Foils Quotes

• Humanity is a natural foil for inhumanity, and humanity is what will ultimately keep us going when all else has failed.

  Margaret Cho

  Compassion, Humanity, Natural

  Margaret Cho (2005). “I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight”, Riverhead Books (Hardcover)

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• Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light.

  John Ruskin

  Beauty, Light, Shadow

  John Ruskin (1888). “Modern Painters (Complete)”, p.743, Library of Alexandria

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• Our mind is dark in some way, and so we use rhetoric as a kind of prop or foil.

  Martha Ronk

  Dark, Mind, Use

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall
  have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and
  target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall
  end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
  lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind
  freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Humorous, Men

  William Shakespeare (1867). “The Pictorial Edition of the Works of Shakspere: Comedies / ... Shakspere”, p.122

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• If you really want to diminish a candidate, depict him as the foil of his handler. This is as old in American politics as politics itself.

  Karl Rove

  Politics, Want, Ifs

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• How often, when we have been nearest each other bodily, have we really been farthest off! Our tongues were the witty foils with which we fenced each other off.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Witty, Tongue, Conversation

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.32, Jazzybee Verlag

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• You teach kids how to succeed when they successfully foil the educational system.

  Arlo Guthrie

  Educational, Kids, Succeed

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• I'm a pretty convenient foil for a lot of people.

  Kevin Costner

  People, Convenient

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• I need thy presence every passing hour; What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power?

  Henry Francis Lyte

  Grace, Needs, Hours

  Henry Francis Lyte (1850). “Remains of ... H.F. Lyte. With a memoir by the ed”, p.120

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• Every step you take, a million doors open in front of you like poppies; your next step closes them, and another million bloom. You get on a train, you pick up a lamp, you speak, you don’t. What decides why one thing gets picked to be the way it will be? Accident? Fate? Some weakness in ourselves? Forget your harps, your tin-foil angels—the only heaven worth having would be the heaven of answers.

  Mark Slouka

  Angel, Fate, Doors

  Mark Slouka (2014). “Brewster: A Novel”, p.255, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I'm sure that there must have been times when you have read books or watched films and found yourself secretly wishing for the villain to win. Why? Isn't that against the rules by which our society lives? Why should you feel this way? It's simple, really; the villain is the true hero of these tales, not the well-intentioned moron who somehow foils their diabolical scheme. The villain get's all the best lines, has the best costumes, has unlimited power and wealth- why on earth would anyone not want to be the villain?

  Mark Walden

  Book, Hero, Winning

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• There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so whilst we live in this world.

  John Owen

  World, Sin, This World

  John Owen (2001). “Temptation and Sin”, p.11, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as spectacles to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The learned are mere literary drudges.

  William Hazlitt

  Nature, Strong, Book

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1091, Delphi Classics

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• The brave man seeks not popular applause, Nor, overpower'd with arms, deserts his cause; Unsham'd, though foil'd, he does the best he can, Force is of brutes, but honor is of man.

  John Dryden

  Men, Bravery, Honor

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• As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into Silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places. She is when we hear inwardly, sound when we hear outwardly. Creation has not displaced her, but is her visible framework and foil. All sounds are her servants, and purveyors, proclaiming not only that their mistress is, but is a rare mistress, and earnestly to be sought after.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fall, Men, Silence

  Henry David Thoreau (1977). “The portable Thoreau”, Penguin

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• The trouble is that the expression 'material thing' is functioning already, from the very beginning, simply as a foil for 'sense-datum'; it is not here given, and is never given, any other role to play, and apart from this consideration it would surely never have occurred to anybody to try to represent as some single kind of things the things which the ordinary man says that he 'perceives.

  J. L. Austin

  Men, Expression, Data

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• With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.

  Mary Blakely

  Baby, Son, Night

  Mary Kay Blakely (1995). “American Mom: Motherhood, Politics, and Humble Pie”, p.8, Simon and Schuster

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• Words, for all they were flimsy and invisible, had great strength. They could be fortified as a castle wall and sharp as a foil. They could bite, slap, shock, wound. But unlike deeds, words couldn't really help you. No promise ever rescued a person; it was the carrying-through of it that brought about salvation.

  Jodi Picoult

  Wall, Promise, Castles

  Jodi Picoult (2003). “Second Glance: A Novel”, p.396, Simon and Schuster

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• For me too, the periodic table was a passion. ... As a boy, I stood in front of the display for hours, thinking how wonderful it was that each of those metal foils and jars of gas had its own distinct personality.

  Freeman Dyson

  Passion, Science, Thinking

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• Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge.

  William Hazlitt

  Common Sense, Substitutes, Cases

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1091, Delphi Classics

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• I thought no more was needed
  Youth to prolong
  Than dumb-bell and foil
  To keep the body young.
  O who could have foretold
  That the heart grows old?

  William Butler Yeats

  Heart, Sadness, Dumb

  'A Song'

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• Another vampire pushed her way through the crowd to stand at his side—a pretty blue-haired Asian girl in a silver foil skirt. Clary wondered if there were any ugly vampires, or maybe any fat ones. Maybe they didn't make vampires out of ugly people. Or maybe ugly people just didn't want to live forever.

  Cassandra Clare

  Girl, Blue, People

  Cassandra Clare (2011). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instrument Series (4 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels”, p.245, Simon and Schuster

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• It's not common for a woman on television, especially if she's the mom of the family, to be funny. She's usually a straight man or foil.

  Martha Plimpton

  Funny, Mom, Men

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• In times of uncertainty, we tend to move away from deterministic world views. And when we try to find moral footing for our actions, we compare ourselves to the foil of all foils, the Nazi period. It's a quest for moral certainty by saying, "Even if we're not doing great these days, at least we're not the Third Reich." Which can be consoling or alarmist. There's always a present-day agenda behind it.

  Gavriel David Rosenfeld

  Moving, Views, Trying

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• I have a lot of experience with making fake helmets out of foil.

  Ray Toro

  Fake, Helmet

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