Wretched Quotes - Page 18

• However wretched a fellow-mortal may be, he is still a member of our common species.

  Seneca the Younger

  Brotherhood, May, Common

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• When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we are freed up to see others the same way.

  Shane Claiborne

  Beautiful, Way, Realizing

  Shane Claiborne (2008). “The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical”, p.166, Zondervan

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• Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year has gone by and how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake, we know it's not to be, that for the rest of our sad, wretched pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably; happy birthday? No such thing.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Birthday, Self, Years

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• Ah, music! What a beautiful art! But what a wretched profession!

  Georges Bizet

  Beautiful, Art, Profession

  As quoted in "An Encyclopedia of Quotations about Music" (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 115, August 3, 1867.

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• Although I never lack the presence and plain image of my own wretched
  infirmity, yet seeing sin so manifestly abounds in all estates, I am
  compelled to thunder out the threatenings of God against the obstinate
  rebels.

  John Knox

  Rebel, Sin, Threatening

  John Knox (1842). “Writings of the Rev. John Knox: Minister of God's Word in Scotland”

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• No prince had lived in those wretched hovels, no red-robed bishops, only farmers and laborers whose stories no one had written down, and now they were lost, buried under wild thyme and fast growing spurge.

  Cornelia Funke

  Thyme, Bishops, Stories

  Cornelia Funke (2011). “Inkheart”, p.116, Scholastic Inc.

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• Assuredly whatsoever things are fabled to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist in this life. There is no wretched Tantalus, fearing the great rock that hangs over him in the air and frozen with vain terror. Rather, it is in this life that fear of the gods oppresses mortals without cause, and the rock they fear is any that chance may bring.

  Lucretius

  Rocks, Air, Atheism

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• It is pleasing to reflect that results so beneficial, not only to the States immediately concerned, but to the harmony of the Union, will have been accomplished by measures equally advantageous to the Indians. What the native savages become when surrounded by a dense population and by mixing with the whites may be seen in the miserable remnants of a few Eastern tribes, deprived of political and civil rights, forbidden to make contracts, and subjected to guardians, dragging out a wretched existence, without excitement, without hope, and almost without thought.

  Andrew Jackson

  Rights, Political, Unions

  United States. President (1829-1837 : Jackson), Andrew Jackson (1835). “Annual Messages, Veto Messages, Proclamation, & C”, p.80

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• Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined by the Creator to give support to a large population and to be the seat of civilization?

  William Henry Harrison

  Civilization, Giving, Support

  "The History of Indiana, from Its Earliest Exploration by Europeans, to the Close of the Territorial Government, in 1816". Book by John Brown Dillon, www.esquire.com. 1859.

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• There was something alike terrifying and piteous in the spectacle of these frail old morsels of humanity consecrating their last flickering energies to the task of making each other wretched. Hatred seemed to be the one faculty which had survived in undiminished vigor where all else was dropping into ordered and symmetrical decay.

  Hector Hugh Munro

  Hatred, Humanity, Decay

  Saki, Hector Hugh Munro (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Saki (Illustrated)”, p.474, Delphi Classics

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• Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back.

  Thornton Wilder

  Children, Heart, Angel

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• I did, however, manage to do it without hurting those dogs. Very considerate of me. Don't let it be said I'm not an animal lover-that wretched kitsune aside.

  Richelle Mead

  Dog, Hurt, Animal

  Richelle Mead (2012). “Richelle Mead Dark Swan Bundle: Storm Born, Thorn Queen, Iron Crowned & Shadow Heir”, p.1326, Zebra Books

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• In the north we could not hope to keep the worst and poorest servant for a single day in the wretched discomfort in which our negro servants are forced habitually to live.

  Fanny Kemble

  Worst, Servant, Discomfort

  Fanny Kemble (1961). “Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839”, p.101, University of Georgia Press

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• You must know that I do not love and that I love you, because everything alive has its two sides; a word is one wing of silence, fire has its cold half. I love you in order to begin to love you, to start infinity again and never to stop loving you: that’s why I do not love you yet. I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held keys in my hand: to a future of joy- a wretched, muddled fate- My love has two lives, in order to love you. -Sonnet XLIV

  Pablo Neruda

  Love You, Fate, Fire

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• We are on the side of religion as opposed to religions, and we are among those who believe in the wretched inadequacy of sermons and the sublimity of prayer.

  Victor Hugo

  Prayer, Believe, Religion

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• There is no so wretched and coarse a soul wherein some particular faculty is not seen to shine.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Shining, Soul, Genius

  Michel de Montaigne (2013). “Michel de Montaigne: Selected Essays”, p.132, Courier Corporation

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• What misery to live in this world! We are like men whose enemies are at the door, who must not lay aside their arms, even while sleeping or eating, and are always in dread lest the foe should enter the fortress by some breach in the walls. O my Lord and my all! How canst thou wish us to prize such a wretched existence?

  Teresa of Avila

  Life, Wall, Sleep

  St. Teresa of Avila (1921). “The Interior Castle, or the Mansions”, p.4, Library of Alexandria

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• In a few wretched buildings, we created a whole new industry with international significance.

  Edwin Land

  Building, Significance, International

  "Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land" by Victor K. McElheny, (p. 198), 1998.

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• Ah! Wretched and too solitary he who loves not his own company.

  Abraham Cowley

  Life, Solitary, Company

  Abraham Cowley, Thomas Sprat (1826). “Prose works of Abraham Cowley ; including his essays in prose and verse”, p.134

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• Never keep a line of retreat: it is a wretched invention.

  Fridtjof Nansen

  Lines, Retreat, Invention

  Quoted in Listener, 14 Dec. 1939 See Calonne 1; Santayana 14; Trollope 3

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• A dinner! How horrible! I am to be made the pretext for killing all those wretched animals and birds, and fish! Thank you for nothing. Now if it were to be a fast instead of a feast; say a solemn three days' abstention from corpses in my honour, I could at least pretend to believe that it was disinterested. Blood sacrifices are not in my line

  George Bernard Shaw

  Believe, Sacrifice, Animal

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• I mean not to accuse any one, but to take the shame upon myself, in common, indeed, with the whole parliament of Great Britain, for having suffered this horrid trade to be carried on under their authority. We are all guilty—we ought all to plead guilty, and not to exculpate ourselves by throwing the blame on others; and I therefore deprecate every kind of reflection against the various descriptions of people who are more immediately involved in this wretched business.

  William Wilberforce

  Mean, Reflection, People

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• He promoted the education of the parish clergy and wrote: He seems to me a very foolish man, and very wretched, who will not increase his understanding while he is in the world, and ever wish and long to reach that endless life where all shall be made clear.

  Alfred the Great

  Life, Education, Men

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• Where does the ego get its energy? The ego feeds off your desire to be something else. You are poor and you want to be rich - the ego is absorbing energy, its life-breath. You are ignorant and you want to become a wise one - the ego is absorbing energy. You are a wretched nobody and you want to become powerful - the ego is absorbing energy.

  Rajneesh

  Wise, Powerful, Ego

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• Man's wretched state, That floures so fresh at morne, and fades at evening late.

  Edmund Spenser

  Men, Evening, States

  Edmund Spenser (1805). “The works of Edmund Spenser, with notes by H.J. Todd”, p.26

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