Ruined Quotes - Page 16

• No; he could be ruined again and again by hope, but he would never be capable of belief.

  Michael Chabon

  Belief, Again And Again, Capable

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• A soul that is ruined in the bud will frequently return to the springtime of its beginning and its promise-filled childhood, as though it could discover new hopes there and retie the broken threads of life. The shoots grow rapidly and eagerly, but it is only a sham life that will never be a genuine tree.

  Hermann Hesse

  Broken, Childhood, Tree

  Hermann Hesse (2013). “Beneath the Wheel: A Novel”, p.132, Macmillan

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• Puddleglum,' they've said, 'You're altogether too full of bobance and bounce and high spirits. You've got to learn that life isn't all fricasseed frogs and ell pie. You want something to sober you down a bit. We're only saying it for your own good, Puddleglum.' That's what they say. Now a job like this --a journey up north just as winter's beginning looking for a prince that probably isn't there, by way of ruined city nobody's ever seen-- will be just the thing. If that doesn't steady a chap, I don't know what will.

  C. S. Lewis

  Jobs, Winter, Journey

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• We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Country, Dog, Book

  Vladimir Nabokov (2011). “The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated”, p.253, Vintage

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• I must say... that I ruined myself: and that nobody, great or small, can be ruined except by his own hand.

  Oscar Wilde

  Hands

  Oscar Wilde, Russell Jackson, Ian Small (2000). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: De profundis, "Epistola : in carcere et vinculis"”, p.94, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• He's convinced most human adults do not know how to play anymore and that playing is one of the best ways to think. Franky finds children, by far, much more pleasant and intelligent than most adults, but they are easily ruined by their families, schools, and society. He says one of the ways they are ruined is by being forced to think of all the tasks that need to be done as work, not as play. It takes the joy out of living.

  William Wharton

  Children, School, Intelligent

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• Pride ruined the angels,
  Their shame them restores;
  And the joy that is sweetest
  Lurks in stings of remorse.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Angel, Pride, Joy

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2016). “Selected Writings”, p.298, Simon and Schuster

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• I'd say it was nice knowing you, but as you've effectively ruined my life, it almost certainly hasn't been.

  Mira Grant

  Nice, Knowing

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• When I was a teenager, my father went bust. He could have declared himself bankrupt, but he was an honourable man and he insisted on paying back all his debts. That almost ruined the family. I was aware that my mother and father couldn't control things anymore. I guess I was afraid that we would end up on the street.

  Jo Nesbo

  Mother, Teenager, Father

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• A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.

  Lin Yutang

  Men, Afternoon, Clock

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

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• I loved my parents... but that can never change the fact that my father's violence ruined my childhood.

  Pat Conroy

  Father, Childhood, Parent

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• The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the world will never know.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Men, Soul, Gold

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1907). “Ponkapog papers: A sea turn, and other papers”

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• As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.

  Samuel Johnson

  Luxury, People, Suffering

  Samuel Johnson (1807). “Dr. Johnson's Table-talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners, with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Mr. Boswell's Life of Johnson”, p.132

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• Success has ruined many a man.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Success, Men

  Benjamin Franklin (1976). “Poor Richard: An Almanack”, David McKay Company

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• Singularity in the right hath ruined many; happy those who are convinced of the general opinion.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Opinion, Conformity, Singularity

  Benjamin Franklin (2004). “Poor Richard's Almanack”, p.278, Barnes & Noble Publishing

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• The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit; the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Men, Lust, Ordinary

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• It is hardly possible to estimate how many marriages fail to prosper or are actually ruined because the man lacks any inkling of the art of love.

  Hermann Graf Keyserling

  Art, Men, Failing

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• It's the professional deformation of many writers, and has ruined not a few. (I remember Kingsley Amis, himself no slouch, saying that he could tell on what page of the novel Paul Scott had reached for the bottle and thrown caution to the winds.)

  Christopher Hitchens

  Writing, Wind, Bottles

  Christopher Hitchens (2010). “Hitch 22: A Memoir”, p.314, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• A man who should act, for one day, on the supposition that all the people about him were influenced by the religion which they professed would find himself ruined by night.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Night, Men, Hypocrisy

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• Quite often good things have hurtful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage.

  Aristotle

  Men, Hurtful, Good Things

  Aristotle (1953). “Ethics: The Nicomachean Ethics”

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• Nothing in this low and ruined world bears the meek impress of the Son of God so surely as forgiveness.

  Alice Cary

  Son, World, Bears

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• The natural alone is permanent. Fantastic idols may be worshipped for a while; but at length they are overturned by the continual and silent progress of Truth, as the grim statues of Copan have been pushed from their pedestals by the growth of forest-trees, whose seeds were sown by the wind in the ruined walls.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Nature, Wall, Idols

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855). “The Works: Kavanagh. Outre-Mer”, p.38

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• I hope you have lost your good looks, for while they last any fool can adore you, and the adoration of fools is bad for the soul. No, give me a ruined complexion and a lost figure and sixteen chins on a farmyard of Crow's feet and an obvious wig. Then you shall see me coming out strong.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Beauty, Strong, Feet

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• Sometimes a perfect memory can be ruined if put to words.

  Nova Ren Suma

  Memories, Perfect, Sometimes

  Nova Ren Suma (2011). “Imaginary Girls”, p.62, Penguin

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• Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not remember the here and now, does not remember its true identity, is not memory at all. He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia.

  Thomas Merton

  Memories, Past, True Identity

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

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