Verge Quotes

• If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.

  John Foster Dulles

  Encouraging, Scared, Arms Race

  In 'Life' 16 January 1956

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• Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Differences, Helping, Seizing

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.59, BookBaby

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• Love is on the verge of hate each time it stoops for pardon.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Hate, Love Is, Pardon

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• The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. All our faculties keep us within the realm of the real, of what is already there. The most we can do is to combine things or break them up. The metaphor alone furnishes an escape; between the real things, it lets emerge imaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Real, Men, Islands

  "The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel". Book by Jose Ortega y Gasset. Chapter "Taboo and Metaphor", 1925.

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• Here, on the river's verge, I could be busy for months without changing my place, simply leaning a little more to right or left.

  Paul Cezanne

  Artist, Rivers, Littles

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• I had nightmares about what Poseidon might turn me into if I were on the verge of death-plankton maybe." -Percy Jackson

  Rick Riordan

  Might, Nightmare, Poseidon

  34 Copy quote

• Goodness was not a trait you acquired; it was a value you practiced when you were on the verge of doing evil.

  Julius Lester

  Evil, Goodness, Traits

  Julius Lester (2005). “The Autobiography of God: A Novel”, p.219, Macmillan

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• one must verge on the unknown, write toward the truth hitherto unrecognizable of one’s own sincerity, including the avoidable beauty of doom, shame, and embarrassment, that very area of personal self-recognition,(detailed individual is universal remember) which formal conventions, internalized, keep us from discovering in ourselves and others

  Allen Ginsberg

  Writing, Self, Recognition

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• A favorite Wired icon for the information feedback loop, a dragon curling in a circle to swallow its own tail, could become more apt as a symbol of the timeless libertarian paradox: Monopoly verging on feudalism emerges from unregulated competition to bite libertarianism in the posterior.

  Jedediah Purdy

  Dragons, Circles, Icons

  "The God of the Digerati". Essay in the American Prospect Magazine, prospect.org. March-April 1998.

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• A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless, than one that always verges on despair.

  Thomas Merton

  Despair, May, Hopeless

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.21, Shambhala Publications

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• I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.

  Walt Whitman

  Mistake, Usual, Leaves Of Grass

  Walt Whitman (2016). “Song of Myself: With a Complete Commentary”, p.131, University of Iowa Press

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• such incidents brought me to the verge of despair, but little more and I would have put an end to my life - only art it was that withheld me, - ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I had felt called upon to produce.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Art, Despair, Littles

  Ludwig van Beethoven (1957). “Heiligenstädter Testament”

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• When the moon shall have faded out from the sky, and the sun shall shine at noonday a dull cherry red, and the seas shall be frozen over, and the icecap shall have crept downward to the equator from either pole . . . when all the cities shall have long been dead and crumbled into dust, and all life shall be on the last verge of extinction on this globe; then, on a bit of lichen, growing on the bald rocks beside the eternal snows of Panama, shall be seated a tiny insect, preening its antennae in the glow of the worn-out sun, the sole survivor of animal life on this our earth - a melancholy bug.

  William Jacob Holland

  Life, Animal, Moon

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• We're on the verge of civil war in Northern Ireland. Why? Because if you take away the forums of democracy you don't have anything left.

  Ian Paisley

  War, Democracy, Forums

  "1986: Ian Paisley's Battle Cry Condemned". "On This Day" page on BBC, news.bbc.co.uk.

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• I have a soul that like an ample shield Can take in all, and verge enough for more.

  John Dryden

  Soul, Shields, Enough

  John Dryden (1759). “Don Sebastian, King of Portugal, etc”, p.14

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• We don't want to lose you Lord Rahl. We don't want to go back to way things were." She sounded on the verge of tears. "We like being able to do simple things, like make a joke, and laugh. We could never do such things before. We always lived in fear that if we said the wrong thing we would be beaten, or worse. Now that we have seen another way, we don't want to go back to that. If you throw your life away for the Midlands, then we will.- Cara

  Terry Goodkind

  Simple, Laughing, Tears

  Terry Goodkind (2015). “Blood of the Fold”, p.207, RosettaBooks

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• When a man stands on the verge of seventy-two you know perfectly well that he never reached that place without knowing what this life is - heartbreaking bereavement.

  Mark Twain

  Men, Two, Knowing

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.7193, Delphi Classics

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• Gandalf: Confound it all, Samwise Gamgee. Have you been eavesdropping? Sam: I ain't been droppin' no eaves sir, honest. I was just cutting the grass under the window there, if you'll follow me. Gandalf: A little late for trimming the verge, don't you think? Sam: I heard raised voices. Gandalf: What did you hear? Speak. Sam: N-nothing important. That is, I heard a good deal about a ring, and a Dark Lord, and something about the end of the world, but... Please, Mr. Gandalf, sir, don't hurt me. Don't turn me into anything... unnatural.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Hurt, Cutting, Dark

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• You’re on the verge of getting your soul and your life back and he’s still what determines your happiness ? You don’t need a relationship to be happy, Georgina.

  Richelle Mead

  Soul, Needs, Determine

  Richelle Mead (2011). “Succubus Revealed”, p.203, Kensington Books

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• I was on the verge of tears, so I turned and ran past the trailer and along the field road until I was safely out of their sight. Then I ducked into the cotton and waited for friendly voices. I sat on the hot ground, surrounded by stalks four feet tall, and I cried, something I really hated to do.

  John Grisham

  Past, Feet, Sight

  John Grisham (2010). “A Painted House”, p.75, Random House

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• When a man is on the verge of passing out from pain, it seemed wrong to notice how beautiful he was.

  Patricia Briggs

  Beautiful, Pain, Men

  Patricia Briggs (2008). “Cry Wolf”, p.31, Penguin

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• Do you know how, when you are on the verge of a breakdown, the world pounds in your ears; a rush of blood, of consequence? Do you now how it feels when the truth cuts your tongue to ribbons, and still you have to speak it?

  Jodi Picoult

  Cutting, Blood, Ears

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• I feel as if I'm always on the verge of waking up.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Waking, Wake Up, Feels

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• No one in my family or my circle of friends had ever had to confront something like this. Jamie was seventeen, a child on the verge of womanhood, dying and still very much alive at the same time. I was afraid, more afraid than I'd ever been, not only for her, but for me as well. I lived in fear of doing something wrong, of doing something that would offend her. Was it okay to ever get angry in her presence? Was it okay to talk about the future anymore?

  Nicholas Sparks

  Children, Circles, Dying

  FaceBook post by Nicholas Sparks from Jul 20, 2011

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• I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.

  Bret Easton Ellis

  Vacation, Cities, Bloodlust

  Bret Easton Ellis (2014). “American Psycho: Picador Classic”, p.225, Pan Macmillan

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