Spectre Quotes

• Terrorism doesn't just blow up buildings; it blasts every other issue off the political map. The spectre of terrorism - real and exaggerated - has become a shield of impunity, protecting governments around the world from scrutiny for their human rights abuses.

  Naomi Klein

  Real, Blow, Rights

  "A deadly franchise" by Naomi Klein, www.theguardian.com. August 27, 2003.

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Scary, Midnight, Needs

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2007). “Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus [1818 Text]: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.345, ReadHowYouWant.com

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Most terrors are but spectral illusions. Only have the courage of the man who could walk up to his spectre seated in the chair before him, and sit down upon it; the horrid thing will not partake the chair with you.

  Arthur Helps

  Men, Illusion, He Man

  Sir Arthur Helps (1871). “Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms”, p.135

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.

  Thomas Huxley

  Thinking, Shadow, Half

  "Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest". Book by Adrian Desmond (p. 169), 1997.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems

  Walt Whitman

  Night, Through My Eyes, This Day

  "Song of Myself " l. 33 (written 1855)

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• The rapid dissemination of technology and information offers entirely new ways of production, but it can also bring the spectre of more states developing weapons of mass destruction.

  George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen

  Technology, Mass Destruction, Weapons

  7 Copy quote

• Truly the universe is full of ghosts, not sheeted churchyard spectres, but the inextinguishable elements of individual life, which having once been, can never die, though they blend and change, and change again for ever.

  H. Rider Haggard

  Elements, Ghost, Individual

  H. Rider Haggard (2013). “Delphi Works of H. Rider Haggard (Illustrated)”, p.901, Delphi Classics

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• works of art feel towards human beings exactly as we do towards ghosts. The transparency of spectres, the diffuseness in space which lets them drift through doors and walls, and their smell of death, disgust us not more than we disgust works of art by our meaninglessness, our diffuseness in time which lets us drift through three score years and ten without a quarter as much significance as a picture establishes instantaneously.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Wall, Doors

  7 Copy quote

• Changing from the ghosts of faith to the spectres of reason is just changing cells.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Change, Cells, Ghost

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa (1982). Translated by Richard Zenith, p. 62, 2006.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• He had never thought of himself as much of a praying man, but as he sat in the car in the growing darkness and the minutes passed, he knew what it was to pray. It was to will goodness out of evil, hope out of despair, life out of death. It was to will dreams into existence and spectres into reality. It was to will an end to anguish and a beginning to joy.

  Elizabeth George

  Dream, Reality, Men

  Elizabeth George (2010). “A Great Deliverance”, p.413, Bantam

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely pre-ambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasent life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was - a woman.

  Washington Irving

  Lonely, Night, Men

  7 Copy quote

• It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither.

  Charles Dickens

  Eye, Dark, Fog

  Charles Dickens (1868). “Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].”, p.269

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• "Ghost of the Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"

  Charles Dickens

  Heart, Men, Bears

  Charles Dickens (1858). “A Christmas Carol”, p.74

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.... there are millions of suns left, You shall no longer take things at second or third hand.... nor look through the eyes of the dead.... nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

  Walt Whitman

  Book, Eye, Night

  "Song of Myself " l. 33 (written 1855)

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think a Person who is thus terrified with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.

  Joseph Addison

  Thinking, Imagination, Sacred

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.353

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Farewell unhappy, hopeless, blasphemous Rome! The Wrath of God has come upon you, as you deserve. We cared for Babylon, and she is not healed; let us then leave her, that she may become the habitation of dragons, spectres, and witches.

  Martin Luther

  Farewell, Wrath, Dragons

  5 Copy quote

• Once the government can demand of a publisher the names of the purchasers of his publication, the free press as we know it disappears. Then the spectre of a government agent will look over the shoulder of everyone who reads. ... Fear of criticism goes with every person into the bookstall. The subtle, imponderable pressures of the orthodox lay hold. Some will fear to read what is unpopular, what the powers-that-be dislike. ... fear will take the place of freedom in the libraries, book stores, and homes in the land.

  William O. Douglas

  Book, Home, Government

  6 Copy quote

• I have very fond memories of my childhood in Afghanistan, largely because my memories, unlike those of the current generation of Afghans, are untainted by the spectre of war, landmines, and famine.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Memories, War, Childhood

  Interview with Razeshta Sethna, newslinemagazine.com. November, 2003.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today I live on an island, in a house that is sad, hard, severe, that I built for myself, solitary on a sheer rock over the sea: a house that is the spectre, the secret image of prison. The image of my nostalgia. Maybe I never desired, not even then, to escape from jail. Man is not meant to live freely in freedom, but to be free inside a prison.

  Curzio Malaparte

  Men, Islands, Rocks

  Curzio Malaparte (2007). “Woman Like Me”, p.7, Troubador Publishing Ltd

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• When old companions, old lusts, and sins crowd in upon you, and when you feel that you are ready to sink, what can save you, sinking sinner ? This alone - I have a high priest in heaven, and he can support in the hour of affliction. This alone can give you peace-I have a high priest in heaven. When you are dying - when friends can do you no good - when sins rise up like spectres around your bed - what can give you peace ? This - "I have a high priest in heaven"

  Robert Murray M'Cheyne

  Giving, Support, Heaven

  22 Copy quote

• My art is grounded in the belief of one universal energy which runs through everything: from insect to man, from man to spectre, from spectre to plant from plant to galaxy. My works are the irrigation veins of this universal fluid. Through them ascend the ancestral sap, the original beliefs, the primordial accumulations, the unconscious thoughts that animate the world

  Ana Mendieta

  Running, Art, Men

  Jane Blocker, Ana Mendieta (1999). “Where is Ana Mendieta?: Identity, Performativity, and Exile”, p.34, Duke University Press

  91 Copy quote

  Show source

• Bring forth the raisins and the nuts-
  Tonight All-Hallows' Spectre struts
  Along the moonlit way.

  John Kendrick Bangs

  Halloween, Nuts, Way

  9 Copy quote

• The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o'er the sea, Off shot the spectre-bark.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Stars, Dark, Sea

  'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (1798) pt. 3

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A spectre is haunting Europe-the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. Where is the Party in opposition that has not been decried as Communistic by its opponents in power? Where the Opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

  Karl Marx

  Party, Europe, Police

  Karl Marx (2018). “The Communist Manifesto & Selected Writings: & Selected Writings”, p.9, Pan Macmillan

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• As the films of clay are removed from our eyes, Death loses the false aspect of the spectre, and we fall at last into its arms as a wearied child upon the bosom of its mother.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Death, Mother, Children

  4 Copy quote