Fancy Quotes - Page 20

• That is the American story. People, just like you, following their passions, determined to meet the times on their own terms. They weren't doing it for the money. Their titles weren't fancy. But they changed the course of history and so can you.

  Barack Obama

  Passion, America, People

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• But it's silly to suggest the writing of poetry is something ethereal, a sort of soul-crashing, devastating emotional experience that wrings you. I have no fancy ideas about poetry. ... It doesn't come to you on the wings of a dove. It's something you have to work hard at.

  Louise Bogan

  Silly, Hard Work, Writing

  Louise Bogan, Ruth Limmer (1981). “Journey around my room: the autobiography of Louise Bogan : a mosaic”, Viking Pr

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• Truth is far and flat, and fancy is fiery; and truth is cold, and people feel the cold, and they may wrap themselves against it in fancies that are fiery, but they should not call them facts; and, generally, poets do not; they are shrewd, they feel the cold, too, but they know a hawk from a handsaw, a fact from a fancy, as none knows better.

  Stevie Smith

  People, May, Hawks

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• No companion however wise, no friend however useful, can be to me what my mother has been: her image will long pursue my fancy; her voice for ever hang in my ears: may her precepts but sink into my heart!

  Hester Lynch Piozzi

  Wise, Mother, Heart

  Hester Lynch Piozzi (1926). “The letters of Mrs. Thrale”

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• Madness to us means reversion; to such people as Una and Lena it meant progression. Now their uncle had entered into a land beyond them, the land of fancy. For fifty years he had been as they were, silent, hard-working, unimaginative. Then all of a sudden, like a scholar passing his degree, he had gone up into another form.

  Djuna Barnes

  Uncles, Hard Work, Mean

  Djuna Barnes (2016). “Vivid and Repulsive as the Truth: The Early Works of Djuna Barnes”, p.190, Courier Dover Publications

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• Fancy brings us as many vain hopes as idle fears.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Vain, Idle

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• The mere reality of life would be inconceivably poor without the charm of fancy, which brings in its bosom, no doubt, as many vain fears as idle hopes, but lends much oftener to the illusions it calls up a gay flattering hue than one which inspires terror.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Gay, Reality, Inspire

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• He whom nature thus bereaves,
  Is ever fancy's favourite child;
  For thee enchanted dreams she weaves
  Of changeful beauty, bright and wild.

  Frances Sargent Osgood

  Dream, Children, Enchanted

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• Did you ever hear
  Of the frolic fairies dear?
  They're a blessed little race,
  Peeping up in fancy's face,
  In the valley, on the hill,
  By the fountain and the rill;
  Laughing out between the leaves
  That the loving summer weaves.

  Frances Sargent Osgood

  Summer, Blessed, Race

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• A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Solitary Life, Cherish, Mania

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2014). “Life of Charlotte Bronte”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

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• Any base heart can devise means of vileness, and affix the ugly shapings of its own fancy to the actions of those around him; but it requires loftiness of mind, and the heaven-born spirit of virtue, to imagine greatness where it is not, and to deck the sordid objects of nature in the beautiful robes of loveliness and light.

  Jane Porter

  Beautiful, Heart, Mean

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.210

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• Women of forty always fancy they have found the Fountain of Youth, and that they remain young in the midst of the ruins of their day.

  Arsene Houssaye

  Women, Ruins, Youth

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• Fancy borrows much from memory, and so looks back to the past.

  Giovanni Ruffini

  Memories, Past, Looks

  Giovanni Ruffini (1858). “Doctor Antonio. A tale. By the author of Lorenzo Benoni [i.e. Giovanni Domenico Ruffini].”, p.119

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• Hope is the most treacherous of all human fancies.

  James F. Cooper

  Hope, Humans, Treacherous

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• When we idealize the real, we sacrifice to artistic fancy.

  Henry Fuseli

  Real, Sacrifice, Artistic

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• In nature, creatures never ended the lives of others except to survive. To women, abortion was self-defense and preservation of the species. Abortion was not a fancy borne out of the female mind. Abortion was instinct beyond ideas. Abortion was fear (the cat that devours its litter when a predator nears).

  Ana Castillo

  Cat, Self, Ideas

  Ana Castillo (1990). “Sapogonia: (an Anti-romance in 3/8 Meter)”, Bilingual Press

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• Have you ever thought about it, about simply leaving? Really, truly thought about it with the intent to follow through and not as a dream or a passing fancy?

  Erin Morgenstern

  Dream, Leaving, Passing

  Erin Morgenstern (2016). “The Night Circus”, p.268, Random House

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• Five golden years, Heart of Mine, have we walked the way of life together, and there is not an hour I would have changed; there is no moment when I would have you other than you have been. It is the fashion these days, I know, to say that love ends at the altar, but it is not so. You and I have found the old dream of the world divinely true. It is neither a poet's fancy nor a trick of the imagination, but a thing of fadeless and unending beauty.

  Myrtle Reed

  Dream, Fashion, Heart

  Myrtle Reed (1906). “Later Love Letters of a Musician”

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• People always make mistakes when they fancy themselves exceptions.

  Geraldine Jewsbury

  Mistake, People, Exception

  Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury (2009). “Zoe: The History of Two Lives”, p.161, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• When one misses an opportunity one is apt to fancy that another will never present itself.

  Marie Bashkirtseff

  Regret, Opportunity, Missing

  Marie Bashkirtseff (1891). “Letters of Marie Bashkirtseff”, London : Cassell

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• Fancy can save or kill; it hath clos'd up
  Wounds when the balsam could not, and without
  The aid of salves:--to think hath been a cure.
  For witchcraft then, that's all done by the force
  Of mere imagination.

  William Cartwright

  Thinking, Imagination, Done

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• From numberless books the fluttering reader, idle and inconstant, bears away the bloom that only clings to the outer leaf; but genius has its nectaries, delicate glands, and secrecies of sweetness, and upon these the thoughtful mind must settle in its labor, before the choice perfume of fancy and wisdom is drawn forth.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Reading, Book, Thoughtful

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

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• Criticism must never be sharpened into anatomy. The delicate veins of fancy may be traced, and the rich blood that gives bloom and health to the complexion of thought be resolved into its elements. Stop there. The life of the imagination, as of the body, disappears when we pursue it.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Blood, Imagination, Giving

  Robert Aris Willmott (1907). “Pleasures of Literature”

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• Poetical taste is the only magician whose wand is not broken. No hand, except its own, can dissolve the fabric of beauty in which it dwells. Genii, unknown to Arabian fable, wait at the portal. Whatever is most precious from the loom or the mine of fancy is poured at its feet. Love, purified by contemplation, visits and cheers it; unseen musicians are heard in the dark; it is Psyche in the palace of Cupid.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Cheer, Dark, Hands

  Robert Aris Willmott (1866). “Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature”, p.92

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• Whatever is pure is also simple. It does not keep the eye on itself. The observer forgets the window in the landscape it displays. A fine style gives the view of fancy--its figures, its trees, or its palaces,--without a spot.

  Robert Aris Willmott

  Eye, Simple, Views

  Robert Aris WILLMOTT (1851). “Pleasures,objects and advantages of literature”, p.39

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