “Golem in the Gears”, p.288, Del Rey

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• Barbarian that I am, I had eaten all of it. It had tasted quite nice too. Still, I took note of this fact and resigned myself to throw away half of a perfectly good cheese if it was set in front of me. Such is the price of civilization.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Nice, Perfectly Good, Civilization

  Patrick Rothfuss (2011). “The Wise Man's Fear: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day Two”, p.424, Penguin

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• There's no god. He who created god was a fool; he who spreads his name is a scoundrel and he who worships him is a barbarian.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Names, Fool, Worship

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• I ate him," said the homunculus, biting into his sausage. The kids couldn't hide their looks of horror. He smiled, sausage juice running down his chin. "Oh, don't worry - I cooked him first. I'm not a barbarian.

  Pseudonymous Bosch

  Running, Kids, Worry

  Pseudonymous Bosch (2012). “If You're Reading This, It's Too Late: The Secret Series”, p.127, Usborne Publishing Ltd

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• The Clave thinks the wards will stand forever because they’ve stood for a thousand years. But so did Rome, till the barbarians came. Everything falls someday

  Cassandra Clare

  Fall, Thinking, Years

  Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.1058, Simon and Schuster

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• They'd poisoned me, dammit. Probably to trade my dead body to the barbarians for Wulfgar's safe return. Or maybe just for the fun of it.

  Vivian Vande Velde

  Fun, Safe Return, Body

  Vivian Vande Velde (2002). “Heir Apparent”, p.131, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There, close enough to spit on--if I'd been a barbarian and inclined to spit--was the dragon.

  Vivian Vande Velde

  Dragons, Enough, Spit

  Vivian Vande Velde (2002). “Heir Apparent”, p.169, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• In this metallic age of barbarians, only a relentless cultivation of our ability to dream, to analyse and to captivate can prevent our personality from degenerating into nothing or else into a personality like all the rest.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Dream, Personality, Age

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• The Greeks had had vast experience in this world, their imagination had been fertile and they had created much...that, in these circumstances, they should fall in with a people imbued with a calm and sometimes stolid and bucolic certainty where its spiritual possessions were concerned, barbarians with no sculpture or breeding, necessarily tinged their contempt with impotent wrath. The inevitably logical result of this attitude on the part of the Greeks was the growth of anti-Semitism, of hatred of the Jews.

  Joseph Kastein

  Spiritual, Attitude, Fall

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• So you're the infamous Acheron. (Amanda) Lord and Master of the great barbarian horde that roams the night. (Acheron)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Night, Infamous, Lord

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• The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place. They dislike being alone because it is verily and indeed an awful idea to be alone. Barbarians fear the unknown for the same reason that Agnostics worship it - because it is a fact.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Children, Fear, Ideas

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• The threat of China is not military. The threat of China is they can't be intimidated. Europe you can intimidate. When the US tries to get people to stop investing in Iran, European companies pull out, China disregards it. You look at history and understand why - they've been around for 4,000 years, they have contempt for the barbarians, they just don't give a damn.

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Iran, Years

  Interview with Robert Trivers, seedmagazine.com. September 06, 2006.

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• [O]ne person's 'barbarian' is another person's 'just doing what everybody else is doing.

  Susan Sontag

  Persons

  Susan Sontag (2013). “Regarding the Pain of Others”, p.92, Macmillan

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• This is good, life must continue, we are fighting barbarians, but we must remain human.

  David Benioff

  Good Life, Fighting, Humans

  David Benioff (2008). “City of Thieves: A Novel”, p.32, Penguin

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• In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves, in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers - a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians - a Church that can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.

  C. S. Lewis

  War, Men, Doctors

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• Basque and Celt. Criminals and barbarians. I didn't think there could be a more primitive pairing of genes.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Thinking, Criminals, Genes

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• When a nation forgets her skill in war, when her religion becomes a mockery, when the whole nation becomes a nation of money-grabbers, then the wild tribes, the barbarians drive in... Who will our invaders be? From whence will they come?

  Robert E. Howard

  War, Skills, Tribes

  Letter to Tevis Clyde Smith, July 1923.

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• Let those who once fought against brothers and relatives now rightfully fight against barbarians.

  Pope Urban II

  Brother, War, Fighting

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