Talismans Quotes

• All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.

  Dorothea Brande

  Inspirational, Writing, Frustration

  Donald G. Carty, Dorothea Brande (2013). “How to Wake Up and Live: A Formula for Success That Works”, p.61, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the circumference, the graduating circles of all thought and action. Love is the talisman of human weal and woe
  -the open sesame to every soul.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Love, Peace, Essence

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• Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions.

  John Quincy Adams

  Perseverance, Strong, Passion

  John Quincy Adams (1802). “An Oration, delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1802, at the anniversary commemoration of the first landing of our ancestors at that place”, p.13

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• Every childhood has its talismans, the sacred objects that look innocuous enough to the outside world, but that trigger an onslaught of vivid memories when the grown child confronts them.

  Steven Johnson

  Children, Memories, Childhood

  Steven Johnson (2006). “Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter”, p.1, Penguin

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• What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world?

  Rita Dove

  World

  Rita Dove (2016). “Collected Poems: 1974-2004”, p.185, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Your mind is your invisible talisman. The letters PMA (positive mental attitude) are emblazoned on one side, and NMA (negative mental attitude) on the other. These are powerful forces.

  W. Clement Stone

  Powerful, Attitude, Mind

  Source: www.barnesandnoble.com

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• All art that is not mere storytelling, or mere portraiture, is symbolic, and has the purpose of those symbolic talismans which medieval magicians made with complex colours and forms, and bade their patients ponder over daily, and guard with holy secrecy; for it entangles, in complex colours and forms, a part of the Divine Essence.

  William Butler Yeats

  Art, Essence, Purpose

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• The title of Christian is a reproach to us, if we estrange ourselves from Him after whom we are denominated. The name of Jesus is not to be to us like the Allah of the Mahometans, a talisman or an amulet to be worn on the arm, as an external badge merely and symbol of our profession, and to preserve us from evil by some mysterious and unintelligible potency; but is to be engraved deeply on the heart, there written by the finger of God himself in everlasting characters.

  William Wilberforce

  Christian, Jesus, Heart

  William Wilberforce (2005). “A Practical View of Preferred Christians”, p.54, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A classic is the term given to any book which comes to represent the whole universe, a book on a par with ancient talismans.

  Italo Calvino

  Book, Classic, Ancient

  Italo Calvino (2014). “Why Read the Classics?”, p.6, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• These are illusions of popular history which successful religion must promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumpths; a good deed is its own rewards; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness

  Frank Herbert

  Religious, Honesty, Successful

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Children of Dune”, p.68, Penguin

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• The intellect,-that is miraculous! Who has it, has the talisman: his skin and bones, though they were of the color of night, are transparent, and the everlasting stars shine through, with attractive beams.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Night, Color

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.1252, Delphi Classics

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• Once there was a gypsy queen who wore on her wrist a chain of six lucky charms - a golden crown, a silver horse, a butterfly caught in amber, a cat's eye shell, a bolt of lightning forged from the heart of a falling star, and the flower of the rue plant, herb of grace. The queen gave each of her six children one of the charms as their lucky talisman, but ever since the chain of charms was broken, the gypsies had been dogged with misfortune.

  Kate Forsyth

  Horse, Queens, Stars

  Kate Forsyth (2007). “The Gypsy Crown: Chain of Charms 1”, Pan Australia

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• And now a chill settled over them where they stood, and Harry heard the rasping breath of the dementors that patrolled the outer trees. They would not affect him now. The fact of his own survival burned inside him, a talisman against them, as though his father's stag kept guardian in his heart.

  J. K. Rowling

  Father, Heart, Tree

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• Those who believe they can't repel the positive; they use the negative side of their talisman. Those who believe they can repel the negative; they use the positive side.

  W. Clement Stone

  Believe, Negative, Use

  Source: www.barnesandnoble.com

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• The Cabal is of two kinds, theoretical and practical, with the practical Cabala, which is engaged in the construction of talismans and amulets, we have nothing to do. The theoretical is divided into the lineal and dogmatic. The dogmatic is nothing more than the summary of the metaphysical doctrine taught by the Cabalist doctors. It is, in other words, the system of the Jewish philosophy.

  Albert Mackey

  Philosophy, Doctors, Two

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• We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.

  Jacques Ellul

  Bible, Biblical, Thinking

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• We made love. How pedestrian the words look-trite, worn, practically featureless with use-but how can one better describe that which happens when it happens? That creation? That magic blending? I might say we became figures in a mesmerized dance before the rocking talisman of the moon, starting slow, so slow... a pair of feathers drifting through clear liquid substance of sky... gradually accelerating, faster and faster and finally into photon existence of pure light... as my whole straining body burst like fluid electricity into hers.

  Ken Kesey

  Sex, Moon, Sky

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• Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.

  David Mamet

  Regret, Might, Sovereign

  David Mamet (2015). “Mamet Plays: 5: Boston Marriage; Dr Faustus; Romance”, p.106, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• All the fairy tales of Aladdin, or the invisible Gyges, or the talisman that opens kings' palaces, or the enchanted halls underground or in the sea, are only fictions to indicated the one miracle of intellectual enlargement.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kings, Sea, Miracle

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1883). “Emerson's Complete Works”

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• There are two ways of avoiding fear: one is by persuading ourselves that we are immune from disaster, and the other is by the practice of sheer courage. The latter is difficult, and to everybody becomes impossible at a certain point. The former has therefore always been more popular. Primitive magic has the purpose of securing safety, either by injuring enemies, or by protecting oneself by talismans, spells, or incantations.

  Bertrand Russell

  Practice, Two, Safety

  Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

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• How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people.

  Walter E. Williams

  People, Doe, Done

  "All It Takes is Guts: A Minority View". Book by Walter E. Williams, 1987.

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• Work, ah! that talisman to guard one against one's self.

  Rosa Campbell Praed

  Work, Self

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• Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman: a lucky charm, a brand of paper, but most often a writing instrument. Am I writing well? Thank my pen. Am I writing badly? Don't blame me blame my pen. By such displacements does the fearful imagination defend itself.

  Anne Fadiman

  Responsibility, Writing, Voice

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• memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain.

  Gail Caldwell

  Pain, Memories, Grief

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• The Cross is a gibbet - rather an odd thing to make use of as a talisman against bad luck, if that is how we regard it. Or is it, instead, a cynical reminder that Virtue usually gets pilloried whenever it makes one of its occasional appearances in this world?

  Denis Johnston

  Cynical, Luck, Odd Things

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