Peculiar Quotes - Page 12

• Advice is a peculiar commodity. Those who have the capacity to give good advice generally have too much sense to waste their time trying to get rid of it.

  William H. McMaster

  Giving, Advice, Trying

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• My works are all expressly my own - pleasingly peculiar, not a borrowed stroke in one of them. I write as I feel and as I don't feel.

  Amanda McKittrick Ros

  Writing, Feels, Strokes

  Amanda McKittrick Ros, Frank Ormsby (1988). “Thine in storm and calm: an Amanda McKittrick Ros reader”, Blackstaff Pr

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• Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the color of my skin and my rather peculiar background as an Ethiopian immigrant delineated the border of my life and friendships. I learned quickly how to stand alone.

  Dinaw Mengestu

  Growing Up, Color, Skins

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• The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these Germans; the enjoyment of it, their best treasure; the word that expressed that enjoyment the most pleasing to their ear. They deserved, they assumed, they maintained the honourable epithet of Franks or Freemen; which concealed, though it did not extinguish, the peculiar names of the several states of the confederacy.

  Edward Gibbon

  Passion, Names, History

  Edward Gibbon (1835). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.102

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• One of the peculiar ironies of being a human self in the Cosmos: A stranger approaching you in the street will in a second's glance see you whole, size you up, place you in a way in which you cannot and never will, even though you have spent a lifetime with yourself, live in the Century of the Self, and therefore ought to know yourself best of all.

  Walker Percy

  Self, Cosmos, Way

  Walker Percy (2011). “Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book”, p.8, Open Road Media

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• The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sacrifice, Doctrine, Christianity

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.92

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• The most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with.

  William James

  Self, Mind, Social

  William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.294, Courier Corporation

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• Every individual nature has its own beauty. One is struck in every company, at every fireside, with the riches of nature, when he hears so many new tones, all musical, sees in each person original manners, which have a proper and peculiar charm, and reads new expressions of face. He perceives that nature has laid for each the foundations of a divine building, if the soul will build thereon.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Expression, Soul, Individuality

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2447, Delphi Classics

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• To an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, 'Look at my two noble friends -- they are dumb, but they are loyal.' I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant.

  Beryl Markham

  Dog, Horse, Believe

  Beryl Markham (2012). “West with the Night”, p.122, Open Road Media

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• When she had gone upstairs, he walked to a window and stood looking up at the sky. His head thrown back, he felt the pull of his throat muscles and he wondered whether the peculiar solemnity of looking at the sky comes, not from what one contemplates, but from that uplift of one's head.

  Ayn Rand

  Uplifting, Sky, Gone

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.713, Penguin

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• Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world - the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented hair from turning gray, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack.

  Charles Dickens

  Hair, Foundation, Female

  Charles Dickens, General Press (2016). “A Tale of Two Cities: A Story of the French Revolution”, p.252, GENERAL PRESS

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• I used to comfort myself with the belief that it was only certain individuals and their peculiar notions that spoilt things for the rest of us. But how many individuals does it take before it's not the individuals who are prejudiced but society itself?

  Malorie Blackman

  Comfort, Doe, Noughts And Crosses

  Malorie Blackman (2007). “Black & White”, p.367, Simon and Schuster

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• Forgive me," he went on. "For a long time I have had the peculiar habit of not arriving but appearing.

  Milan Kundera

  Long, Forgive Me, Forgiving

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• This, then, is the ultimate, that is only, consolation: simply that someone shares some of your own feelings and has made of these a work of art which you have the insight, sensitivity, and — like it or not — peculiar set of experiences to appreciate. Amazing thing to say, the consolation of horror in art is that it actually intensifies our panic, loudens it on the sounding-board of our horror-hollowed hearts, turns terror up full blast, all the while reaching for that perfect and deafening amplitude at which we may dance to the bizarre music of our own misery.

  Thomas Ligotti

  Art, Appreciate, Perfect

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• People say of me, 'She's peculiar.' They do not understand me. If they did they would say so oftener and with emphasis.

  Mary MacLane

  People, Emphasis, Understand Me

  Mary MacLane (2014). “Tender Darkness: A Mary MacLane Sampler”, p.83, Petrarca Press

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• It is the peculiar nature of the forest, that life and death may ever be found within its bounds, in immediate presence of each other; both with ceaseless, noiseless advances, aiming at the mastery; and if the influences of the first be most general, those of the last are the most striking.

  Susan Fenimore Cooper

  Life And Death, Mastery, May

  Susan Fenimore Cooper (1998). “Rural Hours”, p.126, University of Georgia Press

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• There is and always has been for me a peculiar need to write. This is very different from wanting to be a writer. To be a writer always seemed something so far removed from my talents and abilities and imaginings that it didn't afflict me at all as a notion when I was young. But I was always conscious that I wanted to write.

  Patricia Wentworth

  Writing, Different, Needs

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• Whenever people are certain they understand our peculiar situation here on this planet, it is because they have accepted a religious Faith or a secular Ideology (Ideologies are the modern form of Faiths) and just stopped thinking.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Faith, Religious, Thinking

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• The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

  Nelson Algren

  Writing, Responsibility, Men

  1961 Preface to reprint of Chicago: City On The Make (first published 1951).

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• I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.

  Anthony Hopkins

  Dream, Mind, Quality

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• If someone wrote it and it had a peculiar twist, I've read it.

  Dean Koontz

  Twists, Ifs

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• Every age develops its own peculiar forms of pathology, which express in exaggerated form its underlying character structure.

  Christopher Lasch

  Birthday, Character, Age

  Christopher Lasch (1991). “The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations”, p.41, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Honesty, Ambition

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln(1832-1865) (EasyRead Super Large 20pt Edition)”, p.3, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.

  John Locke

  Men, Littles, Information

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• There is a peculiar burning odor in the room, like explosives. the kitchen fills with smoke and the hot, sweet, ashy smell of scorched cookies. The war has begun.

  Alison Lurie

  Sweet, War, Smell

  Alison Lurie (2012). “The War Between the Tates: A Novel”, p.35, Open Road Media

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