Refuse Quotes - Page 36

• If a friend is the one who summons us to our best, then is not Jesus Christ our best friend, and should we not think of the Communion as one of His chief appeals to us to be our best? The Lord's Supper looks not back to our past with a critical eye, but to our future, with a hopeful one. The Master appeals from what we have been to what we may be. He bids us come, not because we are better than we have been, but because He wants us to be. To stay away because our hearts are cold is to refuse to go to the fire till we are warm.

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock

  Jesus, Eye, Heart

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1901). “Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock”

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• We must suit the flattery to the mind and taste of the recipient. We do not put essences into hogsheads, nor porter into phials. Delicate minds may be disgusted by compliments that would please a grosser intellect; as some fine ladies who would be shocked at the idea of a dram will not refuse a liqueur.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Essence, Ideas, Mind

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.190

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• To refuse to respond is in itself a response.

  Madeleine L'Engle

  Silence, Response

  Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “A Circle of Quiet”, p.61, Open Road Media

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• I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

  Maya Angelou

  Men, Differences, Made

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• In Heaven's happy bowers
  There blossom two flowers,
  One with fiery glow
  And one as white as snow;
  While lo! before them stands,
  With pale and trembling hands,
  A spirit who must choose
  One, and one refuse.

  Richard Watson Gilder

  Flower, Hands, Two

  Richard Watson Gilder (1885). “Lyrics”

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• Of him that hopes to be forgiven it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Forgiveness, Forgiving, Thrones

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc”, p.385

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• Curiously enough, it is often the people who refuse to assume any responsibility who are apt to be the sharpest critics of those who do.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Responsibility, People, Assuming

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1960). “You Learn by Living”, p.157, Westminster John Knox Press

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• How can we be such fools as to go on senselessly taking human life in this way? Why the women in every nation do not rise up and refuse to bring children into a world of this kind is beyond my understanding.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Children, Understanding, Goes On

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• Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Mean, Men, Doe

  Thomas Carlyle (1866). “On the Choice of Books. The inaugural address of Thomas Carlyle, Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh. Reprinted from “the Times,” with additional articles, a memoir of the author, etc”, p.30

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• And I refuse to feel guilty about not letter-writing either. There are times when one can, times when one can't. In the times when an enormous amount of living is going on, one can't.

  May Sarton

  Writing, Letters, Guilty

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• Never can a new idea move within the law. It matters not whether that idea pertains to political and social changes or to any other domain of human thought and expression - to science, literature, music; in fact, everything that makes for freedom and joy and beauty must refuse to move within the law. How can it be otherwise? The law is stationary, fixed, mechanical, 'a chariot wheel' which grinds all alike without regard to time, place and condition, without ever taking into account cause and effect, without ever going into the complexity of the human soul.

  Emma Goldman

  Moving, Expression, Law

  Address to the Jury, delivered 9 July 1917, New York

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• Let this serve as an axiom to every lover: A woman who refuses lunch refuses everything.

  Enid Bagnold

  Lunch, Dating, Lovers

  Enid Bagnold (1935). “A diary without dates”

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• I shall never ask, never refuse, nor ever resign an office.

  George Washington

  Office, Politician, Asks

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• Dare to look up to God and say, Deal with me in the future as Thou wilt; I am of the same mind as Thou art; I am Thine; I refuse nothing that pleases Thee; lead me where Thou wilt; clothe me in any dress Thou choosest.

  Epictetus

  Art, Mind, Dresses

  Epictetus (1900). “Discourses ...”

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• I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle, seems strained to the breaking point. The poem will not be denied; to refuse to write it would be a greater torture. It tears its way out of the brain, splintering and breaking its passage, and leaves that organ in the state of a jelly-fish when the task is done.

  Amy Lowell

  Writing, Creating, Agony

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• The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Running, Reading, Class

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• Whenever one refuses to admit such a self-evident truth, for instance, as that it is wrong to steal, don't argue with him-search him; the reason may be found in his pocket.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Self, Pockets, May

  William Jennings Bryan (1922). “In His Image: By William Jennings Bryan”

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• A suicide is both a rebuke to the living and a puzzle that defies them to solve it. Like a poem, suicide is finished and refuses to answer questions as to its final cause.

  Margaret Atwood

  Suicide, Finals, Answers

  Margaret Atwood (1984). “Second words: selected critical prose”, Beacon Press, 1984

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• The ghetto was not only a place of refuge for a persecuted minority but a great experiment in peace, in self-discipline and in humanism. As such it still exists and refuses to give up in spite of all the brutality that surrounds it. I was brought up among those people.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Giving Up, Ghetto, Self

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph C. Landis (1986). “Aspects of I.B. Singer”

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• But self-satisfaction, if as buoyant as gas, has an ugly trick of collapsing when full blown, and facts are stony things that refuse to melt away in the sunshine of a smile.

  Agnes Repplier

  Sunshine, Self, Ugly

  Agnes Repplier (1888). “Books and Men”

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• I am eighty years old. There seems to be nothing to add to this statement. I have reached the age of undecorated facts - facts that refuse to be softened by sentiment, or confused by nobility of phrase.

  Agnes Repplier

  Confused, Years, Age

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• Superstition, in all times and among all nations, is the fear of a spirit whose passions are those of a man, whose acts are the acts of a man; who is present in some places, not in others; who makes no places holy and not others; who is kind to one person, unkind to another; who is pleased or angry according to the degree of attention you pay him, or praise you refuse to him; who is hostile generally to human pleasure, but may be bribed by sacrifice of a part of that pleasure into permitting the rest. This, whatever form of faith it colors, is the essence of superstition.

  John Ruskin

  Passion, Sacrifice, Men

  John Ruskin (1907). “The Religion of Ruskin: The Life and Works of John Ruskin; a Biographical and Anthological Study”

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• I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence.

  Ayn Rand

  Guilt, Facts, Accepting

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.368, Hamilton Books

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• It is a well-settled principle of the international code that where one nation owes another a liquidated debt which it refuses or neglects to pay the aggrieved party may seize on the property belonging to the other, its citizens or subjects, sufficient to pay the debt without giving just cause of war.

  Andrew Jackson

  War, Party, Giving

  Andrew Jackson (1837). “Messages ...: With a Short Sketch of His Life”, p.286

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• A woman's body works as if it knew something she didn't, and does not have her best interests at heart. If you need to look your best it will deliver you a pimple; if you don't want it to, your period will start early; if you want a baby badly your body refuses to give you one; if you are content in your life, lo, you are pregnant.

  Fay Weldon

  Baby, Heart, Giving

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