Peculiar Quotes - Page 30

• These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic calligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes, as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the author deeply.

  Victor Hugo

  Attitude, Hands, Greek

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• ...I suddenly realized what small towns are. They are places where you grow up with the peculiar-you live next door to the strange and the unlikely for so long that everything and everyone become commonplace.

  John Irving

  Growing Up, Doors, Long

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• One just spends as much money as one has. Very peculiar that! You never actually have any money. You think, If I had this much money ten years ago, I would have thought I was amazingly rich, but I still manage to spend it all and not have any left.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Money, Thinking, Years

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• In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed almost the existence, of man depends so much upon the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native character are refined away or softened down by the levelling influence of what is termed good-breeding, and he practises so many petty deceptions and affects so many generous sentiments for the purposes of popularity that it is difficult to distinguish his real from his artificial character.

  Washington Irving

  Real, Character, Men

  Washington Irving (2015). “The Complete Short Stories of Washington Irving: The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveler, The Alhambra, Woolfert’s Roost & The Crayon Papers Collections (Illustrated): The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, Old Christmas, The Voyage, Roscoe, The Widow’s Retinue, An Old Soldier, Mountjoy, Don Juan, Woolfert’s Roost, Tales of The Alhambra and many more”, p.383, e-artnow

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• Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.

  Herman Melville

  Sweet, Men, Mind

  Herman Melville (2016). “Pierre; or The Ambiguities”, p.433, Herman Melville

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• Each speech having its own character, the poetry it engenders will be peculiar to that speech also in its own intrinsic form. The effect is beauty, what in a single object resolves our complex feelings of propriety.

  William Carlos Williams

  Character, Feelings, Speech

  William Carlos Williams, A. Walton Litz, Christopher MacGowan (1991). “The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams: 1939-1962”, p.54, New Directions Publishing

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• If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.

  Pope Pius XI

  Christian, Religious, Errors

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• The shaman is a very peculiar figure. He is critical to the functioning of the psychological and social life of his community, but in a way he is always peripheral to it. He lives at the edge of the village. He is only called upon in matters of great social crisis. He is feared and respected. And this might be a description of these hallucinogenic substances.

  Terence McKenna

  Community, Substance, Village

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• The work I'm doing on the screen differs from that of anyone else. My comedy is of a peculiar nature...no writers have been developed along the lines of my type of comedy and this is why I sometimes have differences with writers, supervisors and directors alike.

  W. C. Fields

  Differences, Directors, Lines

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• Now consciousness, what is consciousness? Consciousness is being aware of one's surroundings, recognizing the existence, truth or fact of something; being aware of the very moment, the very instant that you are in; being aware of how you affect the human social, political, and natural ecology you are a part of and how it affects you. Consciousness is being informed and instructed through your groups peculiar culture on the effects of the varied ecologies on your immediate and distant ancestors, and to be aware of their interpretation of that experience.

  James Small

  Political, Culture, Facts

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• Virtually every war fought since the Act of Union had gone badly at some stage, but before 1783 none had ended in defeat. Nor would any major war in which Britain was involved after this date end in defeat. Those who are curious about this country's peculiar social and political stability probably need look no further than this for essential cause.

  Linda Colley

  Country, War, Political

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• Practically everything I did as an experiment while I was working on the book made me feel cold, angry, and decidedly peculiar. Clinical. Because I wasn't acting from the motives people usually work from: to feel good, to have fun, to make something last.

  Joan Juliet Buck

  Fun, Book, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Starting out from the fact that the frustrated predominate among the early adherents of all mass movements and that they usually join of their own accord, it is assumed: 1) that frustration of itself, without any proselytizing prompting from the outside, can generate most of the peculiar characteristics of the true believer; 2) that an effective technique of conversion consists basically in the inculcation and fixation of proclivities and responses indigenous to the frustrated mind.

  Eric Hoffer

  Frustration, Frustrated, Mind

  Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Art itself has become an extraordinary thing - the activity of peculiar people - people who become more and more peculiar as their activity becomes more and more extraordinary.

  Eric Gill

  Art, People, Extraordinary Things

  Eric Gill (1934). “Art and a Changing Civilisation”

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• The United States are under peculiar obligations to become a holy people unto the Lord our God.

  Ezra Stiles

  People, United States, Lord

  Ezra STILES (1785). “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honour; a Sermon [on Deut. Xxvi. 19] ... Second Edition, Corrected”, p.150

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• The Hindus have a peculiar slovenliness in business matters, not being sufficiently methodical and strict in keeping accounts etc.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Business, Matter, Etc

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2082, Manonmani Publishers

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• Detachment produces a peculiar state of mind. Maybe that's the worst sentence of all, to be deprived of feeling what a human being ought to be entitled to feel.

  James Dickey

  Feelings, Mind, Detachment

  James Dickey (1984). “Self-interviews”, p.139, LSU Press

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• SCARABAEUS, n. The sacred beetle of the ancient Egyptians, allied to our familiar "tumble-bug." It was supposed to symbolize immortality, the fact that God knew why giving it its peculiar sanctity.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Giving, Sacred, Bugs

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.276, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it.

  Thomas Merton

  Believe, Angel, Grace

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• At last the best of artisans ordained that that creature to whom He had been able to give nothing proper to himself should have joint possession of whatever had been peculiar to each of the different kinds of being.

  Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

  Should Have, Giving, Different

  Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1953). “Oratio de Hominis Dignitate: Oration on the Dignity of Man. English Translation by Elizabet Livermore Forbes”

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• Wherefore no name can be found for a new fossil [element] which indicates its peculiar and characteristic properties (in which position I find myself at present), I think it is best to choose such a denomination as means nothing of itself and thus can give no rise to any erroneous ideas. In consequence of this, as I did in the case of Uranium, I shall borrow the name for this metallic substance from mythology, and in particular from the Titans, the first sons of the earth. I therefore call this metallic genus TITANIUM.

  Martin Heinrich Klaproth

  Mean, Son, Science

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• The Bolshevik slogans and ideas on the whole have been confirmed by history; but concretely things have worked out differently; they are more original, more peculiar, more varied than anyone could have expected.

  Vladimir Lenin

  Ideas, Expected, Bolsheviks

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• Mr. Jesmond made a peculiar noise rather like a hen who has decided to lay an egg and then thought better of it.

  Agatha Christie

  Eggs, Noise, Hens

  Agatha Christie (1991). “Agatha Christie's Poirot”, Fontana Press

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• You remember my ideal cat has always a huge rat in its mouth, just going out of sight - though going out of sight in itself has a peculiar pleasure.

  Emily Dickinson

  Cat, Sight, Justice

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.2343, Delphi Classics

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• The peculiar habit, when searching for a snack, of constantly returning to the refrigerator in hopes that something new will have materialized.

  Rich Hall

  Humorous, Snacks, Habit

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