Instance Quotes - Page 25

• But my estimates, for instance, based upon book information, were simply ridiculous, fanciful images of African attractions were soon dissipated, anticipated pleasures vanished, and all crude ideas began to resolve themselves into shape.

  Henry Morton Stanley

  Book, Ideas, Shapes

  Henry Morton Stanley (2002). “How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa”, p.10, Courier Corporation

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Success on the front of women's rights will look like a world not only with obvious advances - where no girl is denied access to education, for instance - but also one with more subtle changes in how we regard gender and gender stereotypes.

  Adora Svitak

  Girl, Rights, Looks

  6 Copy quote

• A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.

  Emma Thompson

  Friends, New York, Gay

  8 Copy quote

• There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Arrogance, Bees

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.29, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• As you get older, you have to force yourself to have new dreams. For instance, I've been flying for 37 years, but now teaching others to fly is interesting for me. Sometimes you have to find new angles on life to keep you interested, like sharing successes and inspiring and helping others.

  John Travolta

  Dream, Teaching, Helping Others

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lenity will operate with greater force, in some instances, than rigor. It is, therefore, my first wish, to have my whole conduct distinguished by it.

  George Washington

  4th Of July, Wish, Firsts

  "Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral and Religious".

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are many resistance movements in the world, like the IRA for instance. But it is only Islamic resistance movements that are put on the terrorist list. This is what I am saying.

  Ahmed Yassin

  Islamic, Ira, Movement

  65 Copy quote

• For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams. In my little room at home, I felt that I was somewhere else. In Paris, for instance.

  Alber Elbaz

  Dream, Home, Somewhere Else

  8 Copy quote

• 'Digiphrenia' is really the experience of trying to exist in more than one incarnation of yourself at the same time. There's your Twitter profile, there's your Facebook profile, there's your email inbox. And all of these sort of multiple instances of you are operating simultaneously and in parallel.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Trying, Email, Inbox

  "In A World That's Always On, We Are Trapped In The 'Present'". Interview with Audie Cornish, www.kuow.org. March 27, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We know there are certain types of viruses that are nasty - influenza, for instance, is an area that is not a blindside. But a lot of viruses have come out of nowhere, like H.I.V., or to a certain extent SARS. Because we know we have the potential to be blindsided, we really have to investigate the unknowns.

  Nathan Wolfe

  Viruses, Nasty, Type

  5 Copy quote

• If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

  David Hume

  School, Math, Numbers

  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding sec. 12, pt. 3 (1748)

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Disassemble the cells of a sponge (by passing them through a sieve, for instance), then dump them into a solution, and they will find their way back together and build themselves into a sponge again. You can do this to them over and over, and they will doggedly reassemble because, like you and me and every other living thing, they have one overwhelming impulse: to continue to be.

  Bill Bryson

  Cells, Together, Way

  "A Short History of Nearly Everything". Book by Bill Bryson, 2003.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• The country is in deep trouble. We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.

  Cornel West

  Life, Country, Patience

  203 Copy quote

• Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe, which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain and logical story, so that when one matter is despatched—love for instance—we go on, in an orderly manner, to the next.

  Virginia Woolf

  Stories, Substance, Goes On

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.1428, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one: so with physicians - I will not speak of my own trade - soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell.

  Jonathan Swift

  Hate, Animal, Love Is

  Jonathan Swift (2016). “Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal”, p.374, Simon and Schuster

  37 Copy quote

  Show source

• In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water, And the expensive ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

  W. H. Auden

  Fall, Boys, Sky

  W.H. Auden (2016). “Canción de cuna y otros poemas”, p.122, DEBOLS!LLO

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I can easily believe it. Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to. Such varieites of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing! And it is not merely in its follies, that they are read; for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or affecting. What instances must pass before them of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude, patience, resignation-- of all the sacrifices that ennoble us most. A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes.

  Jane Austen

  Believe, Sacrifice, Intelligent

  5 Copy quote

• There's the ambiguity of human relationships, for instance. A relationship between two people, just like a sequence of words, is ambiguous if it is open to different interpretations. And if two people do have differing views about their relationship - I don't just mean about its state, I mean about its very nature - then that difference can affect the entire course of their lives.

  Elliot Perlman

  Mean, Views, Two

  "Seven Types of Ambiguity". Book by Elliot Perlman, 2003.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Dog, Memorable

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.68, Xist Publishing

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Still, no one finally knows what a poet is supposed either to be or to do. Especially in this country, one takes on the job—because all that one does in America is considered a "job"—with no clear sense as to what is required or where one will ultimately be led. In that respect, it is as particular an instance of a "calling" as one might point to. For years I've kept in mind, "Many are called but few are chosen." Even so "called," there were no assurances that one would be answered.

  Robert Creeley

  Country, Jobs, Years

  4 Copy quote

• A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in the direction of the unsaid and unseen.

  Charles Baxter

  Writing, Unseen, Details

  Charles Baxter (2007). “The art of subtext: beyond plot”, Graywolf Pr

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• In a way, it's nice to know that there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some devine force is really trying to mess up your day.

  Rick Riordan

  Nice, Rain, Thinking

  Rick Riordan (2006). “The lightning thief”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• For instance, this new idea that You-Know-Who can kill with a single glance from his eyes. That’s a basilisk, listeners. One simple test: Check whether the thing that’s glaring at you has got legs. If it has, it’s safe to look into its eyes, although if it really is You-Know-Who, that’s still likely to be the last thing you ever do.

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, Simple, Ideas

  8 Copy quote

• The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Boys, Night, Light

  Cormac McCarthy (2007). “The Road”, p.24, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.

  Daniel Handler

  Museums, House, Would Be

  "The Wide Window". Book by Daniel Handler, 2000.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source