Sheer Quotes - Page 24

• If there is a sort of national American emotion I would call it optimism. If there is an English one I would call it embarrassment - not even pessimism - just sheer shame, embarrassment and confusion.

  Stephen Fry

  Optimism, Confusion, Emotion

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• When a man gets to despair he knows that all his thinking will never get him out. He will only get out by the sheer creative effort of God. Consequently he is in the right attitude to receive from God that which he cannot gain for himself.

  Oswald Chambers

  God, Attitude, Adversity

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “The Quotable Oswald Chambers”, p.101, Discovery House

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• In every revolution there intrude, at the side of its true agents, men of a different stamp; some of them survivors of and devotees to past revolutions, without insight into the present movement, but preserving popular influence by their known honesty and courage, or by the sheer force of tradition; others mere brawlers, who, by dint of repeating year after year the same set of stereotyped declamations against the government of the day, have sneaked into the reputation of revolutionists of the first water They are an unavoidable evil: with time they are shaken off.

  Karl Marx

  Honesty, Past, Men

  Karl Marx, David McLellan (2000). “Karl Marx: Selected Writings”, p.594, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Sheer effort enables those with nothing to surpass those with privilege and position

  Toyotomi Hideyoshi

  Love, Life, Family

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• An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His over-powering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized nations, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Artist, Self

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.466, Vintage

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• Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death amongs the English in general. Sheer boredom...

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Boredom, People, Causes

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• The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.

  Ansel Adams

  Photography, Creative, Etching

  "A Personal Credo". Essay by Ansel Adams (1943), first published in "American Annual of Photography," 1944; later published in "Photographers on Photography" edited by Nathan Lyons, 1966, and in "Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present" edited by Vicki Goldberg, 1988.

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• I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Running, Odds, Voice

  "The Good Fight". Book by Shirley Chisholm, 1973.

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• I am grateful for who I am and who I am not. I am grateful for the life I have been given and for all that I have and all that I don't. Every breath I take is a blessing and an opportunity to fully experience the sheer joy of being alive.

  Miranda Kerr

  Grateful, Blessing, Opportunity

  Miranda Kerr (2010). “Treasure Yourself”, p.174, Hay House, Inc

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• It's the sheer joy of seeing things grow and helping them to grow, even harvesting the stuff that you've grown yourself, no matter how old you are.

  Peter Cundall

  Garden, Joy, Matter

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• First, meditation should be of a negative nature. Think away everything. Analyse everything that comes in the mind by the sheer action of the will. Next, assert what we really are-existence, knowledge, and bliss-being, knowing, and loving.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Thinking, Knowing, Meditation

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.2579, Manonmani Publishers

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• It is the growing custom to narrow control, concentrate power, disregard and disenfranchise the public; and assuming that certain powers by divine right of money-raising or by sheer assumption, have the power to do as they think best without consulting the wisdom of mankind.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Power, Thinking, Divine Right

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• Escape
  from the power of the hunting pack,
  and to know that wisdom is best
  and beauty
  sheer holiness.

  Hilda Doolittle

  Hunting, Holiness, Worship

  Hilda Doolittle, Louis L. Martz (1986). “Collected Poems 1912-1944”, p.228, New Directions Publishing

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• We have to recognize that there is a strong, fresh wind blowing, powered by these new information technologies. It will be increasingly difficult for dictators to impose their will through sheer brutality.

  John F. Kerry

  Strong, Technology, Wind Blowing

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• If a man dreams that he has committed a sin before which the sun hid his face, it is often safe to conjecture that, in sheer forgetfulness, he wore a red tie, or brown boots with evening dress.

  Arthur Machen

  Dream, Men, Ties

  Arthur Machen (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of Arthur Machen (Illustrated)”, p.1199, Delphi Classics

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• I couldn't remember ever having seen a young man with such power, so many facets of expression, so much sheer invention as an actor.

  Hedda Hopper

  Men, Expression, Actors

  Hedda Hopper (1963). “the Whole Truth and Nothing But”

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• Mass becomes immobile; it cannot manoeuvre and therefore cannot win victories, it can only crush by sheer weight.

  Hans von Seeckt

  Crush, Winning, Victory

  Hans von Seeckt (1930). “Thoughts of a Soldier”

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• The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery.

  Albert J. Nock

  Tariffs, Libertarian, Reason

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• Being both more systematically brutal than chimps and more empathetic than
  bonobos, we are by far the most bipolar ape. Our societies are never completely peaceful, never completely competitive, never ruled by sheer selfishness, and never perfectly moral.

  Frans de Waal

  Peaceful, Bipolar, Selfishness

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• Even in a gleefully negative comic, there is optimism, although it's slightly hidden: It comes out through a comic character's sheer tenacity. He keeps going and trying to find some sort of fulfillment regardless of his perpetual failure record. That's a form of hope, a form of optimism. Really hokey I know, but it's true.

  Lev Yilmaz

  Character, Optimism, Trying

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• Hidden behind the facade of pompous jargon and noble affections, there is more sheer larceny per square foot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange than any place else in the world.

  Richard Ney

  New York, Squares, Feet

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• The heart's seasons seldom coincide with the calendar. Who among us has not been made desolate beyond all words upon some golden day when the little creatures of the air and meadow were life incarnate, from sheer joy of living? Who among us has not come home, singing, when the streets were almost impassable with snow, or met a friend with a happy, smiling face, in the midst of a pouring rain?

  Myrtle Reed

  Rain, Home, Heart

  Myrtle Reed (1909). “Old Rose and Silver”

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• Good girls like myself need subversion. Being solemn, I aspire to comedy. Being a novelist, I aspire to the musical. Being organized, I aspire to luminous chaos. Loving the power of grammar and the fine distinctions of language, I seek the part of the mind I didn't know was there, the part 'sheer,' 'no-manfathomed,' 'cliffs of fall.

  Janet Burroway

  Girl, Fall, Musical

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• I just love the sheer mess of New York.

  Carter Burwell

  New York, Mess

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• Sheer egoism... Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.

  George Orwell

  Writing, Successful, Artist

  George Orwell, Sonia Orwell, Ian Angus (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: An age like this, 1920-1940”, Harvill Secker

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