Occasions Quotes - Page 15

• In times of death and famine, reason is on the side of the priests-who have their own kind of logic which cries for miracles and, on occasion, invents them.

  Jean Giraudoux

  Miracle, Sides, Logic

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• Ah! but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.

  George Eliot

  Wise, Lying, Reflection

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.126, Wordsworth Editions

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• Learning is often spoken of as if we are watching the open pages of all the books which we have ever read, and then, when occasion arises, we select the right page to read aloud to the universe.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Book, Pages, Select

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.27, Simon and Schuster

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• On occasions, after drinking a pint of beer at luncheon, there would be a flow into my mind with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza, accompanied, not preceded by a vague notion of the poem which they were destined to form a part of.... I say bubble up because, so far as I could make out, the source of the suggestions thus proffered to the brain was the pit of the stomach.

  A. E. Housman

  Drinking, Beer, Two

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• Economists are about as useful as astrologers in predicting the future (and, like astrologers, they never let failure on one occasion diminish certitude on the next).

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Next, Economics, Economist

  "A Clinton Report Card, So Far" by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., www.nytimes.com. April 11, 1993.

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• Use the occasion, for it passes swiftly.

  Ovid

  Opportunity, Use

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• There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest: but there is seldom one in which a man should tell it all.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Order, Secret

  "Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son".

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• The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it.

  Richard Whately

  Men, Thinking, Giving

  Francis Bacon, Richard Whately (1861). “Bacon's Essays”, p.137

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• People who put slipcovers, doilies, plastic protectors, and cellophane on everything good that they own rarely live to see an occasion so good that all these covers are removed.

  Judith Martin

  People, Manners, Plastic

  Judith Martin (1982). “Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior”, Scribner

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• On the occasions when I have pondered over men's various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at Court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man's unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room.

  Blaise Pascal

  Spring, War, Passion

  "Pensées and Other Writings".

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• The obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the opportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself fatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light, of liberty and the spirit. For it represents resistance -- that is to say, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and its triumph.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Lying, Opportunity, Night

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• Few occasions are as joyous to small children as funerals, almost better than the big wedding blowouts that take place at night when it's hard to stay awake. A small boy will never be harshly criticized at a funeral; he is more treasured as death comes close and all his wickedness vanishes before the inescapable fact that thank God, he is healthy.

  Arthur Miller

  Children, Boys, Night

  Arthur Miller (2013). “Timebends: A Life”, p.29, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• I can hardly think of an occasion when I've got into a stand-up fight with any political opponent. I've got my views, people know what they are, they can agree or they can choose to disagree. I'm not going to waste time just rubbishing everybody else.

  Charles Kennedy

  Fighting, Thinking, Views

  "Gently does it?" by Decca Aitkenhead, www.theguardian.com. April 9, 2005.

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• Is there anything more terrible than a "call"? It affords an occasion for the exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces. Calls and the theatre are the two great centers for the propagation of platitudes.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Two, Theatre, Conversation

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• To die quickly in one's eighth decade at the very top of one's powers is an enviable end, and not an occasion for mourning.

  Brendan Gill

  Death, Mourning, Ends

  BRENDAN GILL (1975). “HER AT THE NEW YORKER”

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• To each thing belongs it's measure. Occasion is best to know.

  Pindar

  Timeliness, Knows

  Pindar (1959). “The odes of Pindar”

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• Well, I don't ever get excited. I haven't been excited since I got a Chopper bicycle when I was about 12. Once you get older you realise there's always a catch to everything. So when I get, say, a commission to make a TV show, the catch is that you have to deliver something and then the sense of responsibility overwhelms the joy of the occasion.

  Jack Dee

  Responsibility, Tv Shows, Joy

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• It's the occasion that makes the revolution.

  Machado de Assis

  Revolution

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• The Beatles exist apart from my Self. I am not really Beatle George. Beatle George is like a suit or shirt that I once wore on occasion and until the end of my life people may see that shirt and mistake it for me.

  George Harrison

  Mistake, Self, People

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• One of the very important things that have to be learned around the time dying becomes a real prospect is to recognize those occasions when we have been useful in the world.

  Roger Rosenblatt

  Death, Real, Important

  Roger Rosenblatt (1994). “The Man in the Water: Essays and Stories”, Random House

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• For the truth is that men do not desire to be the Common Man any more than they are the Common Man. They need greatness in others and the occasion to discover the greatness in themselves.

  C. V. Wedgwood

  Greatness, Men, People

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• The world awaits Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympics, an occasion which will bring into the global spotlight the dramatic advances China is making in enhancing the quality of life for its people.

  Alexander Haig

  People, Quality, World

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• There are occasions when I've pretended to be in a firefight, and then there are people who have really been in a firefight. Clearly it's absolutely ridiculous, and even disrespectful, to suggest that I understand what that is.

  Christian Bale

  People, Ridiculous, Disrespectful

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• There have been many occasions when I found it helpful to talk out loud to my own thoughts, ordering the unwholesome ones to go off somewhere and jump into the river.

  Vash Young

  Rivers, Helpful, Loud

  Vash Young (2009). “A Fortune to Share”, p.11, Lulu.com

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• Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men.

  Brooke Westcott

  Hero, Eye, Men

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