Instant Quotes - Page 14

• I recall my fleeting instants in Savannah as the taste of a cup charged to the brim.

  Henry James

  Taste, Cups, Fleeting

  Henry James (1993). “Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America”, p.707, Library of America

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• The simplest and most familiar truth seems new and wonderful the instant we ourselves experience it for the first time.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Truth, Experience, Firsts

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• The stream of thought flows on; but most of its segments fall into the bottomless abyss of oblivion. Of some, no memory survives the instant of their passage. Of others, it is confined to a few moments, hours or days. Others, again, leave vestiges which are indestructible, and by means of which they may be recalled as long as life endures.

  William James

  Memories, Fall, Mean

  William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.643, Courier Corporation

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• Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant.

  Joseph Addison

  Understanding, Doubt, Gold

  Joseph Addison (1868). “The Works of Joseph Addison: Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition, with Letters and Other Pieces Not Found in Any Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.563

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• Our opinions are not our own, but in the power of sympathy. If a person tells us a palpable falsehood, we not only dare not contradict him, but we dare hardly disbelieve him to his face. A lie boldly uttered has the effect of truth for the instant.

  William Hazlitt

  Lying, Faces, Opinion

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.487

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• Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a Life-purpose... Get your happiness out of your work or you will never know what real happiness is... Even in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work!

  Thomas Carlyle

  Real, Blessed, Men

  "Past and Present". Book by Thomas Carlyle, April 1843.

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• instant intimacy was too often followed by disillusion.

  May Sarton

  Intimacy, Disillusion

  May Sarton (2014). “A World of Light: Portraits and Celebrations”, p.37, Open Road Media

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• We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Heart, Imagination, Wish

  Walter Savage Landor (1836). “Pericles and Aspasia”, p.225

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• instant opinion is an oxymoron. You don't get real opinions in an instant. You get reactions.

  Ellen Goodman

  Real, Opinion, Reactions

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• He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart which can only be discharged to the dust.

  John Ruskin

  Heart, Dust, Giving

  John Ruskin (1848). “Modern Painters”, p.6

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• So for a period of time each day, try to sit, without moving, without expecting anything, as if you were in your last moment. Moment after moment you feel your last instant. In each inhalation and each exhalation there are countless instants of time. Your intention is to live in each instant.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Time, Moving, Trying

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• Each time a friend dies, the present becomes the past, in an instant.

  Lauren Bacall

  Past, Dies

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• Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.

  Hannah Arendt

  Gun, Perfect, Violence

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.162, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• My job playing Sam Malone was to let the audience in, to love my bar full of people. And that informed my life. I mean, we're so different [in the cast], some of us. Miles apart. [But] when I see anyone from those days, I tap into that instant love for them.

  Ted Danson

  Jobs, Mean, People

  "The Best TV Show That's Ever Been". Interview with Brian Raftery, www.gq.com. September 27, 2012.

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• No place, no company, no age, no person is temptation-free; let no man boast that he was never tempted, let him not be high-minded, but fear, for he may be surprised in that very instant wherein he boasteth that he was never tempted at all.

  Herbert Spencer

  Men, Temptation, Age

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• Zen phrase says The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark.

  Fritjof Capra

  Missing, Phrases, Speak

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• Public opinion which, to be sure, can at times be helpful, must never for an instant swerve us from what we know in our heart we are trying to convey. For honesty is the great requisite of art. If we remain honest with ourselves, art, which is always there, never lets us down.

  Cornelia Otis Skinner

  Art, Honesty, Trying

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• One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set it. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.

  Jonathan Raban

  Drama, Fall, Eden

  Jonathan Raban (1992). “For Love and Money: A Writing Life”, Perennial

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• with courage a human being is safe enough. And without it - he is never for one instant safe!

  Phyllis Bottome

  Courage, Safe, Enough

  Phyllis Bottome (1998). “The Mortal Storm”, p.140, Northwestern University Press

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• Can you suggest any suitable aspersions to spread abroad about Mrs. Thatcher? It is idle to suggest she has unnatural relations with Mrs. Barbara Castle; what is needed is something socially lower: that she eats asparagus with knife and fork, or serves instant mash potatoes.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Knives, Gossip, Potatoes

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, William Maxwell (1982). “Letters”

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• An animal is not cruel; it lives wholly in the instant leap on its prey, in the present taste of marrow or blood. Cruelty begins with the memory, and the pleasures of the memory are impure; they draw their strength along levels where no sun has reached.

  Storm Jameson

  Memories, Animal, Blood

  Storm Jameson (2011). “The Journal of Mary Hervey Russell”, p.50, A&C Black

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• The dream of romantic love is taken more seriously in North America than it is anywhere else in the world, which is why we believe in fidelity and why we believe in infidelity as well. It is also, of course, what makes our divorce rate as high as it is. Falling in love at first sight and instant gratification are part of the world in which we live, so there are people who believe adamantly in fidelity. They just don't believe in it for long.

  Merle Shain

  Dream, Falling In Love, Taken

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• We are never aware of the present; each instant of living becomes perceptible only when it is past, so that in a sense we do not live at all, but only remember living.

  Rose Wilder Lane

  Past, Remember

  Rose Wilder Lane (1985). “Old Home Town”, p.13, U of Nebraska Press

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• The ephemeral nature of live performance is the part I love most - it's a monk's sand painting, carefully constructed, then wiped away in an instant.

  Rosanne Cash

  Ephemeral, Painting, Sand

  Rosanne Cash (2010). “Composed: A Memoir”, p.133, Penguin

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• When a man plays a woman in a dress, you're halfway there. It's inherently funny. When a woman plays a man, for whatever reason, it's not that instant kind of funny.

  Tina Fey

  Men, Halfway There, Play

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