Extremes Quotes - Page 17

• The lover`s discourse was of an extreme solitude. The solitude was extreme because it wasn`t physical. It was extreme because you felt it while in the company of the person you loved. It was extreme because it was in your head, the most solitary of places.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Solitude, Lovers, Solitary

  Jeffrey Eugenides (2011). “The Marriage Plot: A Novel”, p.65, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy

  Joseph Conrad

  Grief, Apathy, May

  Joseph Conrad “Heart of Darkness”, W. W. Norton & Company

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• How do you know it'll be pleasurable?" He got on the bed and lay down. Breath a whisper, she came closer and tied one wrist to the headboard. The cat growled but didn't try to make him wrench free. "Because just looking at you gives me the most extreme pleasure I've ever felt." "Christ, baby, tie me up before you start talking like that.

  Nalini Singh

  Baby, Cat, Talking

  Nalini Singh (2012). “Nalini Singh: The Psy-Changeling Series”, p.494, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I could see how you could do extreme things for the person you loved. Adam One said that when you loved a person, that love might not always get returned the way you wanted, but it was a good thing anyway because love went out all around you like an energy wave, and a creature you didn't know would be helped by it.

  Margaret Atwood

  Energy, Would Be, Might

  4 Copy quote

• For pain words are lacking. There should be cries, cracks, fissures, whiteness passing over chintz covers, interference with the sense of time, of space ; the sense also of extreme fixity in passing objects ; and sounds very remote and then very close ; flesh being gashed and blood sparting, a joint suddenly twisted - beneath all of which appears something very important, yet remote, to be just held in solitude.” — Virginia Woolf, The Waves

  Virginia Woolf

  Pain, Virginia, Blood

  Virginia Woolf (2005). “Selected Works of Virginia Woolf”, p.763, Wordsworth Editions

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely but too well, Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinable gum. Set you down this, And say besides that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk Beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by th' throat the circumcised dog And smote him thus.

  William Shakespeare

  Dog, Jealous, Eye

  'Othello' (1602-4) act 5, sc. 2, l. 338

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Finals, Prudent, Compromise

  John Maynard Keynes (2016). “The Economic Consequences of the Peace”, p.21, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is said that any virtue when taken to an extreme can become a vice. Overscheduling our days would certainly qualify for this. There comes a point where milestones can become millstones and ambitions, albatrosses around our necks.

  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

  Taken, Ambition, Vices

  29 Copy quote

• If a person offends you, and you are in doubt as to whether it was intentional or not, do not resort to extreme measures; simply watch your chance, and hit him with a brick.

  Mark Twain

  Doubt, Watches, Bricks

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.4158, Delphi Classics

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• the very best that can happen is to have energetic opponents. The more extreme they become, the more powerful the reaction they will have to face.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Powerful, Opponents, Faces

  5 Copy quote

• Though I am young, and cannot tell Either what Death or Love is well, Yet I have heard they both bear darts, And both do aim at human hearts. And then again, I have been told Love wounds with heat, as Death with cold; So that I fear they do but bring Extremes to touch, and mean one thing. As in a ruin we it call One thing to be blown up, or fall; Or to our end like way may have By a flash of lightning, or a wave; So Love’s inflamèd shaft or brand May kill as soon as Death’s cold hand; Except Love’s fires the virtue have To fight the frost out of the grave.

  Ben Jonson

  Fall, Heart, Mean

  Ben Jonson, William Gifford (1816). “The magnetic lady: or, humours reconciled. A tale of a tub. The sad shepherd: or, a tale of Robin Hood. The case is altered. Entertainments, &c”, p.266

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change.

  Marquis de Sade

  Imagination, Atheism, Take Me As I Am

  105 Copy quote

• To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. That says something very important about the condition of the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertain and on a willingness to be exposed; it’s based on being more like a plant than like a jewel, something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility.

  Martha C. Nussbaum

  Jewels, Risk, Important

  118 Copy quote

• The more she thought about it, the more Madeleine understood that extreme solitude didn't just describe the way she was feeling about Leonard. It explained how she'd always felt when she was in love. It explained what love was like and, just maybe, what was wrong with it.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Solitude, Feelings, Way

  Jeffrey Eugenides (2011). “The Marriage Plot: A Novel”, p.53, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.

  Ben Aaronovitch

  Sports, Wrestling, Jumping

  Ben Aaronovitch (2011). “Rivers of London”, p.5, Hachette UK

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's strange how the human mind swings back and forth, from one extreme to another. Does truth lie at some point of the pendulum's swing, at a point where it never rests, not in the dull perpendicular mean where it dangles in the end like a windless flag, but at an angle, nearer one extreme than another? If only a miracle could stop the pendulum at an angle of sixty degrees, one would believe the truth was there.

  Graham Greene

  Lying, Believe, Mean

  7 Copy quote

• Mother Nature's ruthless to the weak, but isn't arbitrary cruel or negative. Mother Nature saves aggression for extreme situations, and instead uses consistent leadership--to help keep things running smoothly. Mother nature doesn't rule by fear and anger, but by calm strength and assertiveness.

  Cesar Millan

  Mother, Running, Negative

  49 Copy quote

• extreme visual clarity, tunnel vision, diminished sound, and the sense that time is slowing down. this is how the human body reacts to extreme stress.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Stress, Tunnels, Vision

  Malcolm Gladwell (2006). “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”, p.168, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Evangelicalism has taken the Extrovert Ideal to its logical extreme...If you don't love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It's not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the divine; it must be displayed publicly.

  Susan Cain

  Spiritual, Jesus, Real

  12 Copy quote

• Tabitha was always trying unorthodox ways to set her up with guys. Although, to be fair to her sister, Tabitha didn't usually knock the guy unconscious before she forced them together. Still, with Tabitha there was a first time for just about anything. And extreme blind-dating was very vintage T.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Vintage, Always Trying, Dating

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2007). “Night Pleasures”, p.13, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it.

  Alfred Bester

  Age, Freak, Century

  Alfred Bester (1974). “Tiger! Tiger!”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I, on the other hand, am a finished product. I absorb electrical energy directly and utilize it with an almost one hundred percent efficiency. I am composed of strong metal, am continuously conscious, and can stand extremes of environment easily. These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing.

  Isaac Asimov

  Strong, Silly, Self

  Isaac Asimov (1950). “I, Robot”, Roc

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly.

  Scott Westerfeld

  World, Ugly, Normal

  Scott Westerfeld (2005). “Uglies”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Soon madness has worn you down. It’s easier to do what it says than argue. In this way, it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you, no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says you’re worthless, you agree. You plead for it to stop. You promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs.

  Marya Hornbacher

  Believe, Laughing, Bipolar

  17 Copy quote

• I always thought fainting showed an inherent weakness of character, but I understood it now. It was an act of self-preservation. Confronted by emotion too extreme to handle, the body shuts down to keep from running around like a chicken with its head cut off, potentially injuring itself.

  Karen Marie Moning

  Running, Character, Cutting

  Karen Marie Moning (2011). “Shadowfever: Fever Series”, p.171, Delacorte Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source