Capable Quotes - Page 34

• In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon which at once renders him capable of defence or attack, and, by rendering its owner fearsome, makes him feared.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Country, Taken, Heart

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• Love, as we have already discussed, is a powerful, wonderful, ridiculous thing, capable of moving mountains. And spools of thread.

  Kate DiCamillo

  Powerful, Moving, Mountain

  Kate DiCamillo (2009). “The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread”, p.223, Candlewick Press

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• Oh, they never lie. They dissemble, evade, prevaricate, confound, confuse, distract, obscure, subtly misrepresent and willfully misunderstand with what often appears to be a positively gleeful relish and are generally perfectly capable of contriving to give one an utterly unambiguous impression of their future course of action while in fact intending to do exactly the opposite, but they never lie. Perish the thought.

  Iain Banks

  Lying, Opposites, Giving

  Iain M. Banks (2010). “Look To Windward”, p.23, Hachette UK

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• We all have our moments of weakness, just as well that we are still capable of weeping, tears are often our salvation, there are times when we would die if we did not weep - Blindness

  Jose Saramago

  Tears, Weakness, Moments

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• I was in the black silence of a medieval street, and blindly I followed its sharp turns, comforted by the height of its narrow tenements, which seemed at any moment capable of falling together, closing this alleyway under indifferent stars like a seam.

  Anne Rice

  Stars, Fall, Silence

  Anne Rice (2011). “The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned”, p.253, Ballantine Books

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• 'My fingers,' said Elizabeth, 'do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many woman's do. They have not the same force of rapidity and do not possess the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault - because I would not take the trouble of practicing. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution.'
  Darcy smiled and said, 'You are perfectly right.'

  Jane Austen

  Moving, Believe, Expression

  "Pride and Prejudice". Book by Jane Austen. Chapter 31, 1813.

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• At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn't capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.

  Sarah Dessen

  Mom, Doors, People

  Sarah Dessen (2008). “Lock and Key”, p.254, Penguin

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• There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men.

  George Eliot

  Men, Compassion, Feelings

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.406, Penguin

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• This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood, So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm'd. See, here it is-- I hold it towards you.

  John Keats

  Dream, Heart, Night

  'This living hand, now warm and capable' (written 1819)

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• To think, analyze and invent, he [Pierre Menard] also wrote me, “are not anomalous acts, but the normal respiration of the intelligence. To glorify the occasional fulfillment of this function, to treasure ancient thoughts of others, to remember with incredulous amazement that the doctor universal is thought, is to confess our languor or barbarism. Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be." (Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote, 1939)

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Believe, Men, Thinking

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• I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Believe, Giving, Desire

  W. Somerset Maugham (2006). “The Moon and Sixpence”, p.84, Courier Corporation

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• Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram. The rigors of learning how to do long division have been a traditional part of childhood, just like learning to smoke. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the two go hand in hand. Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Children, Sleep, Hands

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• A scholar's business is to add to what is known. That is all. But it is capable of giving the very greatest satisfaction, because knowledge is good. It does not have to look good or even sound good or even do good. It is good just by being knowledge. And the only thing that makes it knowledge is that it is true. You can't have too much of it and there is no little too little to be worth having. There is truth and falsehood in a comma.

  Tom Stoppard

  Giving, Sound, Doe

  Tom Stoppard (2014). “The Invention of Love”, p.27, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I want to throw up because we're supposed to quietly and politely make house in this killing machine called America and pay taxes to support our own slow murder and I'm amazed we're not running amok in the streets, and that we can still be capable of gestures of loving after lifetimes of all this.

  David Wojnarowicz

  Running, Loving Life, America

  David Wojnarowicz (1990). “David Wojnarowicz: Tongues of Flame”, University Galleries

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• Because you believed I was capable of behaving decently, I did.

  Paulo Coelho

  Faith

  Paulo Coelho (2009). “The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation”, p.25, Harper Collins

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• The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.

  Ezra Pound

  Degrees, Language, Form

  Sophocles, Ezra Pound, Rudd Fleming, Carey Perloff (1990). “Elektra”, p.17, New Directions Publishing

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• You don't know what I'm capable of, you don't know what I've done!

  J. K. Rowling

  Done, Draco Malfoy, Knows

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• Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.

  Jane Austen

  Believe, Mrs Bennet, Faces

  "Pride and Prejudice". Book by Jane Austen. Chapter 16, 1813.

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• He said that people who loved [animals] to excess were capable of the worst cruelties toward human beings. He said that dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws were simply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in the three denials of Christ.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Dog, Cat, Animal

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• Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Lilith, Intercourse

  Vladimir Nabokov (2016). “Lolita”, p.9, Hamilton Books

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• I never use the words HUMANIST or HUMANITARIAN, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.

  Gregory Maguire

  Use, Crime, Humanitarian

  Gregory Maguire (2013). “The Wicked Years Complete Collection: Wicked, Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz”, p.164, Harper Collins

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• ... A CLOCKWORK ORANGE- and I said: 'That's a fair gloopy title. Who ever heard of a clockwork orange?' Then I read a malenky bit out loud in a sort of very high type preaching goloss: '- The attempt to impose upon a man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my swordpen-

  Anthony Burgess

  Men, Orange, Law

  A Clockwork Orange (1962) p. 21

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• You know me better than anyone, and you're my best friend. I don't think there's anything you could say to me that would lead me to believe that you're doing it just to hurt me. If there's one thing I've come to know about you, it's that you're not even capable of something like that. Why do you think I like spending time with you so much? Because you're a good guy. A nice guy.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Hurt, Nice, Believe

  Nicholas Sparks (2013). “The Guardian”, p.111, Hachette UK

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• Young man, nature is not frightening, it's people who are frightening! You just need to get to know nature and it will become friendly. This creature known as man is of course highly intelligent, he's capable of manufacturing almost anything from rumours to test-tube babies and yet he destroys two to three species every day. This is the absurdity of man.

  Gao Xingjian

  Baby, Men, Intelligent

  Gao Xingjian (2000). “Soul Mountain”

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• I wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from history--whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline.

  Barack Obama

  War, Men, Progress

  Barack Obama (2007). “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream”, p.322, Canongate Books

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