Vehement Quotes

• I'll privily away; I love the people, But do not like to stage me to their eyes; Though it do well, I do not relish well Their loud applause and aves vehement, Nor do I think the man of safe discretion That does not affect it.

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, Men, Thinking

  William Shakespeare (1826). “Plays of William Shakespeare”, p.88

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• The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds - how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives - and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

  John Burroughs

  Beautiful, Song, Nature

  John Burroughs (1904). “The Writings of John Burroughs: Birds and poets, with other papers”

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• If you see one cold and vehement at the same time, set him down for a fanatic.

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Time, Cold, Fanatics

  "Aphorisms on Man" by Johann Kaspar Lavater, (c. 1788).

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• In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But theworks of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

  Edmund Burke

  Passion, Hands, Style

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.435

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• Truth suffers no loss if a vehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that virtue and religion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies them.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Loss, Suffering, Criminals

  Friedrich Schiller (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Schiller (Illustrated)”, p.3875, Delphi Classics

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• We are least open to precise knowledge concerning the things we are most vehement about.

  Eric Hoffer

  Diversity, Literature, Social Justice

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire.

  Solomon Ibn Gabirol

  Jealousy, Fire, Coal

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• Anger is implanted in us as sort of sting, to make us gnash with our teeth against the devil, to make us vehement against him, not to set us in array against each other.

  Richard Savage

  Devil, Teeth, Fierce

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• Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Power, Men, Causes

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• Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Philosophical, Causes, Weak

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• Every therapeutic cure, and still more, any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth, tears him from the cradle of his freedom from responsibility and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance.

  Alfred Adler

  Responsibility, Awkward, Tears

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• Vehement silhouettes of Manhattan - that vertical city with unimaginable diamonds.

  Le Corbusier

  New York, Cities, Manhattan

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• Debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open and that...may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.

  William J. Brennan

  Issues, Government, Freedom Of Speech

  New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)

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• God has matured. He is not the impulsive, bowelless being of the Testaments - the vehement glorymonger, with His bag of cheap carny tricks and his booming voice - the fiery huckster with his burning bushes and his wonder wands. Nowadays God knows what He wants and He knows who He wants.

  Nick Cave

  Voice, Bags, Burning

  "And the Ass Saw the Angel". Book by Nick Cave, 1989.

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• I love your silences, they are like mine.

  Anais Nin

  Silence, Mines

  "Under a Glass Bell". Book by Anais Nin, 1944.

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• Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death.

  Cassandra Clare

  Strong, Heart, Love Is

  Cassandra Clare (2012). “Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls”, p.1613, Simon and Schuster

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• The greatest intellectual capacities are only found in connection with a vehement and passionate will.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Intellectual, Connections, Passionate

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• I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.

  Oliver Sacks

  Passion, Men, Enthusiasm

  Oliver Sacks (2015). “Gratitude”, p.13, Pan Macmillan

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• It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

  Samuel Johnson

  Honesty, Men, Want

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.110

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• Allowances can always be made for your friends to disagree with you. Disagreement, vehement disagreement, is healthy. Debate is impossible without it. Evil does not question itself, only hope questions itself. Even the incorruptible are corruptible if they cannot accept the possibility of being mistaken. Infallibility is a sin in any man. All laws can be broken and are. Often. Like when a bumblebee flies or an ancient regime is toppled.

  Craig Ferguson

  Men, Law, Evil

  Craig Ferguson (2007). “Between the Bridge and the River”, p.208, Chronicle Books

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• There are some situations which men understand by instinct, by which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to an entire poem, and when th sufferer is sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as sublime.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Sympathy, Men, Giving

  Alexandre Dumas (2015). “THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO: Classic French Literature”, p.912, 谷月社

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• Though no participator in the joy of more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures in the tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practise toward a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Summer, Sports, Spring

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• The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that which only deserves admiration.

  Joseph Addison

  Sex, Passion, Desire

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator”, p.236

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• You must not sneeze. If you have a vehement cold you must take no notice of it; if your nose membranes feel a great irritation you must hold your breath; if a sneeze still insists upon making its way you must oppose it keeping your teeth grinding together; if the violence of the pulse breaks some blood-vessel you must break the blood-vessel -- but not sneeze.

  Fanny Burney

  Blood, Irritation, Together

  Fanny Burney (2013). “Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay: Volume 2: Edited by Her Niece”, p.346, Cambridge University Press

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• The age-long history of thinking on gravitation, too, was erased from the collective consciousness, and that force somehow became the serendipitous child of Newton's genius. The new attitude is well illustrated by the anecdote of the apple, a legend spread by Voltaire, one of the most active and vehement erasers of the past. ... The need to build the myth of an ex nihilo creation of modern science gave rise to much impassioned rhetoric.

  Lucio Russo

  Children, Attitude, Past

  "The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn". Book by Lucio Russo, 2004.

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