Vague Quotes - Page 22

• Tomorrow I too – this feeling and thinking soul, the universe I am to myself – yes, tomorrow I too will be someone who no longer walks these streets, someone others will evoke with a vague: 'I wonder what's become of him?” And everything I do, everything I feel, everything I experience, will be just one less passer-by on the daily streets of some city or other.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Thinking, Cities, Soul

  "The Book of Disquiet".

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• Poetry has an indirect way of hinting at things. Poetry is feminine. Prose is masculine. Prose, the very structure of it, is logical; poetry is basically illogical. Prose has to be clear-cut; poetry has to be vague - that's its beauty, its quality. Prose simply says what it says; poetry says many things. Prose is needed in the day-to-day world, in the marketplace. But whenever something of the heart has to be said, prose is always found inadequate - one has to fall back to poetry.

  Rajneesh

  Fall, Heart, Cutting

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• Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.

  John Updike

  Life, Memories, Drama

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• As for a future life, every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities.

  Charles Darwin

  Life, Men, Judging

  The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Religion (p. 277)

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• There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable to receive them.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Character, Half, Coincidence

  Edgar Allan Poe (2012). “Tales of Terror and Detection”, p.27, Courier Corporation

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• Only those who have lived all their lives under the dark clouds of vague, undefined fears can appreciate the joy of a doubting soul suddenly born into the kingdom of reason and free thought.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Dark, Clouds, Appreciate

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ann Dexter Gordon (1997). “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: In the school of anti-slavery, 1840 to 1866”, p.411, Rutgers University Press

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• The vague torment of ... ambition.

  Emile Zola

  Ambition, Torment

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• Lastly, we must be holy, because without holiness on earth - we will never be prepared to enjoy Heaven. ...I do not know what others may think - but to me it does seem clear that Heaven would be a miserable place to an unholy man. It cannot be otherwise. People may say in a vague way, that they "hope to go to Heaven, but they do not consider what they say. There must be a certain "fitness for the inheritance of the saints in light.

  J. C. Ryle

  Men, Thinking, Light

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• Conformity—the natural instinct to passively yield to that vague something recognized as authority.

  Mark Twain

  Religious, Yield, Natural Instinct

  Mark Twain (2000). “The Jumping Frog: And 18 Other Stories”, p.85, Book Tree

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• The Rudderless World is not shaped by vague metaphysical Forces. It is not God who kills the Children. Not Fate that butchers them or Destiny that feeds them to the Dogs. ... It´s us. Only us.

  Alan Moore

  Dog, Children, Fate

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• The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.

  Bill Cosby

  Funny, Humor, Law

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• The greatest threat to our world and its peace comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans.

  Hermann Hesse

  Peace, War, Our World

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• The courtroom is one instance of the fact that while our society may be liberal and democratic in some large and vague sense, its moving parts, its smaller chambers--its classrooms, its workplaces, its corporate boardrooms, its jails, its military barracks--are flagrantly undemocratic, dominated by one commanding person or a tiny elite of power.

  Howard Zinn

  Military, Moving, Jail

  Howard Zinn (2010). “You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times”, p.151, Beacon Press

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• She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Book, Play, Heroines

  Gustave Flaubert (1993). “Madame Bovary: Patterns of Provincial Life”, Everyman's Library

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• Legally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals.

  Lysander Spooner

  Rights, Numbers, Welfare

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The collected works of Lysander Spooner”

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• If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

  A. R. Ammons

  Answers, Disorder, What Is Poetry

  A. R. Ammons (1996). “Set in motion: essays, interviews, and dialogues”, Univ of Michigan Pr

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• Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.

  Laurence Sterne

  Marriage, Numbers, Alarms

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• The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Thinking, Goal, March

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• After you've read a novel, you only retain a vague memory of its contents. You remember the atmosphere, the odd image or phrase or vivid cameo.

  Arthur Smith

  Memories, Atmosphere, Phrases

  "Arthur Smith" by Arthur Smith, www.theguardian.com. April 3, 2002.

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• I think there's a vague sense out there that movies are becoming more and more unreal. I know I've felt it.

  Christopher Nolan

  Thinking, Becoming, Unreal

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• So many women just don't know how great they really are. They come to us all vogue outside and vague on the inside.

  Mary Kay Ash

  Self Esteem, Vogue, Know How

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• During the campaign for re-election, Barack Obama at least made vague references to a willingness to accept $3 trillion of reduced spending in exchange for a $1 trillion dollar tax increase.

  Bob Beauprez

  Dollars, Campaigns, Election

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• I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it — keep going, keep going come what may. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Woe Is Me, Ideas, Goal

  Letter to Theo van Gogh from Cuesmes, www.webexhibits.org. July 1880.

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• So it is with minds. Unless you keep them busy with some definite subject that will bridle and control them, they throw themselves in disorder hither and yon in the vague field of imagination... And there is no mad or idle fancy that they do not bring forth in the agitation.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Mad, Imagination, Mind

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.21, Stanford University Press

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• He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.

  William Golding

  Mazes, Frowning, Lost

  William Golding (2016). “Lord of the Flies”, p.53, Hamilton Books

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