Recoil Quotes

• Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.

  John Milton

  Sweet, Revenge, Long

  John Milton (1826). “The Poetical Works of John Milton”, p.153

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.

  John Milton

  Doors, Sound, Thunder

  'Paradise Lost' (1667) bk. 2, l. 879

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Peace, Truth, Fall

  Arthur Conan Doyle (2012). “The Sherlock Holmes Archives (incl. The Truth About Sherlock Holmes)”, p.551, Jazzybee Verlag

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• At man's core there is a voice that wants him never to give in to fear. But if it is true that in general man cannot give in to fear, at the very least he postpones indefinitely the moment when he will have to confront himself with the object of his fear... when he will no longer have the assistance of reason as guaranteed by God, or when he will no longer have the assistance of God such as reason guaranteed. It is necessary to recoil, but it is necessary to leap, and perhaps one only recoils in order to leap better.

  Georges Bataille

  God, Men, Order

  14 Copy quote

• Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Book, Reading, Giving

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (2000). “Poems and Other Writings”, p.729, Library of America

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings - as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Funny, Reading, Book

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, J. D. McClatchy (2000). “Poems and Other Writings”, p.729, Library of America

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Planted by your care? No! Your oppression planted them in America... nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them... As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them... men whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them.

  Isaac Barre

  Son, Men, Blood

  8 Copy quote

• I thought this must be obvious to everyone else, as it seemed obvious to me; and that, if once it became apparent that we were on the edge, all the Great Powers would call a halt and recoil from the abyss.

  Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon

  Halt, Obvious, Abyss

  "Twenty-Five Years: 1892-1916". Book by Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, 1925.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life presents itself in constantly changing ways, but you're able to accept the challenges, rather than recoil, throw up your hands, and go on a binge.

  Carnie Wilson

  Hands, Challenges, Goes On

  4 Copy quote

• It is hard, if not impossible, to snub a beautiful woman - they remain beautiful and the snub recoils.

  Winston Churchill

  Beautiful, Women, Impossible

  Sir Winston Churchill (1956). “Savrola: a tale of the revolution in Laurania”, Random

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Among Negroes of my generation there was not only little direct acquaintance or consciously inherited knowledge of Africa, but much distaste and recoil because of what the white world taught them about the Dark Continent. There arose resentment that a group like ours, born and bred in the United States for centuries, should be regarded as Africans at all. They were, as most of them began gradually to assert, Americans. My father's father was particularly bitter about this. He would not accept an invitation to a 'Negro' picnic. He would not segregate himself in any way.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Father, Dark, White

  35 Copy quote

• The stone often recoils on the head of the thrower.

  Elizabeth I

  Stones, Throwers

  27 Copy quote

• Thy soul is by vile fear assailed, which oft so overcasts a man, that he recoils from noblest resolution, like a beast at some false semblance in the twilight gloom.

  Dante Alighieri

  Twilight, Men, Soul

  Dante Alighieri (1998). “Inferno”, p.8, Wordsworth Editions

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.

  Edmund Burke

  Nature, Real, Historical

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.484, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

  Alfred Nobel

  Military, War, Army

  15 Copy quote

• Wonder has no opposite; it springs up already doubled in itself, compounded of dread and desire at once, attraction and recoil, producing a thrill, the shudder of pleasure and of fear.

  Marina Warner

  Spring, Opposites, Desire

  Marina Warner, Sophie Herxheimer, Gilbert Adair (1994). “Wonder Tales”, p.3, Oxford University Press on Demand

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even if you don't mind Romneycare, or the abortion flip-flop, or any of the rest, there's a more basic problem: He's not a natural campaigner, and on the stump he instinctively recoils from any personal connection with the voters.

  Mark Steyn

  Abortion, Mind, Connections

  4 Copy quote

• Every life is its own excuse for being, and to deny or refute the untrue things that are said of you is an error in judgment. All wrong recoils upon the doer, and the person who makes wrong statements about others is themselves to be pitied, not the person they vilify. It is better to be lied about than to lie. At the last no one can harm us but ourselves.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Lying, Errors, Optimism

  Elbert Hubbard (1911). “A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are all freaks. Yes! Alone in our rooms at night, we are all weirdoes and outcasts and losers. That is what being a teenager is all about! Whether you admit it or not, you are all worried that the others won’t accept you, that if they knew the real you, they would recoil in horror. Each of us carries with us a secret shame that we think is somehow unique…And if we are, each of us, freaks – then can’t we accept what’s different in each other and move on?

  James St. James

  Real, Teenager, Moving

  11 Copy quote

• Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will.

  Edith Wharton

  Believe, Archer, Intelligent

  Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.2047, Delphi Classics

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criticism, is to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for the investigator to do but go straight on, 'to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason;' to follow the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times resemble a will-o'-the-wisp.

  William Crookes

  Knowledge, Science, Light

  "Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science". "Nature", No. 1506, Vol. 58, (p. 438), September 8, 1989.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The reason I am still sitting at Josef's kitchen table is the same reason traffic slows after a car wreck- you want to see the damage; you can't let yourself pass without that mental snapshot. We are drawn to horror even as we recoil from it.

  Jodi Picoult

  Car, Kitchen, Sitting

  Jodi Picoult (2013). “The Storyteller”, p.164, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I strongly oppose cloning, as do most Americans. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our convenience. And while we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means.

  George W. Bush

  Life, Mean, Science

  Remarks on Stem Cell Research, delivered 9 August 2001

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Sympathy, Lying, Ebb And Flow

  D. H. Lawrence, Michael Squires (2002). “Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'”, p.101, Cambridge University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Analysis takes back with one hand what it gives with the other. I recoil in fear and loathing from that deplorable evil: continuous functions with no derivatives.

  Charles Hermite

  Hands, Evil, Giving

  17 Copy quote