Knots Quotes - Page 4

• Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His companion's prayer is forgotten.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Prayer, Truth, Firsts

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.514, Delphi Classics

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• The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.

  Italo Calvino

  Illusion, Obscure, Novel

  "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller".

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• Man is a knot into which relationships are tied.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Inspirational, Relationship, Smile

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• Even when tied in a thousand knots, the string is still but one.

  Rumi

  Strings, Thousand, Stills

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• Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don't believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It's all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat's cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Believe, Cat, People

  Jeanette Winterson (2007). “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit”, p.93, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• Life is like a piece of string with a lot of knots tied in it. The knots are the karma you're born with from all your past lives, and the object of human life is to try and undo all those knots. That's what chanting and meditation in God consciousness can do. Otherwise you simply tie another ten knots each time you try to undo one knot. That's how karma works.

  George Harrison

  Karma, Past, Ties

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• History is a string full of knots, the best you can do is admire it, and maybe tie it up a bit more. History is a hammock for swinging and a game for playing.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Games, Ties, History

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• The Alexander Technique has helped me to undo knots, unblock energy and deal with almost paralysing stage fright

  William Hurt

  Technique, Energy, Stage

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• It turned out that some crooked things looked even worse when straightened. Some tangled knots only made sense once unraveled.

  Hugh Howey

  Tangled, Made, Crooked

  Hugh Howey (2013). “Wool”, p.479, Simon and Schuster

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• Each obsession is a knot in your being. Once it is opened, great energy is released

  Rajneesh

  Energy, Obsession

  Rajneesh (Bhagwan Shree), Swami Krishna Prem (1984). “From I to Q”

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• God in heaven holds each person by a string. When you sin, you cut the string. Then God ties it up again. Making a knot, bringing you a little closer to Him. Again and again your sins cut the string and with each knot God keeps drawing you closer and closer.

  Anthony de Mello

  Cutting, Drawing, Ties

  Anthony De Mello (2012). “One Minute Wisdom”, p.116, Image

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• For my part I love sleepy fellows, and the more ignorant the better. Damn your wide-awake and knowing chaps. As for sleepiness, itis one of the noblest qualities of humanity. There is something sociable about it, too. Think of those sensible & sociable millions of good fellows all taking a good long friendly snooze together, under the sod--no quarrels, no imaginary grievances, no envies, heart-burnings, & thinking how much better that other chap is off--none of this: but all equally free-&-easy, they sleep away & reel off their nine knots an hour, in perfect amity.

  Herman Melville

  Death, Heart, Sleep

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• My soul is an entangled knot,
  Upon a liquid vortex wrought
  By Intellect in the Unseen residing,
  And thine doth like a convict sit,
  With marline-spike untwisting it,
  Only to find its knottiness abiding;
  Since all the tools for its untying
  In four-dimensional space are lying,
  Wherein they fancy intersperses
  Long avenues of universes,
  While Klein and Clifford fill the void
  With one finite, unbounded homoloid,
  And think the Infinite is now at last destroyed.

  James Clerk Maxwell

  Lying, Thinking, Space

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• That subtle knot which makes us man So must pure lovers souls descend T affections, and to faculties, Which sense may reach and apprehend, Else a great Prince in prison lies.

  John Donne

  Lying, Men, Soul

  'Songs and Sonnets' 'The Ecstasy'

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• The poet is an untier of knots, and love without words is a knot, and it drowns.

  Gabriela Mistral

  And Love, Poet

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• in the nineteenth year and the eleventh month speak your tattered Kaddish for all suicides: Praise to life though it crumbled in like a tunnel on ones we knew and loved Praise to life though its windows blew shut on the breathing-room of ones we knew and loved Praise to life though ones we knew and loved loved it badly, too well, and not enough Praise to life though it tightened like a knot on the hearts of ones we thought we knew loved us Praise to life giving room and reason to ones we knew and loved who felt unpraisable. Praise to them, how they loved it, when they could.

  Adrienne Rich

  Suicide, Heart, Years

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• A man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business and his life.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Life, Letting Go, Cutting

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• The whole world yearns after freedom, yet each creature is in love with his chains; this is the first paradox and inextricable knot of our nature.

  Sri Aurobindo

  World, Firsts, Paradox

  Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education (Pondicherry, India), Aurobindo Ghose (1988). “Bulletin Du Centre International D'éducation Sri Aurobindo”

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• the marriage twists, holds firm, a sailor's knot.

  Anne Sexton

  Marriage, Twists, Sailor

  Anne Sexton (1978). “Words for Dr. Y.: uncollected poems with three stories”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• I knit the afternoon away. I knit reasons for Elijah to come back. I knit apologies for Emma. I knit angry knots and slipped stitches for every mistake I ever made, and I knit wet, swollen stitches that look awful. I knit the sun down.

  Laurie Halse Anderson

  Mistake, Apology, Looks

  Laurie Halse Anderson (2009). “Wintergirls”, p.195, Penguin

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• How I would love to be transported into a scented Elizabethan garden with herbs and honeysuckles, a knot garden and roses clambering over a simple arbor.

  Rosemary Verey

  Simple, Garden, Rose

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• My husband and I don't worry about each other the way we might if we didn't have similar jobs. I sometimes get an email where he tells me he's heading off on a mission to do terrain avoidance 50 feet above the ground at 500 knots. And I just say, "Okay, have a good flight."

  Julie Payette

  Jobs, Husband, Feet

  "Julie Payette returns to space". Interview with Kate Fillion, www.macleans.ca. February 4, 2009.

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• Seal the openings, shut the doors, dull the sharpness, untie the knots, dim the light, become one with the dust. This is called the profound union.

  Laozi

  Light, Doors, Dust

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• Girls Scouts taught me to succeed (cookie selling) and to fail (knot tying) and to learn and benefit from both.

  Carol Bellamy

  Girl, Cookies, Benefits

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• Adam was in the dream, too; he traced the tangled pattern of ink with his finger. He said, "Scio quid hoc est." As he traced it further and further down on the bare skin of Ronan's back, Ronan himself disappeared entirely, and the tattoo got smaller and smaller. It was a Celtic knot the size of a wafer, and then Adam, who had become Kavinsky, said "Scio quid estis vos." He put the tattoo in his mouth and swallowed it. Ronan woke with a start, ashamed and euphoric. The euphoria wore off long before the shame did. He was never sleeping again.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Tattoo, Dream, Sleep

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