Keenness Quotes

• Liberty and order will never be perfectly safe until a trespass on the Constitution provisions for either, shall be felt with the same keenness that resents and invasion of the dearest rights.

  James Madison

  Rights, Order, Second Amendment

  James Madison (1865). “Letters and other writings of James Madison”, p.468

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• No metal can--no, not the hangman's axe--bear half the keenness of thy sharp envy.

  William Shakespeare

  Envy, Half, Bears

  William Shakespeare (2016). “The New Oxford Shakespeare: Modern Critical Edition: The Complete Works”, p.1257, Oxford University Press

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• In small towns people scent the wind with noses of uncommon keenness.

  Stephen King

  Wind, People, Noses

  Stephen King (2008). “The Stand”, p.262, Anchor

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• Temperance keeps the senses clear and unembarrassed, and makes them seize the object with more keenness and satisfaction. It appears with life in the face, and decorum in the person; it gives you the command of your head, and secures your health, and preserves you in a condition for business.

  Jeremy Collier

  Giving, Sobriety, Satisfaction

  Jeremy COLLIER (the Nonjuror.), J. E. (1838). “Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of “Sir William Jones's Discourses,” etc. [The editor's preface signed: J. E., i.e. James Elmes.]”, p.118

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• Men like Henry George [ the pioneer of land value taxation] are rare, unfortunately. One cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form, and fervent love of justice.

  Albert Einstein

  Beautiful, Men, Land

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• Alone-in moments of prayer or meditation, or simply in stillness-we breathe more deeply, see more fully, hear more keenly. We notice more, and in the process, we return to what is sacred.

  Katrina Kenison

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Prayer

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• The infinite wonders of the universe are revealed to us in exact measure as we are capable of receiving them. The keenness of our vision depends not on how much we can see, but on how much we feel.

  Helen Keller

  Vision, Receiving, Wonder

  Helen Keller (2012). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.41, Courier Corporation

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• Keenness of hearing revives when one is alone.

  Nadine Gordimer

  Hearing, Revive

  Nadine Gordimer (2012). “The Conservationist”, p.112, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Taste, if it mean anything but a paltry connoisseurship, must mean a general susceptibility to truth and nobleness, a sense to discern, and a heart to love and reverence all beauty, order, goodness, wheresoever, or in whatsoever forms and accompaniments they are to be seen. This surely implies, as its chief condition, not any given external rank or situation, but a finely-gifted mind, purified into harmony with itself, into keenness and justness of vision; above all, kindled into love and generous admiration.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Mean, Heart, Order

  Thomas Carlyle (1840). “Critical and miscellaneous essays, collected and republ”, p.50

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• Horses are very keen on body language, and what I refer to as “presence”, and expression. They know quite a bit about you before you ever get to ‘em. They can read things about you clear across an arena.

  Buck Brannaman

  Horse, Animal, Expression

  "The Real “Horse Whisperer”". Interview with Andrew Howley, voices.nationalgeographic.org. June 16, 2011.

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  It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

  Samuel Adams

  Inspirational, Life, Freedom

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• Man's value before God is estimated by the dispositions of his heart, its uprightness, its good will, its charity, and not by keenness of intellect or extent of knowledge.

  Anne Catherine Emmerich

  Heart, Men, Saint

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• No one … can entirely step out of his time, that despite his keenness of vision his thinking is in many ways bound to be influenced by the mentality of his time

  Karen Horney

  Thinking, Vision, Way

  Karen Horney (2013). “New Ways in Psychoanalysis”, p.37, Routledge

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• What moved us was not so much what would it do for South Africa, but there has been a great keenness on the Continent that the location of the Pan African Parliament must add to its credibility. And, so we said, fine, it's a contribution to this process of the democratisation of the African Continent.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Add, Location, Process

  Source: www.gov.za

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• Reading is a stouthearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-it-ness.

  Irving Stone

  Reading, Sticks, Activity

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• Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the running to spread the truth among such persons.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Running, Lying, Writing

  Bertolt Brecht (1966). “Galileo”, p.133, Grove Press

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• One of the things called forth by the Imagist movement in poetry was neatness; and when we say keenness, we mean neatness. A knife that is keen is also a knife that cuts neatly; it isn't brutal. Sharpness is different from brutality. Brutality is clumsy: it is wide - it has a lot of fist and thumb and no delicate finger.

  Eli Siegel

  Mean, Cutting, Knives

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• The exercise of voluntary attention in the schoolroom must therefore be counted one of the most important points of training that take place there; and the first-rate teacher, by the keenness of the remoter interests which he is able to awaken, will provide abundant opportunities for its occurrence.

  William James

  Teacher, Philosophy, Educational

  William James (1983). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.111, Harvard University Press

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• We see with what keenness and zeal the frivolous business of Freemasons is conducted, by persons knit together by the secrecy of their union.

  Adam Weishaupt

  Together, Unions, Secrecy

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• Lay not the plummet to the line; religion hath no landmarks; no human keenness can discern the subtle shades of faith.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Faith, Lines, Shade

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1849). “Tupper's Poetical Works: Proverbial Philosophy, A Thousand Lines, Hacterus ... : with a Portrait of the Author”, p.49

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• Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. 'If I understand aright all that I have heard,' he said, 'I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Heart, Eye, Thinking

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings”, p.194, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Love is frightened at the intervals of insensibility and callousness that encroach by little and little on the domain of grief, and it makes efforts to recall the keenness of the first anguish.

  George Eliot

  Grief, Love Is, Effort

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• I am sensible that my keenness of temper, and a vanity to be distinguished for the day, make me too often splash in life.... I amresolved to restrain myself and attend more to decorum.

  James Boswell

  Ambition, Vanity, Manners

  James Boswell (2001). “Boswell's Edinburgh Journals 1767-1786”, Mercat Press Books

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• Reading is a stout-hearted activity, disporting courage, keenness, stick-to-it-ness. It is also, in my experience, one of the most thrilling and enduring delights of life, equal to a home run, a slam-dunk, or breaking the four-minute mile.

  Irving Stone

  Running, Reading, Home

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• A lawyer art thou? Draw not nigh! Go, carry to some fitter place The keenness of that practised eye, The hardness of that sallow face.

  William Wordsworth

  Art, Eye, Faces

  William Wordsworth (1857). “The Earlier Poems of William Wordsworth: Corrected as in the Latest Editions. With Preface, and Notes Showing the Text as it Stood in 1815”, p.329

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