Slender Quotes - Page 3

• The slender debt to Nature's quickly paid,Discharged, perchance, with greater ease than made.

  Francis Quarles

  Debt, Ease, Made

  Richard Crashaw, Francis Quarles, George Gilfillan (1857). “The poetical works of Richard Crashaw and Quarles' Emblems”, p.260

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• Women have been charged with deviousness and duplicity since the dawn of civilization so they have never been able to pretend that their masks were anything but masks. It is a slender case but perhaps it does mean that women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism.

  Germaine Greer

  Mean, Reality, Men

  Germaine Greer (1970). “The female eunuch”, Macgibbon & Kee

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• The slender, swift Bruce Lee was the Fred Astaire of martial arts, and many of the fights that could be merely brutal come across as lightning-fast choreography.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Fighting, Lightning

  Pauline Kael (2011). “5001 Nights at the Movies”, p.221, Macmillan

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• It was the peculiar artifice of Habit not to suffer her power to be felt at first. Those whom she led, she had the address of appearing only to attend, but was continually doubling her chains upon her companions; which were so slender in themselves, and so silently fastened, that while the attention was engaged by other objects, they were not easily perceived. Each link grew tighter as it had been longer worn; and when by continual additions they became so heavy as to be felt, they were very frequently too strong to be broken.

  Samuel Johnson

  Strong, Broken, Suffering

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.491

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• Since my logic aims to teach and instruct the understanding, not that it may with the slender tendrils of the mind snatch at and lay hold of abstract notions (as the common logic does), but that it may in very truth dissect nature, and discover the virtues and actions of bodies, with their laws as determined in matter; so that this science flows not merely from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.

  Francis Bacon

  Science, Law, Understanding

  Francis Bacon (1858). “Works of Francis Bacon: 4”, p.246

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• Pale purple as the bloom om a ripe plum, veined with the gold of late flowering gorse, set with small slender birches,just turning yellow,with red-berried rowans and thicket of bracken, the heath lay steeped in sunshine.

  Flora Thompson

  Sunshine, Purple, Yellow

  Flora Thompson (1979). “A Country Calendar, and Other Writings”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• I have great hope of a wicked man, slender hope of a mean one. A wicked man may be converted and become a prominent saint. A mean man ought to be converted six or seven times, one right after the other, to give him a fair start and put him on an equality with a bold, wicked man.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Mean, Men, Giving

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• Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions, yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of this.

  John Wesley

  Religion, May, Orthodoxy

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• Better to me the poor mans crust,
  Better the blessing of the poor,
  Though I turn me empty from his door;
  That is no true alms which the hand can hold;
  He gives nothing but worthless gold
  Who gives from a sense of duty;
  But he who gives a slender mite,
  And gives to that which is out of sight,
  That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty
  Which runs through all and doth all unite, -
  The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms,
  The heart outstretches its eager palms,
  For a god goes with it and makes it store
  To the soul that was starving in darkness before.

  James Russell Lowell

  Running, Heart, Blessing

  James Russell Lowell, “The Vision Of Sir Launfal”

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• I drew laughing, high-breasted girls aquaplaning without a care in the world, as a result of being amply protected against such national evils as bleeding gums, facial blemishes, unsightly hairs, and faulty or inadequate life insurance. I drew housewives who, until they reached for the right soap flakes, laid themselves wide open to straggly hair, poor posture, unruly children, disaffected husbands, rough (but slender) hands, untidy (but enormous) kitchens.

  J. D. Salinger

  Girl, Children, Husband

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• Faith—is the Pierless Bridge Supporting what We see Unto the Scene that We do not— Too slender for the eye It bears the Soul as bold As it were rocked in Steel With Arms of Steel at either side— It joins—behind the Veil To what, could We presume The Bridge would cease to be To Our far, vacillating Feet A first Necessity.

  Emily Dickinson

  Eye, Bridges, Feet

  Emily Dickinson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Emily Dickinson (Illustrated)”, p.1189, Delphi Classics

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• For an hour, blended with all she could offer, something noble had been created which had nothing to do with the physical world. And from the turn of his throat, the warmth of his hair, the strong, slender sinews of his hands, something further; which had. Though she combed the earth and searched through the smoke of the galaxies there was no being she wanted but this, who was not and should not be for Philippa Somerville.

  Dorothy Dunnett

  True Love, Strong, Hair

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• On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Thread, Fortune

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• Annabelle gave him a chiding smile. “If you’re implying that I’m spoiled, I assure you that I am not.” “You should be.” His warm gaze slid over her pink-tinted face and slender upper body, then sought hers again. There was a note in his voice that gently robbed her of breath. “You could do with a bit of spoiling.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Voice, Body, Faces

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• Why is she convinced Ambrose is out to get her" Leif asked "Ambrose?" Yelena raised a slender eyebrow. She carried a tray of tea and fruit. "You're on a first name basis with the Commander now?" "I usually call him Amby, but not in mixed company.

  Maria V. Snyder

  Eyebrows, Names, Tea

  Maria V. Snyder (2013). “Storm Glass”, p.326, MIRA

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• I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me. If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth. As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong. “Patroclus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.

  Madeline Miller

  Strong, Memories, Hands

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• But I got a great deal else from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for the wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of woods. I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the world. I found patience and fortitude that I didn't know I had. I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists. I made a friend. I came home.

  Bill Bryson

  Stars, Home, Sleep

  "A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail". Book by Bill Bryson, 1997.

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• You have five minutes to call someone, anyone, I don't care who, and order me the finest blend of coffee that rat hole town has, and a dozen beers. If it's not sitting on this table..." a slender finger pointed furiously at the table in question,"... in one hour, you die" - Faith telling Jacob

  Lora Leigh

  Coffee, Beer, Order

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• Francie looked at her legs. They were long, slender, and exquisitely molded. She wore the sheerest of flawless silk stockings, and expensively made high-heeled pumps shod her beautifully arched feet. "Beautiful legs, then, is the secret of being a mistriss," concluded Francie. She looked down at her own long thin legs. "I'll never make it, I guess." Sighing , she resigned herself to a sinless life.

  Betty Smith

  Beautiful, Feet, Long

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• For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathan who simply can see no way to have a daughter but to own her like a plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadful poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still move toward him. Without cease they'll bend to his light.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Girl, Daughter, Father

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “The Poisonwood Bible”, p.162, Faber & Faber

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• Those were the Rommely women: Mary, the mother, Evy, Sissy, and Katie, her daughters, and Francie, who would grow up to be a Rommely woman even though her name was Nolan. They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel.

  Betty Smith

  Daughter, Mother, Growing Up

  BETTY SMITH (1943). “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”

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• I knew he wouldn't come, but I howled anyway, and when I did, the other wolves would pass images of him to me of what he looked like: lithe, gray, yellow-eyed. I would pass back images of my own, of a wolf on the edge of the woods, silent and cautious, watching me. The images, clear as the slender-leaved trees in front of me, made finding him seem urgent, but I didn't know how to begin to look.

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Yellow, Tree, Looks

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• How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young-or slender.

  William James

  Giving Up, Age, Aging

  William James (2012). “The Principles of Psychology”, p.311, Courier Corporation

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• The coconut trees, lithe and graceful, crowd the beach like a minuet of slender elderly virgins adopting flippant poses.

  William Manchester

  Beach, Ocean, Elderly

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• The executioner is, I believe, very expert; and my neck is very slender

  Anne Boleyn

  Believe, Experts, Necks

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