Former Quotes - Page 5

• it may be said that children are but newly-issued editions of old compositions, re-bound and corrected, with fresh introductions, modern print and headpieces, but the text is that of former editions handed down from generation to generation.

  Anna Kingsford

  Children, Generations, May

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• What I dislike least in my former self are the moments of prayer.

  Andre Gide

  Prayer, Self, Moments

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• Mothers who force their daughters into interested marriage, are worse than the Ammonites who sacrificed their children to Moloch--the latter undergoing a speedy death, the former suffering years of torture, but too frequently leading to the same result.

  John Wilmot

  Marriage, Daughter, Mother

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• I have known persons without a friend--never any one without some virtue. The virtues of the former conspired with their vices to make the whole world their enemies.

  William Hazlitt

  Enemy, Vices, World

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1473, Delphi Classics

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• From good to bad, and from bad to worse,
  From worse unto that is worst of all,
  And then return to his former fall.

  Edmund Spenser

  Fall, Return, Worst

  Edmund Spenser (1859). “Poetical Works”, p.225

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• Anger and the thirst of revenge are a kind of fever; fighting and lawsuits, bleeding,--at least, an evacuation. The latter occasions a dissipation of money; the former, of those fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fermentation.

  William Shenstone

  Revenge, Anger, Fighting

  William Shenstone, Samuel Johnson, Robert Dodsley (1807). “Essays on men and manners; with aphorisms, criticisms, impromptus, fragments, etc”, p.151

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• There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow--the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Happiness, Sorrow, Substance

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.390, e-artnow

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• What caricature is in painting, burlesque is in writing; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other; as in the former, the painter seems to have the advantage, so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer. For the monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and the ridiculous to describe than paint.

  Henry Fielding

  Writing, Sides, Ridiculous

  Henry Fielding (1902). “The history of the adventures of Joseph Andrews and his friend Mr. Abraham Adams”

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• Good-nature is that benevolent and amiable temper of mind which disposes us to feel the misfortunes and enjoy the happiness of others, and, consequently, pushes us on to promote the latter and prevent the former; and that without any abstract contemplation on the beauty of virtue, and without the allurements or terrors of religion.

  Henry Fielding

  Mind, Virtue, Contemplation

  Henry Fielding, Thomas Roscoe (1853). “The Works of Henry Fielding, Complete in One Volume”, p.645

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• The man who is wantonly profuse of his promises ought to sink his credit as much as a tradesman would by uttering a great number of promissory notes payable at a distant day. The truest conclusion in both cases is, that neither intend or will be able to pay. And as the latter most probably intends to cheat you of your money, so the former at least designs to cheat you of your thanks.

  Henry Fielding

  Men, Numbers, Design

  Henry Fielding (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry Fielding (Illustrated)”, p.3805, Delphi Classics

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• Let me take up your metaphor. Friendship is a vase, which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again; precious stones, never.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Friendship, Precious Stones, Broken

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The Works of Walter Savage Landor”, p.4

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• Phychical pain is more easily borne than physical; and if I had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, I should choose the former.

  Heinrich Heine

  Pain, Choices, Teeth

  Heinrich Heine (1873). “Scintillations from the Prose Works of Heinrich Heine: I. Florentine Nights. II. Excerpts”, p.175

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• There are three means of believing--by inspiration, by reason, and by custom. Christianity, which is the only rational institution, does yet admit none for its sons who do not believe by inspiration. Nor does it injure reason or custom, or debar them of their proper force; on the contrary, it directs us to open our minds by the proofs of the former, and to confirm our minds by the authority of the latter.

  Blaise Pascal

  Faith, Inspiration, Believe

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• There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible; the latter on small ones and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance.

  Edmund Burke

  Differences, Sublime, And Love

  Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.118

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• The notion of obligations comes before that of rights, which is subordinate and relative to the former. A right is not effectual by itself, but only in relation to the obligation to which it corresponds.

  Simone Weil

  Rights, Relation, Duty

  Simone Weil (2003). “The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind”, p.2, Routledge

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• I believe that in a contest between the living and the almost living, the latter must, if necessary, give way to the will of the former.

  Anna Quindlen

  Believe, Giving, Abortion

  Anna Quindlen (2010). “Living Out Loud”, p.211, Ballantine Books

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• A poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Destiny, Poetry, Realization

  Joseph Brodsky (2011). “Less Than One: Selected Essays”, p.177, Penguin UK

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• I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness, that I could sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a person who could be capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under meanness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under ingratitude, irreligion; and under this latter, every species of vice and immorality in human nature.

  Laurence Sterne

  Vices, Dishonesty, Murder

  Laurence Sterne (1805). “The Works of Laurence Sterne, A. M.: A sentimental journey through France and Italy. The Koran: or, The life, character and sentiments of Tria Juncta in Uno. A political romance”, p.331

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• My retirement was now become solitude; the former is, I believe, the best state for the mind of man, the latter almost the worst. In complete solitude, the eye wants objects, the heart wants attachments, the understanding wants reciprocation. The character loses its tenderness when it has nothing to strengthen it, its sweetness when it has nothing to soothe it.

  Hannah More

  Retirement, Believe, Character

  Hannah More (1840). “The Miscellaneous Works of Hannah More”, p.390

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• Like all former thinkers, I'm writing a book.

  Lillian Hellman

  Book, Writing, Thinker

  Lillian Hellman (1971). “The collected plays”, Little Brown and Company

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• Childhood is less clear to me than to many people: when it ended I turned my face away from it for no reason that I know about, certainly without the usual reason of unhappy memories. For many years that worried me, but then I discovered that the tales of former children are seldom to be trusted. Some people supply too many past victories or pleasures with which to comfort themselves, and other people cling to pains, real and imagined, to excuse what they have become.

  Lillian Hellman

  Children, Pain, Memories

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• Be more careful of your conscience than of your estate. The latter can be bought and sold; the former never.

  Hosea Ballou

  Latter, Estates, Careful

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• Fancy, an animal faculty, is very different from imagination, which is intellectual. The former is passive; but the latter is active and creative. Children, the weak minded, and the timid are full of fancy. Men and women of intellect, of great intellect, are alone possessed of great imagination.

  Joseph Joubert

  Children, Animal, Men

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavor to keep women in the dark because, the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Dark, Play, Tyrants

  1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pt.1, ch.2.

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• When winter stern, his gloomy front uprears,
  A sable void the barren earth appears;
  The meads no more their former verdure boast,
  Fast-bound their streams, and all their beauty lost;
  The herds, the flocks, in icy garments mourn, and wildly murmur for the Spring's return;
  From snow-topp'd hills the whirlwinds keenly blow,
  Howl through the woods, and pierce the vales below,
  Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies,
  Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies.

  George Crabbe

  Spring, Winter, Blow

  George Crabbe (1861). “The Life and Poetical Works of the Rev. George Crabbe”, p.8

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