Malediction Quotes

• I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.

  Elie Wiesel

  Adventure, Swings, Stories

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• The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Land, Genius, Architecture

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.172, Penguin

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• You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  War, Term

  Letter to Mayor Calhoun of Atlanta, Ga., and others, 12 Sept. 1864 See Napoleon 11; William Tecumseh Sherman 3

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• The most sacred duty, the supreme and urgent work, is to deliver humanity from the malediction of Cain - fratricidal war.

  African Spir

  War, Humanity, Cain

  "Paroles d'un sage: Choix de pensées d'African Spir" ("Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir") by Hélène Claparède-Spir, (p. 51), 1937.

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• You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Country, War, Sacrifice

  Letter to Mayor Calhoun of Atlanta, Ga., and others, 12 Sept. 1864 See Napoleon 11; William Tecumseh Sherman 3

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• I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.

  William Tecumseh Sherman

  Peace, War, Sacrifice

  William Tecumseh Sherman (1875). “Memoirs of General William T. Sherman”, p.126

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• Hermione, will you please —” “Don’t you tell me what to do, Harry Potter!” she screeched. “Don’t you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!” She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps.

  J. K. Rowling

  Giving, Potters, Steps

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• The art of cursing people seems to have lost its tang since the old days when a good malediction took four deep breaths to deliverand sent the outfielders scurrying toward the fence to field.

  Robert Benchley

  Art, People, Four

  Robert Benchley (1940). “My Ten Years in a Quandary”

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• I tap a Malediction out of the box, fire it up, and puff. It tastes like a tire fire in a candy factory next door to a strip club. The best cigarettes ever.

  Richard Kadrey

  Doors, Fire, Puff

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• Elderly gentlemen, gentle in all respects, kind to animals, beloved by children, and fond of music, are found in lonely corners of the downs, hacking at sandpits or tussocks of grass, and muttering in a blind, ungovernable fury elaborate maledictions which could not be extracted from them by robbery or murder. Men who would face torture without a word become blasphemous at the short fourteenth. It is clear that the game of golf may well be included in that category of intolerable provocations which may legally excuse or mitigate behavior not otherwise excusable.

  A. P. Herbert

  Lonely, Children, Golf

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• The indications are that swearing preceded the development of cursing. That is, expletives, maledictions, exclamations, and imprecations of the immediately explosive or vituperative kind preceded the speechmaking and later rituals involved in the deliberate apportioning of the fate of an enemy. Swearing of the former variety is from the lips only, but the latter is from the heart. Damn it! is not that same as Damn you!

  Ashley Montagu

  Heart, Fate, Damn You

  Ashley Montagu (2001). “The Anatomy of Swearing”, p.35, University of Pennsylvania Press

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