Burrs Quotes

• I am a kind of burr; I shall stick.

  William Shakespeare

  Perseverance, Sticks, Kind

  'Measure for Measure' (1604) act 4, sc. 3, l. [193]

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• Heaven sometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and odium, as the burr that protects the fruit.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Heaven, Fruit

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.657, Modern Library

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• As we walk our individual life journeys, we pick up resentments and hurts, which attach themselves to our souls like burrs clinging to a hiker's socks. These stowaways may seem insignificant at first, but, over time, if we do not occasionally stop and shake them free, the accumulation becomes a burden to our souls.

  Richard Paul Evans

  Hurt, Journey, Soul

  Richard Paul Evans (2012). “The Road to Grace”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

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• Never do today what you can do tomorrow, because something may occur to make you regret your premature action.

  Aaron Burr

  Regret, May, Today

  "Wit and Humor of Bench and Bar". Book by Marshall Brown, 1899.

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• There's no "brothers" when it comes to white people. We are just complete individuals. We don't care about each other. He's not my brother; my brother lives in Ohio - I don't know that guy.

  Bill Burr

  Funny, Brother, Ohio

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• You're a kid, your whole life is awesome. It's awesome, right? You had no money, no ID, no cell phone, no nothing, no keys to the house. You just ran outside into the woods. You weren't
  scared of nothing. I challenge you to do that as an adult. All your IDs, all your credit cards - just run out of the house with no phone, turn the corner where you can't see your house, and
  not have a full on panic attack.

  Bill Burr

  Funny, Motivational, Running

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• You know why men make more money than women? Because, in the unlikely event that we're both on the Titanic and it starts to sink, for some reason, you get to leave with the kids and I have
  to stay - that's why I get the dollar more an hour.

  Bill Burr

  Kids, Men, Events

  207 Copy quote

• An aphorism
  should be
  like a burr:
  sting,
  ...
  and leave
  a little soreness.

  Irving Layton

  Littles, Aphorism, Should

  7 Copy quote

• If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it's not politics - and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy - but I look at politicians as they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, 'That's what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?' But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say, 'Bad monkey.'

  Jon Stewart

  Jobs, Zoos, Thinking

  "Charlie Rose" Interview, charlierose.com. September 29, 2004.

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• You are like a chestnut burr, prickly outside, but silky-soft within, and a sweet kernel, if one can only get at it. Love will make you show your heart some day, and then the rough burr will fall off.

  Louisa May Alcott

  Love, Sweet, Fall

  Louisa May Alcott “Little Women”, Рипол Классик

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• The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Thrown

  Henry David Thoreau (2006). “Thoreau and the Art of Life: Precepts and Principles”, p.23, Heron Dance Press

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• Anger is a better weapon than tears; a burr commands more respect than a sensitive plant.

  Myrtle Reed

  Anger, Tears, Weapons

  Myrtle Reed, Mary Badollet Powell (1911). “The Myrtle Reed Year Book: Epigrams and Opinions from the Writings and Sayings of Myrtle Reed”

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• Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspectthey differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.

  Robert Frost

  Book, Artist, Annoyed

  "The Figure a Poem Makes". Essay by Robert Frost, 1939.

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• I . . . am small, like the wren, and my hair is bold like the chestnut burr; and my eyes like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.

  Emily Dickinson

  Eye, Glasses, Hair

  Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1971). “The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.241, Biblo & Tannen Publishers

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• Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other's presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our lifeforce, and then we go on carrying that person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, 'Go on, take us with you, carry us to root in another place.' This is how we survive long after we are dead. This is why it is important who we become, because we pass it on.

  Natalie Goldberg

  Cells, Roots, Long

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• A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.)

  Ron Chernow

  Taken, Son, Men

  6 Copy quote

• I'm the company philosopher and the burr in the saddle. I'm the one who says we need to try harder, improve the quality of our products, become a part of the political process, help elect people who are good for the environment.

  Yvon Chouinard

  People, Political, Trying

  "Yvon Chouinard on Entrepreneurship". Interview with Amy S. Choi, www.bloomberg.com. June 20, 2008.

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• Chauncy Burr ... talks well, possibly better than he thinks. But this is a common failing.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Thinking, Talking, Speech

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriot (Stanton). Blatch (Mrs) (1922). “Elizabeth Cady Stanton as revealed in her letters, diary and reminiscences”

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• The winter's frost must rend the burr of the nut before the fruit is seen. So adversity tempers the human heart, to discover its real worth.

  Honore de Balzac

  Real, Adversity, Heart

  7 Copy quote

• America was based on a big promise--a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that's quite a problem--particularly when you've got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America--you see, that saddle's going to jump now and then and it pricks.

  Robert Penn Warren

  Children, America, Self

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• These bits of poetry that stick to her like burrs.

  Jenny Offill

  Sticks, Bits

  Jenny Offill (2014). “Dept. of Speculation”, p.78, Vintage

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• The real story of our times is seldom told in the horse-puckey-filled memoirs of dopey, self-serving presidents or generals, but in the outrageous, demented lives of guys like Lenny Bruce, Giordano Bruno, Scott Fitzgerald - and Paul Krassner. The burrs under society's saddle. The pains in the ass.

  Harlan Ellison

  Horse, Pain, Real

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• I'm not against accents - my husband's from Lancashire and has a rural Lancs accent. We've just got back from Scotland yesterday, and I love that Highland burr.

  Penelope Keith

  Husband, Scotland, Yesterday

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• You will be favourable to Burr, and so must fail because the American reader cannot bear a surprise. He knows that this is the greatest country on earth, Washington the greatest man that ever lived, Burr the wickedest, and evidence to the contrary is not admissible. That means no inconvenient facts, no new information. If you really want the reader's attention, you must flatter him. Make his prejudices your own. Tell him things he already knows. He will love your soundness.

  Gore Vidal

  Country, Love You, Mean

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• Aaron Burr was like a new refrigerator. He was bright, cold and empty.

  Richard Brookhiser

  Cold, Empty, Refrigerators

  4 Copy quote