Helpless Quotes - Page 16

• The helpless ecstasy of loosing himself in her charm was a powerful opiate rather than a tonic.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Powerful, Opiates, Charm

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• Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless so as to have shoulders on which to stand.

  Jose Marti

  Confused, Reading, Order

  "Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos" edited by Carlos Ripoll, 1994.

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• There's a truth deeper than experience. It's beyond what we see, or even what we feel. It's an order of truth that separates the profound from the merely clever, and the reality from the perception. We're helpless, usually, in the face of it; and the cost of knowing it, like the cost of knowing love, is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay. It doesn't always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world. And the only way to know that truth is to share it, from heart to heart, just as Prabhakar told it to me, just as I'm telling it to you now.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Clever, Hate, Heart

  "Shantaram". Book by Gregory David Roberts, 2003.

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• A little girl loves her bird--Why? Because it lives and feels; because it is helpless and harmless? A toad, likewise, lives and feels, and is equally helpless and harmless; but though she would not hurt a toad, she cannot love it like the bird, with its graceful form, soft feathers, and bright, speaking eyes.

  Anne Bronte

  Girl, Hurt, Eye

  Anne Bronte (2012). “Agnes Grey”, p.107, Courier Corporation

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• Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever." [Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]

  Toni Morrison

  Anger, Thinking, Skills

  FaceBook post by Toni Morrison from Jul 29, 2011

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• We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, and intellectually. We need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.

  C. S. Lewis

  Loneliness, Needs, Conscious

  C. S. Lewis (1971). “The Four Loves”, p.14, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For the first time I could remember, I felt weak, woozy and stupid— like a human-being. Like a very small and helpless human-being.

  Jeff Lindsay

  Stupid, Firsts, Remember

  "Darkly Dreaming Dexter". Book by Jeff Lindsay, Chapter 25, 2004.

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• We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism.

  Emma Goldman

  Powerful, Hate, Heart

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk (2008). “Emma Goldman”, p.377, University of Illinois Press

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• I’m telling you right now I could make him pop an aneurysm and no one would know. (Nero) Doesn’t that kind of murder bother you at all? (Alix) Given everything people have done to me in my life, little girl, especially in my childhood when I was helpless against them, humanity is lucky I’m not on a perpetual killing spree. As for the Merjacks…I owe them a debt that no amount of violence on my part will settle. So, no. Nothing about killing him would bother me. (Nero)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Girl, People, Childhood

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• Is that why you hate me?" I ask. "Partly," She admits. "Jealousy is certainly involved. I also think you're a little hard to swallow. With your tacky romantic drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. Only it isn't an act, which makes you more unbearable. Please feel free to take this personally.

  Suzanne Collins

  Hate, Drama, Thinking

  Suzanne Collins (2011). “The Hunger Games Trilogy”, p.1264, Scholastic Inc.

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• The truth is that I feel totally helpless, or totally inconsolable, to be more honest. I’m not trying to hide it, but it’s something you’re not to worry about.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Fear, Worry, Trying

  Jostein Gaarder (2010). “The Orange Girl”, p.19, Hachette UK

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• A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain...This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines - they are a way of sowing to the Spirit... By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.

  Richard J. Foster

  Spiritual, Jesus, Discipline

  Richard J. Foster (2009). “Celebration of Discipline: The Path To Spiritual Growth”, p.7, Harper Collins

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• [During the 20th century] ... 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners.

  Rudolph Rummel

  Children, Men, Liberty

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• It was all right. Nick thought about this and decided that what Alan said was true. He'd never been helpless before, not since he could remember, but now he was and everything was all right. He did not have to speak, he was not able to move, all he could do was lie there and have his brother hold him, hunched over and shielding him from the world.

  Sarah Rees Brennan

  Brother, Lying, Moving

  Sarah Rees Brennan (2009). “The Demon's Lexicon”, p.204, Simon and Schuster

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• A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!

  Philip Roth

  Men, Parent, Half

  Philip Roth (1969). “Portnoy's complaint”, Random House Inc

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• Do all lovers feel helpless and valiant in the presence of the beloved? Helpless because the need to roll over like a pet dog is never far away. Valiant because you know you would slay a dragon with a pocket knife if you had to.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Dog, Dragons, Knives

  Jeanette Winterson (2007). “The Passion”, p.123, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• He stopped and pointed an accusing finger at her. “I didn’t ask for this. But I felt something in that back room with you, and it’s stayed with me ever since. I want to be with you. I need to be with you.” His tone was both angry and helpless.

  Scott Speer

  Needs, Want, Rooms

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• I know I'm famous and irresitible - a combination whose properties closely resemble radioactivity - and I know that you in this room are helpless against me.

  Jennifer Egan

  Rooms, Combination, Property

  Jennifer Egan (2010). “A Visit from the Goon Squad”, p.134, Anchor

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• Sleep is a daily reminder from God that we are not God. Once a day God sends us to bed like patients with a sickness. The sickness is a chronic tendency to think we are in control and that our work is indispensable. To cure us of this disease God turns us into helpless sacks of sand once a day.

  John Piper

  Sleep, Thinking, Bed

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• He looks trapped, helpless and furious, and that’s a feeling I know too well. Know how much it hurts. Know how it holds you down, how every day there are a thousand little ways to see there is nothing you can do to change who or what you are.

  Elizabeth Scott

  Hurt, Feelings, Looks

  Elizabeth Scott (2011). “Between Here and Forever”, p.173, Simon and Schuster

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• The question always is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these exceptions as small as possible? Or, in the triumph of the crowded procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead of being gently lifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror, whom they have no power to accompany on his march?

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Suffering, Triumph, Done

  Elizabeth Gaskell (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell (Illustrated)”, p.955, Delphi Classics

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• The mother gazes at the baby in her arms, and the baby gazes at his mother's face and finds himself therein... provided that the mother is really looking at the unique, small, helpless being and not projecting her own expectations, fears, and plans for the child. In that case, the child would find not himself in his mother's face, but rather the mother's own projections. This child would remain without a mirror, and for the rest of his life would be seeking this mirror in vain.

  Donald Woods Winnicott

  Mother, Baby, Children

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• If there's a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who's trapped underground, I don't know it.

  Suzanne Collins

  Feelings, Trying, Someone You Love

  Suzanne Collins (2013). “The Hunger Games Complete Trilogy”, p.666, Scholastic UK

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• Bran held his voice leve. "In time,you will regret these words. You may hold me captive now, and believe me helpless. But each foulword you speak of her brings your death a little closer." --Bran to Eamonn

  Juliet Marillier

  Regret, Believe, Voice

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• Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beasts below.

  Isaac Marion

  Sleep, Fishing, Mind

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