Precipice Quotes

• It’s only on the brink that people find the will to change.  Only at the precipice do we evolve.

  John Cleese

  People, Evolve

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• When the whole world is running headlong towards the precipice, one who walks in the opposite direction is looked at as being crazy.

  T. S. Eliot

  Running, Crazy, Opposites

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• Walk at the edge of the precipices! It is the best way to learn walking carefully!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Way, Walks, Walking

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• We are on the precipice of being so ignorant that our democracy is threatened.

  Walter Cronkite

  Ignorant, Democracy, Threatened

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• She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.

  Anthony Trollope

  Madness, Sanity, Remnants

  Anthony Trollope (2015). “The Palliser Novels: Complete Parliamentary Chronicles (All Six Novels in One Volume): Can You Forgive Her? + Phineas Finn + The Eustace Diamonds + Phineas Redux + The Prime Minister + The Duke’s Children”, p.321, e-artnow

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• You have to run risks. There are no certainties in war. There is a precipice on either side of you - a precipice of caution and a precipice of over-daring.

  Winston Churchill

  Running, War, Adversity

  Winston Churchill (1952). “War Speeches: From September 11, 1943 to August 16, 1945”

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• Mind led body
  to the edge of the precipice.
  They stared in desire
  at the naked abyss.
  If you love me, said mind,
  take that step into silence.
  If you love me, said body,
  turn and exist.

  Anne Stevenson

  Silence, Mind, Desire

  Anne Stevenson (2005). “Poems 1955-2005”, Bloodaxe Books Limited

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• It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.

  Thomas Cole

  Nature, Rocks, Water

  Thomas Cole (1980). “The collected essays and prose sketches”

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• Ay, on the shores of darkness there is a light, and precipices show untrodden green; there is a budding morrow in midnight; there is triple sight in blindness keen.

  John Keats

  Light, Sight, Darkness

  'To Homer' (written 1818)

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• There must be a few times in life when you stand at a precipice of a decision. When you know there will forever be a Before and an After...I knew there would be no turning back if I designated this moment as my own Prime Meridian from which everything else would be measured.

  Justina Chen

  Decision, Forever, Would Be

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• We live in a pretty bleak time. I feel that in the air. Everything is uncertain. Everything feels like its on the precipice of some major transformation, whether we like it or not.

  Sean Lennon

  Air, Transformation, Uncertain

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Pleasure is the carrot dangled to lead the ass to market; or the precipice.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Ass, Pleasure, Carrots

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• I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Jobs, Passion, Thinking

  Jean-Paul Sartre (2013). “Nausea”, p.128, New Directions Publishing

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• A young man before he leaves the shelter of his father's house, and the guard of a tutor, should be fortify'd with resolution, and made acquainted with men, to secure his virtues, lest he should be led into some ruinous course, or fatal precipice, before he is sufficiently acquainted with the dangers of conversation, and his steadiness enough not to yield to every temptation.

  John Locke

  Father, Men, Yield

  John Locke, George Berkeley (2010). “Locke, Berkely and Hume”, p.54, Cosimo, Inc.

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• War creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice.

  C. S. Lewis

  Peace, War, Civilization

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• If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Stopping, Laziness, Ruins

  Henry Ward Beecher (1850). “Industry and idleness: with causes of dishonesty : to which are appended six warnings”, p.33

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• Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Writing, Stories, Chairs

  The Crack-Up "Note-Books" (1945)

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• We are witnessing an enormous shift of collective consciousness throughout the world. We are at the precipice of great transformation within our culture and government.

  Zachary Quinto

  Government, Culture, World

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

  Blaise Pascal

  Running, Aging, Seeing

  Blaise Pascal (2016). “Pensées”, p.79, Open Road Media

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• Home life's great, man. The kids are great, happy and healthy. I've reached this sort of wonderful precipice.

  Ryan Phillippe

  Home, Kids, Parenting

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• I feel like I'm on the precipice - just seeing a better version of me coming out.

  Sara Bareilles

  Coming Out, Feels, Versions

  Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the referendum in Quebec, the very existence of Canada was on the line... I had a responsibility to ensure that Canada never again came close to the precipice.

  Jean Chretien

  Responsibility, Years, Aftermath

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• Freeze, freeze in the winter, if you really want to appreciate the summer! Walk, walk at the edge of the precipices, if you rightly want to learn the meaning of the safety! Switch the lights off, if you want to see the amazing beauty of the light!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Summer, Winter, Light

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• When your eyes are fixed in the stare of unconsciousness, and your throat coughs the last gasping breath - as one dragged in the dark to a great precipice - what assistance are a wife and child?

  George Bernard Shaw

  Children, Eye, Dark

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• Certainly something had happened to me during the night. Or after months of tension I had arrived at the edge of some precipice and now I was falling, as in a dream slowly, even as I continued to hold the thermometer in my hand, een as I stood with the soles of my slippers on the floor, even as I felt myself solidly contained by the expectant looks of my children. It was the fault of the torture that my husband had inflicted. But enough, I had to tear the pain from memory, I had to sandpaper away the scratches that were damaging my brain.

  Elena Ferrante

  Dream, Children, Pain

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