Obliged Quotes - Page 13

• For a man who finds life tolerable only by staying on the surface of himself, it is natural to be satisfied with offering no more than his surface to others. There are few demands to be met, and no commitment is required. Marriage, on the other hand, closes the door. Your existence is confined to a narrow space in which you are constantly forced to reveal yourself – and therefore, constantly obliged to look into yourself, to examine your own depths.

  Paul Auster

  Commitment, Space, Offering

  Paul Auster (2011). “Collected Prose”, p.17, Faber & Faber

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• But you have said it too often, Mr. Benedict!" said Mrs. Perumal in an imperious tone that was quite out of character. "And if you continue in this vein, I'm afraid we'll be compelled to cut our visit short. Surely there are other establishments that would host an entire troup of guests - indefinitely and without reward - and not feel obliged to apologize for it!

  Trenton Lee Stewart

  Character, Cutting, Guests

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• He was obliged however to throw over Christianity. Those who base their conduct upon what they are rather than upon what they ought to be, always must throw it over in the end . . . .

  E. M. Forster

  Christianity, Ends, Ought

  E M Forster (2011). “Maurice”, p.58, Hachette UK

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• She wanted to be herself again, to recover all that she had been obliged to give up in half a century of servitude that had doubtless made her happy but which, once her husband was dead, did not leave her even the vestiges of her identity.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Giving Up, Husband, Identity

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• I fear that we shall be obliged to leave this pudding

  Beatrix Potter

  Pudding

  Beatrix Potter (2013). “Delphi Complete Peter Rabbit Tales (Illustrated)”, p.384, Delphi Classics

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• But just as he knew the sun was obliged to rise each morning in the east, no matter how much a western arisal might have pleased it, so he knew that Buttercup was obliged to spend her love on him. Gold was inviting, and so was royalty, but they could not match the fever in his heart, and sooner or later she would have to catch it. She had less choice than the sun.

  William Goldman

  Morning, Heart, Choices

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• Mother Mary of Anabolic Grace, we got Teras incoming?” He levels angry blue eyes on me. “You’re a hex, lady, dark luck, powerful bad juju, ken?” “Only to people who try to kidnap me,” I tell him sweetly, and March snorts, so I feel obliged to add, “Or rescue me…” And then Dina makes a pfft sound. “Or who travel with me…” My gaze sweeps around the darkened interior, trying to find an ally, but nobody will hold my eyes more than two seconds, it seems. “Fine, frag you all, I’m dark juju, bad luck, and you’re all doomed.

  Ann Aguirre

  Mother, Powerful, Eye

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• Often in the search for your destiny you will find yourself obliged to change direction

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Destiny, Finding Yourself

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• We are all of us obliged, if we are to make reality endurable, to nurse a few little follies in ourselves.

  Marcel Proust

  Reality, Nurse, Littles

  Marcel Proust (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Marcel Proust (Illustrated)”, p.917, Delphi Classics

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• In exchange for freedom of inquiry, scientists are obliged to explain their work.

  Carl Sagan

  Inquiry, Scientist

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science”, p.14, Ballantine Books

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• No, it's not that they're bad. It's that they're obliged to pretend they're good. They've been brought up to deceive and be cunning, to protect themselves from our society. I don't want to be like that.

  Carlos Fuentes

  Want, Our Society, Deceiving

  Carlos Fuentes (2012). “Happy Families”, p.76, A&C Black

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• THE soul should always stand ajar, That if the heaven inquire, He will not be obliged to wait, Or shy of troubling her. Depart, before the host has slid The bolt upon the door, To seek for the accomplished guest, -- Her visitor no more.

  Emily Dickinson

  Doors, Waiting, Heaven

  Emily Dickinson (2016). “The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.300, First Avenue Editions

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• The truth is that as soon as we are no longer obliged to earn our living, we no longer know what to do with our life and recklessly squander it.

  Andre Gide

  Truth Is, Knows, Our Lives

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• We shall soon be obliged to meet in cellars, or in darkened rooms with closed doors, and speak in whispers lest our next door neighbors should hear that freeborn citizens dare not speak in the open.

  Emma Goldman

  Doors, Citizens, Rooms

  Emma Goldman, Candace Falk, Barry Pateman, Jessica M. Moran (2004). “Emma Goldman: Making speech free, 1902-1909”, p.583, Univ of California Press

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• I think myself obliged, whatever my private apprehensions may be of the success, to do my duty, and leave events to their Disposer.

  Robert Boyle

  Thinking, Events, May

  Robert Boyle (1835). “Treatises on the High Veneration Man's Intellect Owes to God...”, p.97

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• I will gladly give lessons as a favor, particularly when I see that my student has talent, inclination, and anxiety to learn; but to be obliged to go to a house at a certain hour, or to have to wait at home for a pupil, is what I cannot do, no matter how much money it may bring me in. . . I am a composer and was born to be a Kapellmeister. I neither can nor ought to bury the talent for composition with which God in his goodness has so richly endowed me. . .

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Home, Giving, House

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• You know that I become quite powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument which I cannot bear.

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  Writing, Bears, Instruments

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Stanley Sadie, Fiona Smart (2016). “The Letters of Mozart and his Family”, p.481, Springer

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• There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue.

  John Adams

  Heart, Branches, Kind

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• It's Russell Montgomery the Third, actually," said Rusty, still grinning. "But I'd be obliged if you keep that bit of information to yourself." "I don't imagine any of us cares enough to remember," Jared said.

  Sarah Rees Brennan

  Care, Information, Remember

  Sarah Rees Brennan (2013). “Untold”, p.37, Simon and Schuster

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• I hate Technicolor. Everybody in a Technicolor movie seems to feel obliged to wear a lurid costume in each new scene and to stand around like a clotheshorse with a lot of very green trees or very yellow wheat or very blue ocean rolling away for miles and miles in every direction.

  Sylvia Plath

  Hate, Ocean, Blue

  Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.23, Hamilton Books

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• Make them free, and they will quickly become wise and virtous, as men become more so; for the improvement must be mutual, or the injustice which one half of the human race are obliged to submit to, retorting on their oppressors, the virtue of men will be worm-eaten by the insect whom he keeps under his feet

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Wise, Men, Race

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2008). “A Vindication of the Rights of Women & a Vindication of the Rights of Men”, p.186, Cosimo, Inc.

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• There aren't many such enthusiasts born. The average person is not especially curious about the world. He is alive, and being somehow obliged to deal with this condition, feels the less effort it requires, the better. Whereas learning about the world is labor, and a great all-consuming one at that. Most people develop quite antithetical talents, in fact - to look without seeing, to listen without hearing, mainly to preserve onself within oneself.

  Ryszard Kapuscinski

  Average, People, Effort

  Ryszard Kapuscinski (2009). “Travels with Herodotus”, p.267, Vintage

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• He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world, obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both forgot everything but their love.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Strong, Lying, Passion

  Leo Tolstoy (graf), Aylmer Maude (1937). “The Works of Leo Tolstoy ...: Anna Karénina, tr. by Louise and Aylmer Maude”

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• And don’t you say that it is very kind and obliging of him, sir, like Jessamy, because if you don’t like a person, you don’t wish to be obliged to him!

  Georgette Heyer

  Wish, Kind, Persons

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• But he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Pain, Feelings, Attention

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Joseph Pearce (2008). “Frankenstein”, p.155, Ignatius Press

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