Barren Quotes - Page 11

• If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
  As to thy friends; for when did friendship take
  A breed for barren metal of his friend?

  William Shakespeare

  Real, Shylock, Merchant Of Venice

  1596-7 Antonio to Shylock.TheMerchant ofVenice, act1, sc.3, l.130-3.

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• I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle.

  Thomas Huxley

  Strong, Science, Intelligent

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1997). “The Major Prose of Thomas Henry Huxley”, p.277, University of Georgia Press

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• He was too good to be
  Where ill men were, and was the best of all
  Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly
  Hearing us praise our loves of Italy
  For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast
  Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming
  The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva,
  Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,
  A shop of all the qualities that man
  Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,
  Fairness which strikes the eye-
  CYMBELINE.

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, Men, Quality

  William Shakespeare (1824). “The Dramatic Works of Shakspeare”, p.678

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• Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

  Edmund Burke

  Truth, Imagination, Fiction

  Speech 'On Conciliation with America' 22 March 1775

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• God pity us indeed, for we are human, And do not always see, The vision when it comes, the shining change, Or, if we see it, do not follow it, Because it is too hard, too strange, too new, Too unbelievable, too difficult, Warring too much with common, easy ways, And now I know this, standing in this light, Who have been half alive these many years, Brooding on my own sorrow, my own pain, Saying "I am a barren bough. Expect, Nor fruit nor blossom from a barren bough."

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Pain, Light, Years

  "A Child Is Born". Poetic Christmas drama in one act by Stephen Vincent Benet (first presented on radio as part of the anthology program "Cavalcade of America"), December 21, 1942.

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• Habit is, of all the plants of human growth, the one that has the least need of nutritious soil in order to live, and is the first to appear on the most seemingly barren rock.

  Marcel Proust

  Rocks, Order, Growth

  Marcel Proust (2000). “In Search of Lost Time, Volume III: The Guermantes Way”, p.152, Modern Library

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• It seemed to me that I now saw the Star Maker in two aspects: as the spirit's particular creative mood that had given rise to me, the cosmos; and also, most dreadfully, as something incomparably greater than creativity, namely as the eternally achieved perfection of the absolute spirit. Barren, barren and trivial are these words. But not barren the experience.

  Olaf Stapledon

  Stars, Creativity, Two

  "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon, Dover Books, (p. 161), 1937.

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• a society in which there is widespread economic insecurity can turn freedom into a barren and vapid right for millions of people.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  People, Insecurity, Poverty

  The Struggle for Human Rights, delivered 28 September 1948, Paris, France

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• Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures Whilst the landscape round it measures, Russet lawns and fallows grey, Where the nibbling flocks do stray, Mountains on whose barren breast The labouring clouds do often rest; Meadows trim with daisies pied, Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.

  John Milton

  Eye, Rivers, Clouds

  c.1631 L'Allegro, l.69-76.

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• I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren--and so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.

  Laurence Sterne

  Travel, Men, World

  Laurence Sterne, Melvyn New, Geoffrey Day (2006). “A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy: And, Continuation of the Bramine's Journal : with Related Texts”, p.39, Hackett Publishing

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• But beauty is set apart,
  beauty is cast by the sea,
  a barren rock,
  beauty is set about
  with wrecks of ships.

  Hilda Doolittle

  Beauty, Rocks, Sea

  Hilda Doolittle, Louis L. Martz (1986). “Collected Poems 1912-1944”, p.126, New Directions Publishing

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• People have responded to the pictures I make as mystical things, and they somehow carry the illusion further thinking that the place is this mystical, magical place. The desert is also a very barren place, a very lonely place, a very boring, uneventful place.

  Richard Misrach

  Photography, Lonely, Thinking

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• When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

  Bertrand Russell

  Party, Thinking, Political

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.22, Lulu Press, Inc

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• This is the third time that, in the course of six years, during which I have had the lead of the Opposition in the House of Commons, I have stormed the Treasury Benches: twice, fruitlessly, the third time with a tin kettle to my tail which rendered the race hopeless. You cannot, therefore, be surprised, that I am a little wearied of these barren victories, which like Alma, Inkerman, and Balaclava, may be glorious but are certainly nothing more.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Race, Years, House

  Benjamin Disraeli's letter to Lady Londonderry, February 22, 1854.

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• Facts are the barren branches on which we hang the dear, obscuring foliage of our dreams.

  Natalie Babbitt

  Dream, Branches, Facts

  Natalie Babbitt (2010). “Kneeknock Rise”, p.8, Macmillan

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• Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;Thou art fed with perpetual breath, and alive after infinite changes,And fresh from the kisses of death,Of langours rekindled and rallied, Of barren delights and unclean,Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallidAnd poisonous queen.

  Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Art, Queens, Kissing

  Algernon Charles Swinburne (1868). “Laus Veneris: And Other Poems and Ballads”, p.174

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• The City is a machine miraculously organised for extracting gold from the seas, airs, clouds, from barren lands, holds of ships, mines, plantations, cottage hearth-stones, trees and rocks; and he, wretchedly waiting in the exterior halls, could not even get his finger on one tiny, tiny lever.

  Christina Stead

  Art, Clouds, Rocks

  Christina Stead, Anita Segerberg (1994). “Christina Stead, Selected Fiction and Nonfiction”, UQP

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• Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
  Our meddling intellect
  Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
  We murder to dissect.
  Enough of Science and of Art;
  Close up these barren leaves;
  Come forth, and bring with you a heart
  That watches and receives.

  William Wordsworth

  Sweet, Nature, Art

  'The Tables Turned' (1798)

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• A life without problems would be a barren existence, without the opportunity for spiritual growth.

  Peace Pilgrim

  Spiritual, Opportunity, Growth

  Peace Pilgrim (1992). “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”, p.60, Friends of Peace PIlgrim

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• Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results.

  Eugene V. Debs

  Honesty, Oneness, Effort

  "A Plea for Solidarity". The International Socialist Review, Vplume XIV, No. 9, March 1914.

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• I have nothing but myself to write about, no facts, no theories, no opinions, no adventures, no sentiments, nothing but my own poor barren individualism, of considerable interest to me, but I do not know why I should presume it will be so to you. Egotism is not tiresome, or it ought not to be, if one is sincere about oneself; but it is so hard to be sincere. Well, never mind, I mean to be, and you know me well enough to see through me when I am humbugging.

  James Anthony Froude

  Writing, Adventure, Mean

  James Anthony Froude (1849). “The Nemesis of Faith”, p.2

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• From plots and treasons Heaven preserve my years, But save me most from my petitioners. Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave; God cannot grant so much as they can crave.

  John Dryden

  Years, Heaven, Plot

  1681 Absalom and Achitophel, pt.1, l.985-8.

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• A lonely fir-tree is standing On a northern barren height; It sleeps, and the ice and snow-drift Cast round it a garment of white.

  Heinrich Heine

  Lonely, Sleep, Ice

  Heinrich Heine (1859). “The Poems of Heine, complete: Translated in the original Metres: With a Sketch of Heine's Life. By Edgar Alfred Bowring”, p.59

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• But there are spirits of a yet more liberal culture, to whom no simplicity is barren. There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger's path and the Indian's trail, to drink at some new and more bracing fountain of the Muses, far in the recesses of the wilderness.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Flower, Simplicity

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “The Maine Woods”, p.160

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• Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

  Simone Weil

  Happiness, Real, Evil

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.70, Psychology Press

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