Surly Quotes

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  If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.

  Maya Angelou

  Love, Funny, Life

  Maya Angelou (2012). “The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou”, p.424, Modern Library

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• All men, even the most surly are influenced by affection.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Love, Family, Happiness

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836). “Letters”, p.155

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• Anyway, whacking a surly bartender ain't much of a crime.

  Larry McMurtry

  Bartender, Crime

  Larry McMurtry (2010). “Lonesome Dove: A Novel”, p.329, Simon and Schuster

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• The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride; True is the charge, nor by themselves denied. Are they not then in strictest reason clear, Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?

  Charles Churchill

  Pride, Scotland, Cry

  Charles Churchill, George Gilfillan (1855). “The poetical works of Charles Churchill: with memoir, critical dissertation, and explanatory notes / by the Rev. George Gilfillan”, p.68

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• The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives.

  Ronald Reagan

  Space, Crew, Honored

  The Space Shuttle "Challenger" Tragedy Address, delivered 28 January 1986

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• Lord, confound this surly sister, blight her brow with blotch and blister, cramp her larynx, lung and liver, in her guts a galling give her.

  John Millington Synge

  Sister, Giving, Lord

  John Millington Synge (2008). “The Complete Works of J. M. Synge”, p.446, Wordsworth Editions

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• If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Life, Smile

  Maya Angelou (2012). “The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou”, p.424, Modern Library

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• No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell.

  William Shakespeare

  Sad, Giving, Sullen

  Sonnet 71

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• The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.

  Ronald Reagan

  Goodbye, Morning, Journey

  The Space Shuttle "Challenger" Tragedy Address, delivered 28 January 1986

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• Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.

  John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

  Laughter, Military, Clouds

  In K. Rhys More Poems from the Forces (1943) "High Flight"

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• When chill November's surly blast
  Made fields and forests bare.

  Robert Burns

  Fields, Forests, November

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• A ward, and still in bonds, one day
  I stole abroad;
  It was high spring, and all the way
  Primrosed and hung with shade;
  Yet was it frost within,
  And surly winds
  Blasted my infant buds, and sin
  Like clouds eclipsed my mind.

  Henry Vaughan

  Spring, Clouds, Wind

  Henry Vaughan (1976). “The complete poems”, Penguin Group USA

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• I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a "surly, illmannered, badtempered fellow." ... Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, the pretenses and evasions of euphemism, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of empiric fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon.

  Edward Abbey

  Hate, Fire, Sheep

  "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness".

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• Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never the lark, nor even eagle flew- And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high, untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

  John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

  Wind, Space, Blue

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• Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes.

  Emily Bronte

  Angel, Wrinkles, Doubt

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.408, Penguin

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• Nature is no sentimentalist, - does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Men, Dust

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.256, Penguin

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• When I'm not writing, I tend to get depressed and a little bit surly. And then when I'm writing, suddenly I feel enlivened. Now the only thing as I'm getting older that I notice is that it's a pattern.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Getting Older, Patterns

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Fate handed Barack Obama the best of all political gifts - a dyspeptic, surly, spiteful opposition on the one hand and very unpopular financiers on the other - and he wouldn't come out punching, name names, or go for the jugular. It was as if while getting mugged by guys with brass knuckles, he turned the other cheek. He even jeopardized his pledge to preserve women's rights under Roe v. Wade in order to get a health care bill written by the corporate lapdog Max Baucus and the gang of revolving door mercenaries he hired to write a bill friendly to industry.

  Bill Moyers

  Writing, Fate, Doors

  Source: progressive.org

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• The service in L.A. is the best. You don't get sarcastic, surly, fed-up waiters and waitresses like you do in England. They're good at their job and they're there for the customer. The only depressing thing is a lot of them have written more screenplays than me.

  Ricky Gervais

  Sarcastic, Depressing, Jobs

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• I was kind of like the Rhea Perlman of the bar. I was like Carla on “Cheers.” People were more afraid of me. There was a point where I got a little surly. There were only so many chicken wings I could serve before losing the smile on my face.

  Melissa Rauch

  Cheer, Wings, People

  "‘The Big Bang Theory’ Star Melissa Rauch On Nerds, New Jersey And ‘Real Housewives’". Interview with Nicki Gostin, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 11, 2011.

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• The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing,--each his own interest.

  George Berkeley

  Mean, Selfishness, Squires

  George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.363

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• Begin your story with a sentence that will immediately grab hold of your listener's ears like a surly nun in a Catholic school.

  Amy Sedaris

  School, Catholic, Stories

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• We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Leadership, Money, War

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• Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings... And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod, The high, untrespassed sanctity of space, - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

  John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

  Laughter, Flying High, Hands

  "High Flight". Poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., September 3, 1941.

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• If your master is surly, from getting up early
  (And tempers are short in the morning),
  An inopportune joke is enough to provoke
  Him to give you, at once, a month's warning.

  W. S. Gilbert

  Morning, Up Early, Giving

  Arthur Sullivan, W. S. Gilbert (2008). “The Savoy Operas: The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan: The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan”, p.844, Penguin UK

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