Circumstances Quotes - Page 36

• Mankind are creatures of books, as well as of other circumstances; and such they eternally remain,--proofs, that the race is a noble and believing race, and capable of whatever books can stimulate.

  Leigh Hunt

  Believe, Book, Race

  Leigh Hunt (1849). “A Book for a Corner”, p.7

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• Circumstances alter faces.

  Carolyn Wells

  Faces

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• God smiles as He has always smiled;
  Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
  Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled
  The Heavens, God thought on me His child;
  Ordained a life for me, arrayed
  Its circumstances, every one
  To the minutest; ay, God said
  This head this hand should rest upon
  Thus, ere He fashioned star or sun.

  Robert Browning

  Stars, Children, Moon

  Robert Browning (2013). “MEN AND WOMEN Songs of love and life”, p.47, Lulu.com

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• Sorrow, the heart must bear,
  Sits in the home of each, conspicuous there.
  Many a circumstance, at least,
  Touches the very breast.
  For those
  Whom any sent away,--he knows:
  And in the live man's stead,
  Armor and ashes reach
  The house of each.

  Robert Browning

  Home, Heart, Men

  Robert Browning (2008). “The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, La Saisiaz, Etc.”, p.15, Wildside Press LLC

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• Our worst foes are not belligerent circumstances, but wavering spirits.

  Helen Keller

  Courage, Wavering, Spirit

  Helen Keller, Annie Sullivan (1904). “The story of my life”

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• Happiness is a state of mind, and depends very little on outward circumstances.

  Helen Keller

  Happiness, Mind, Littles

  Helen Keller (2000). “To Love this Life: Quotations”, p.25, American Foundation for the Blind

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• What acts as a far more effective circumstance for generating compassion and what, in fact, rouses us from our comfortable meditation seat is actually seeing or hearing others - encountering others directly, not just conceptually in our imagination.

  Dalai Lama

  Compassion, Imagination, Meditation

  Dalai Lama, Alexander Berzin (1997). “The Gelug/Kagyu Tradition of Mahamudra”, p.56, Shambhala

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• The works of a person that begin immediately to decay, while those of him who plants begin directly to improve. In this, planting promises a more lasting pleasure than building; which, were it to remain in equal perfection, would at best begin to moulder and want repairs in imagination. Now trees have a circumstance that suits our taste, and that is annual variety.

  William Shenstone

  Imagination, Perfection, Tree

  William Shenstone (1764). “The Works in Verse and Prose, of William Shenstone, Esq: Most of which Were Never Before Printed ...”, p.137

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• Justice must take account of infinite circumstances which a human being cannot understand.

  Clarence Darrow

  Justice, Infinite, Accounts

  Clarence Darrow (2012). “Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom”, p.43, University of Chicago Press

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• There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Heart, Evil, May

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.231, e-artnow

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• The friendship I have conceived will not be impaired by absence; but it may be no unpleasing circumstance to brighten the chain by a renewal of the covenant.

  George Washington

  Friendship, Covenant, May

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral and Religious”, p.242

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• Fear hath the common fault of a justice of peace, and is apt to conclude hastily from every slight circumstance, without examining the evidence on both sides.

  Henry Fielding

  Fear, Justice, Faults

  Henry Fielding, Sir Walter Scott (1831). “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”, p.91

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• Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Gratitude, Thinking, Debt

  Oliver Goldsmith (1841). “Goldsmith's miscellaneous works”

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• It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Country, Character, Favors

  Oliver Goldsmith (1819). “Essays and poems, by Dr. Oliver Goldsmith. To which are prefixed, memoirs of the author”, p.3

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• I'm not against mothers. I am against the ideology which expects every woman to have children, and I'm against the circumstances under which mothers have to have their children.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Mother, Children, Ideology

  Alice Schwarzer, Simone de Beauvoir (1984). “Simone De Beauvoir Today”, Not Avail

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• Everything has two handles; the one soft and manageable, the other such as will not endure to be touched. If then your brother do you an injury, do not take it by the hot hard handle, by representing to yourself all the aggravating circumstances of the fact; but look rather on the soft side, and extenuate it as much as is possible, by considering the nearness of the relation, and the long friendship and familiarity between you--obligations to kindness which a single provocation ought not to dissolve. And thus you will take the accident by its manageable handle.

  Epictetus

  Brother, Kindness, Two

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• Circumstances form the character; but, like petrifying matters, they harden while they form.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Character, Matter, Form

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• A prudent man should neglect no circumstances.

  Sophocles

  Men, Prudent, Neglect

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• The mind of the greatest man on earth is not so independent of circumstances as not to feel inconvenienced by the merest buzzing noise about him; it does not need the report of a cannon to disturb his thoughts. The creaking of a vane or a pully is quite enough. Do not wonder that he reasons ill just now; a fly is buzzing by his ear; it is quite enough to unfit him for giving good counsel.

  Blaise Pascal

  Independent, Men, Giving

  Blaise Pascal (1828). “Thoughts on religion, and other subjects”, p.109

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• Gratitude turns negative energy into positive energy. There is no situation or circumstance so small or large that it is not susceptible to gratitude's power.

  Melody Beattie

  Gratitude, Positive Energy, Negative

  Melody Beattie (2013). “Melody Beattie 4 Title Bundle: Codependent No More and 3 Other Best Sellers by Melody Beattie: A collection of four Melody Beattie best sellers”, Hazelden Publishing

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• There are circumstances in which despair does not imply inactivity.

  Edmund Burke

  Despair, Doe, Inactivity

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• If the prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts.

  Edmund Burke

  Order, Silence, May

  Edmund Burke (1912). “Reflections on the French Revolution”, p.9, CUP Archive

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• First loves are not necessarily more foolish than others; but the chances are certainly against them. Proximity of time or place, a variety of accidental circumstances more than the essential merits of the object, often produce what is called first love.

  Maria Edgeworth

  First Love, Firsts, Merit

  Maria Edgeworth, Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1824). “Works”, p.216

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• Now the pessimist proper is the most modest of men. ... under no circumstances does he presume to imagine that he, a mere unit of pain, can in any degree change or soften the remorseless words of fate.

  Agnes Repplier

  Pain, Fate, Men

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• Remorse of conscience is like an old wound; a man is in no condition to fight under such circumstances. The pain abates his vigor and takes up too much of his attention.

  Jeremy Collier

  Pain, Fighting, Men

  Jeremy COLLIER (the Nonjuror.), J. E. (1838). “Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of “Sir William Jones's Discourses,” etc. [The editor's preface signed: J. E., i.e. James Elmes.]”, p.106

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