Tumult Quotes - Page 4

• But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.

  Kate Chopin

  Sea, Voice, Seductive

  1899 The Awakening, ch.6.

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• I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.

  August Wilson

  Height, Firsts, Poet

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• All through the night, like the tumult of a river when it races between the cliffs of a canyon, in my sleep I could hear the steady roar of the passing army.

  Richard Harding Davis

  Sleep, Army, Night

  Richard Harding Davis (2014). “With the Allies”, p.17, Read Books Ltd

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• In times of tumult, voters are likely to forgive a president, if not reward him, for compromises made in service of solutions.

  Ron Fournier

  Forgiving, President, Voters

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• My father died in my arms. That's tumult. That's everything exploding.

  Richard Ford

  Father, Arms, Exploding

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• Through her, in microcosm, the wide earth sobbed. The starglobe sank in her; the colours faded. The death-dew rose and the wild birds in her breast climbed to her throat and gathered songless, hovering, all tumult, wing to wing, so ardent for those climes where all things end.

  Mervyn Peake

  Wings, Rose, Bird

  Mervyn Peake (2007). “Titus Groan”, p.362, The Overlook Press

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• If there is any one thing most needed in this time of tumult and frustration, when men and women and youth and young adults are desperately seeking for answers to the problems which afflict mankind, it is an "iron rod" as a safe guide along the straight path on the way to eternal life, amidst the strange and devious roadways that would eventually lead to destruction and to the ruin of all that is "virtuous, lovely, or of good report."

  Ann M. Dibb

  Frustration, Men, Iron

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• I am in awe of the perpetual tumult of the sea. I am moved by the still place on the horizon where the sky begins. I am stirred by the soaring and dipping fields that make the landscape into a rumpled green counterpane. I thought I would never have such powerful feelings again. I thought I would live through the rest of my life having experiences, and thoughts, but I never thought I would again feel deeply-- I was convinced that my wounds had healed and become thick scars, essentially numb.

  Katharine Weber

  Powerful, Sea, Sky

  Katharine Weber (2011). “The Music Lesson: A Novel”, p.19, Crown

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• In the tumult of great events, solitude was what I hoped for. Now it is what I love. How is it possible to be contented with anything else when one has come face to face with history?

  Charles de Gaulle

  Solitude, Events, Faces

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• Happy is the person who can keep a quiet heart, in the chaos and tumult of this modern world.

  Patience Strong

  Heart, Relax, World

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• Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Girl, Passion, Heart

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.256

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• The human soul, provided it is pure and strong enough, can contact the unseen in waking life as well as in dreams: all that is required is withdrawal of the soul from the tumult of sensory life.

  Seyyed Hossein Nasr

  Dream, Strong, Soul

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• Machiavel, discoursing on these matters, finds virtue to be so essentially necessary to the establishment and preservation of liberty, that he thinks it impossible for a corrupted people to set up a good government, or for a tyranny to be introduced if they be virtuous; and makes this conclusion, 'That where the matter (that is, the body of the people) is not corrupted, tumults and disorders do not hurt; and where it is corrupted, good laws do no good:' which being confirmed by reason and experience, I think no wise man has ever contradicted him.

  Algernon Sidney

  Wise, Hurt, Men

  Algernon Sidney (1805). “Discourses on Government”, p.83

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• The gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.

  William Wordsworth

  Soul, Depth, Approval

  'Laodamia' (1815) l. 74

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• To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

  Seneca the Younger

  Laughter, Adversity, Men

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• In seasons of tumult and discord bad men have most power; mental and moral excellence require peace and quietness.

  Tacitus

  Men, Excellence, Moral

  "Annales". Book by Tacitus, IV. 1,

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• Ours is the wild tumult of the unchained storm, the tumult of the army on the march, clashing its cymbals, rioting with excess of energy. Need we be ashamed of it?

  Liam O'Flaherty

  Army, Storm, Energy

  Liam O'Flaherty (1996). “The Letters of Liam O'Flaherty”, Irish Amer Book Company

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• The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods . . . . His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Peace, Hate, War

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• Heavenly Father has given a simple pattern for us to receive the Holy Ghost not once but continually in the tumult of our daily lives. The pattern is repeated in the sacramental prayer: We promise that we will always remember the Savior. We promise to take His name upon us. We promise to keep His commandments.

  Henry B. Eyring

  Prayer, Father, Simple

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• An Irish Airman foresees his Death I Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

  William Butler Yeats

  Country, Lonely, Cheer

  "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" l. 1 (1919)

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• And when he had put his hand on mine with a cheerful look, wherefrom I took courage, he brought me within to the secret things. Here sighs, laments, and deep wailings were resounding through the starless air; wherefore at first I wept thereat. Strange tongues, horrible utterances, words of woe, accents of anger, voices high and faint, and sounds of hands with them, were making a tumult which whirls always in that air forever dark, like the sand when the whirlwind breathes.

  Dante Alighieri

  Dark, Air, Hands

  Dante Alighieri (2005). “The Divine Comedy: Inferno”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

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• So many things beat upon us in a lifetime that simply enduring may seem almost beyond us… But the test a loving God has set before us is not to see if we can endure difficulty. It is to see if we can endure it well. We pass the test by showing that we remembered Him and the commandments He gave us. And to endure well is to keep those commandments whatever the opposition, whatever the temptation, and whatever the tumult around us.

  Henry B. Eyring

  Temptation, May, Tests

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• The fine emotions whence our lives we mold
  Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Life, Lying, Dumb

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• The ant world is a tumult, a noisy world of pheromones being passed back and forth.

  E. O. Wilson

  Pheromones, World, Ants

  "Ants and Answers: A Conversation with E. O. Wilson" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. January 15, 2010.

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