Fit Quotes - Page 34

• As nature made every man with a nose and eyes of his own, she gave him a character of his own, too; and yet we, O foolish race! must try our very best to ape some one or two of our neighbors, whose ideas fit us no more than their breeches!

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Eye, Character, Men

  William Makepeace Thackeray (1871). “Miscellanies: The Paris sketch book of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh. The memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush. The Irish sketch book. Notes of a journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo”, p.30

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• How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one is content with that lot in life which he has chosen, or which chance has thrown in his way, but praises those who follow a different course?
  [Lat., Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo quam sibi sortem,
  Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit, illa
  Contentus vivat? laudet diversa sequentes.]

  Horace

  Doe, Different, Ratios

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• To superficial observers his chin had too vanishing an aspect, looking as if it were being gradually reabsorbed. And it did indeed cause him some difficulty about the fit of his satin stocks, for which chins were at that time useful.

  George Eliot

  Causes, Vanishing, Appearance

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.182, Penguin

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• Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases -- which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Mean, Unique, Individual

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1993). “Nietzsche Selections”, Prentice Hall

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• Black was bestlooking. ... Ebony was the best wood, the hardest wood; it was black. Virginia ham was the best ham. It was black on the outside. Tuxedos and tail coats were black and they were a man's finest, most expensive clothes. You had to use pepper to make most meats and vegetables fit to eat. The most flavorsome pepper was black. The best caviar was black. The rarest jewels were black: black opals, black pearls.

  Ann Petry

  Men, Vegetables, Clothes

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• Orators inflame the people, whose anger is really but a short fit of madness.

  Jonathan Swift

  People, Madness, Orators

  Jonathan Swift, Deane Swift, Thomas Birch, Thomas Wilkes, Thomas Hawkesworth (1768). “The Works of the Reverend Dr. Jonathan Swift: Miscellanies in prose”, p.250

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• Who wishes to give himself an abundance of business let him equip these two things, a ship and a woman. For no two things involve more business, if you have begun to fit them out. Nor are these two things ever sufficiently adorned, nor is any excess of adornment enough for them.

  Plautus

  Business, Two, Giving

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 85-87, Poenulus, I. 2. 1, 1922.

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• Trust me, there are as many ways of living as there are men, and one is no more fit to lead another, than a bird to lead a fish, or a fish a quadruped.

  Frances Wright

  Leadership, Men, Bird

  Frances Wright (1831). “A Few Days in Athens: Being the Translation of a Greek Manuscript Discovered in Herculaneum”, p.112

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• A good style fits like a good costume.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Style, Costumes

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• Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic, and his trappings will have to serve that mood too.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Taken, Mood, Harlequin

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.43

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• The typhoon came out of the sea first as a deep hollow roar. ... I was surrounded by the madness, the unreason, of uncontrolled, undisciplined energy. None of this made any sense. It was worse than useless - it was nature destroying its own creation - its own self. To create by the long process of growth and then to destroy by a fit of wild emotion - was this not madness, was this not unreason?

  Pearl S. Buck

  Self, Sea, Weather

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• Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meagre, muddy, vapid and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, and expand the heart.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Heart, Wind, Criticism

  Charles Caleb Colton (1866). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.55

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• It is necessary for a Senator to be thoroughly acquainted with the constitution; and this is a knowledge of the most extensive nature; a matter of science, of diligence, of reflection, without which no Senator can possibly be fit for his office.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Reflection, Government, Office

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• Give us a man of God's own mould
  Born to marshall his fellow-men;
  One whose fame is not bought and sold
  At the stroke of a politician's pen.
  Give us the man of thousands ten,
  Fit to do as well as to plan;
  Give us a rallying-cry, and then
  Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man.

  Edmund Clarence Stedman

  Men, Rallying Cry, Giving

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• The root of honesty is an honest intention, the distinct and deliberate purpose to be true, to handle facts as they are, and not as we wish them to be. Facts lend themselves to manipulation. Many a butcher's hand is worth more than its weight in gold. What we want things to be, we come to see them to be; and the tailor pulls the coat and the truth into a perfect fit from his point of view.

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock

  Honesty, Roots, Views

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• Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express; it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it.

  William Hazlitt

  Writing, Simplicity, Style

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1270, Delphi Classics

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• In time the bull is brought to wear the yoke.
  [Lat., Tempore ruricolae patiens fit taurus aratri.]

  Ovid

  Education, Yoke, Bulls

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• Learn to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in,--a real, not an imaginary,--and which you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Real, Reading, Attention

  Thomas Carlyle, Henry Duff Traill (2010). “The Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.455, Cambridge University Press

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• The object of all education is to make folks fit to live.

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Education, Folks, Objects

  Laura Ingalls Wilder, Stephen W. Hines (1991). “Little house in the Ozarks: a Laura Ingalls Wilder sampler : the rediscovered writings”, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Paris has always seemed to me to be the only city in which one can live as one sees fit.

  Natalie Clifford Barney

  Cities, Paris

  Natalie Clifford Barney, Anna Livia (1992). “A Perilous Advantage: The Best of Natalie Clifford Barney”, p.91, New Victoria Publishers

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• [Rhyme is] but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meter; ... Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, ... as have also long since our best English tragedies, as... trivial and of no true musical delight; which [truly] consists only in apt numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory.

  John Milton

  Italian, Numbers, Long

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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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• Nations have passed away and left no traces, And history gives the naked cause of it - One single simple reason in all cases; They fell because their peoples were not fit.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Simple, Giving, Causes

  Rudyard Kipling (2015). “The Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated): 5 Novels & 440+ Short Stories, Complete Poetry, Historical Military Works and Autobiographical Writings (Kim, The Jungle Book, The Man Who Would Be King, Land and Sea Tales, Captain Courageous…)”, p.3716, e-artnow

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• Life's sunniest hours are not without
  The shadow of some lingering doubt--
  Amid its brightest joys will steal
  Spectres of evil yet to feel--
  Its warmest love is blent with fears,
  Its confidence a trembling one--
  Its smile--the harbinger of tears--
  Its hope--the change of April's sun!
  A weary lot--in mercy given,
  To fit the chastened soul for heaven.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Love Is, Evil, Joy

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• We want our children to fit in and to stand out. We rarely address the conflict between these goals.

  Ellen Goodman

  Children, Goal, Excellence

  Ellen Goodman (1990). “Making Sense”, Penguin Group USA

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