Crooked Quotes - Page 8

• Work while your strength and years permit you; crooked age will by-and-by come upon you with silent foot.

  Ovid

  Years, Feet, Age

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• Venerable to me is the hard hand,--crooked, coarse,--wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indispensably royal as of the sceptre of the planet.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Lying, Hands, Royal

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• The slaves of custom and established mode,
  With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
  Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
  True to the jingling of our leader's bells.

  William Cowper

  Horse, Leader, Bells

  William Cowper (1785). “Poetical Works: With Notes and a Memoir”, p.207

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• If one imitates the upright, one becomes upright. If one imitates the crooked, one becomes crooked.

  Christie Watson

  Ifs

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• Aus so krummen Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made.

  Immanuel Kant

  Humanity, Als, Made

  'Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht' (1784) proposition 6

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• ...the best figurative poetry speaks not to the frivolous intellect, but (if anything does) straight to the heart; and does it better than plain prose. There seems then to be something which is better said with metaphor than without, which goes straighter to its mark by going crooked, and hits its aim exactly by flying off at tangents.

  Austin Farrer

  Heart, Flying, Doe

  Austin Farrer (2012). “Reflective Faith: Essays in Philosophical Theology”, p.25, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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• I believe that if we had would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.

  David M. Shoup

  Believe, Dirty, People

  David M. Shoup's speech to community college students at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California, on World Affairs Day, May 14, 1966.

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• Some are bent with toil, and some get crooked trying to avoid it.

  Herbert V. Prochnow

  Trying, Toil, Bent

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• Try not to make a straight line crooked.

  Matthew McConaughey

  Trying, Lines, Straight Lines

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• I have my father's lopsided mouth. When I smile, my lips slope to one side. My doctor sister calls it my cerebral palsy mouth. I am very much a daddy's girl, and even though I would rather my smile wasn't crooked, there is something moving for me about having a mouth exactly like my father's.

  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

  Girl, Father, Moving

  "What I see in the mirror" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, www.theguardian.com. January 22, 2010.

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• You know there's no crooked politicians. There's never a lie because there is never any truth.

  Lenny Bruce

  Lying, Politician, Knows

  Lenny Bruce (2016). “How to Talk Dirty and Influence People: An Autobiography”, p.132, Hachette UK

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• Involved sentences, crooked, circuitous, and parenthetical, no matter how musically they may be balanced, are prejudicial to a facile understanding of the truth.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Understanding, May, Matter

  Henry Ward Beecher (1872). “Lectures on preaching. 2. Author's ed”, p.251

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• He that rectifies a crooked stick bends it the contrary way, so must he that would reform a vice learn to affect its mere contrary, and in time he shall see the springing blossoms of a happy restoration.

  Roger Chamberlain

  Vices, Reform, Restoration

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• Our good nature and endearing qualities will not arouse the answers to our prayers. Rather it is our mischievous, dishonest attributes that provide the master keys to heaven. When we identify and work to transform our self-centered qualities and crooked characteristics, the key turns and the gates unlock. Blessings and good fortune are now free to rain down upon us.

  Yehuda Berg

  Prayer, Rain, Blessing

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• Reincarnation is, indeed, the key which unlocks all doors, the universal "combination," before which our manacles fall from our limbs -- the life-line by which the crooked way is made straight.

  Shaw Desmond

  Fall, Keys, Doors

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• I'm a character actor. Nobody's ever seemed to think of me as a leading man. I'm 6'6''. I've got a big nose. I'm gangly. I've got crooked teeth. That's certainly not Brad Pitt. I'm still around and alive, so if they need older guys, I guess they're thinking of me.

  James Cromwell

  Character, Men, Thinking

  "The Construction Of James Cromwell". Interview with Drew Fortune, www.interviewmagazine.com. July 12, 2013.

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• God draweth straight lines but we call them crooked.

  Horace Mann

  Lines, Straight Lines

  "The Common School Journal", Vol. V, No. 18, September 15, 1843.

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• Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion?

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Selfish, Church, Phases

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Howard (earl of Carlisle) (1852). “Uncle Tom's Cabin”, p.124

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• Calm, thinking villains, whom no faith could fix, Of crooked counsels and dark politics.

  Alexander Pope

  Dark, Thinking, Calm

  Alexander Pope (1847). “The works of Alexander Pope, with notes and illustrations, by himself and others. To which are added, a new life of the author [&c.] by W. Roscoe”, p.215

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• You are about to be told one more time that you are America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don't ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They're going to strip mine your soul. They're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked!

  Utah Phillips

  Inspirational, Nature, Cutting

  "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere". Album by Utah Phillips and Ani DiFranco, October 15, 1996.

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• In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed.

  Paul Theroux

  Country, People, Suits

  Paul Theroux (2004). “Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town”, p.343, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The best way to prove that a stick is crooked is to set a straight one beside it. No words need to be spoken.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  God, Christian, Religious

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• The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews Not to be born is the best for man The second best is a formal order The dance's pattern, dance while you can. Dance, dance, for the figure is easy The tune is catching and will not stop Dance till the stars come down from the rafters Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

  W. H. Auden

  Stars, Heart, Men

  Letter from Iceland (1937, by Auden and MacNeice) "Letter to William Coldstream, Esq."

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• Once upon a time there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. And they grew next to each other. And every day the straight tree would look at the crooked tree and he would say, "You're crooked. You've always been crooked and you'll continue to be crooked. But look at me! Look at me!" said the straight tree. He said, "I'm tall and I'm straight." And then one day the lumberjacks came into the forest and looked around, and the manager in charge said, "Cut all the straight trees." And that crooked tree is still there to this day, growing strong and growing strange.

  Tom Waits

  Strong, Cutting, Tree

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• Love yourself and be awake- Today, tomorrow, always. First establish yourself in the way, Then teach others, And so defeat sorrow. To straighten the crooked You must first do a harder thing- Straighten yourself. You are your only master. Who else? Subdue yourself, And discover your master.

  Gautama Buddha

  Buddhist, Love You, Self Worth

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