Wretched Quotes - Page 3

• I could not have gone through the awful wretched mess of life without having left a stain upon the silence.

  Samuel Beckett

  Silence, Gone, Awful

  Quoted in Deirdre Bair, Samuel Beckett (1978)

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• Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?"

  Thomas Paine

  Men, Race, Ignorant

  Thomas Paine (1995). “Thomas Paine: Collected Writings: Common Sense / The American Crisis / Rights of: (Library of America #76)”, p.595, Library of America

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• Is there anything so wretched as to look at a man of fine abilities doing nothing?

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Men, Looks, Doing Nothing

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• It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.

  Juvenal

  Fame

  "Satires". Book by Juvenal, VIII, line 76, 1890.

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• It struck me that many Christians flash around their 'no trans fat' label, trying to convince everyone they are healthy and good. Yet they have no substantive or healthful elements to their faith. It's like the Laodiceans, who thought they had everything until Christ told them they were poor and wretched.

  Francis Chan

  Christian, Healthy, Trying

  Francis Chan (2013). “Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God”, p.93, David C Cook

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• Schooling deprived of religious insights is wretched education.

  Russell Kirk

  Christian, Religious, Insight

  Russell Kirk (1986). “The Assault on religion: commentaries on the decline of religious liberty”, Univ Pr of Amer

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• The wretched of the earth do not decide to become extinct, they resolve, on the contrary, to multiply: life is their weapon against life, life is all that they have.

  James A. Baldwin

  Earth, Weapons, Life Is

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• An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when the stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger.

  James A. Baldwin

  Fall, Identity, Stranger

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• A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.

  Honore de Balzac

  Family, Country, Strong

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “Letters of Two Brides”, p.76, The Floating Press

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• Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
  Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
  O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,--
  Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Maids, Shade, Might

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1863). “The Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes”, p.319

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• To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one's life--all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Death, Suicide, Children

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Twilight of the Idols”, p.72, Friedrich Nietzsche

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• "A child!" said Edith, looking at her. "When was I a child? What childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing, mercenary, laying snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I learnt. You gave birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride tonight."

  Charles Dickens

  Children, Character, Pride

  Charles Dickens (1867). “Charles Dickens's works. Charles Dickens ed. [18 vols. of a 21 vol. set. Wanting A child's history of England; Christmas stories; The mystery of Edwin Drood].”, p.245

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• So long as millions of human beings in every country has to sell their labour-power to a small minority of owners, and to sink into the most wretched misery if they could find no buyers, the so called “equality before the law” remains a pious fraud, since the laws are made by those who find themselves in possession of the social wealth. But in the same way there can also be no talk of a “right over one's own person,” for that right ends when one is compelled to submit to the economic dictation of another if he does not want to starve.

  Rudolf Rocker

  Country, Law, Long

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• Tis hard to be wretched, but worse to be knowne so.

  George Herbert

  Hard

  George Herbert (1874). “The Complete Works of George Herbert: Prose”, p.344

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• how often I longed to lovingly administer release! ... to have the courage and the right, after the soul is fled, to stop the poor wretched machine, that exists only to suffer and cause suffering.

  Blanche Willis Howard

  Soul, Suffering, Causes

  Blanche Willis Howard (1900). “The Garden of Eden”

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• Alas, how wretched is the being who depends on the stability of public favour!

  Sarah Siddons

  Favour, Fame, Stability

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• Philosophy has often attempted to repress insolence by asserting that all conditions are leveled by death; a position which, however it may defect the happy, will seldom afford much comfort to the wretched.

  Samuel Johnson

  Death, Philosophy, Comfort

  Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.277

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• Marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity; and he must expect to be wretched, who pays to beauty, riches, or politeness that regard which only virtue and piety can claim.

  Samuel Johnson

  Marriage, Integrity, Ties

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1836). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: with an essay on his life and genius”, p.41

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• My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Morning, Spring, Garden

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.66, Penguin

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• What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame; the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly.

  Charles Darwin

  Humility, Men, Fame

  Charles Darwin, Frederick Burkhardt, Sydney Smith (1985). “The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: 1847-1850”, p.140, Cambridge University Press

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• Is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life which providence had awarded them?

  Charles Bradlaugh

  Atheism, Gains, Miserable

  Charles Bradlaugh (1889). “Humanity's Gain from Unbelief”, p.15, Library of Alexandria

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• Right now if this preacher died he would go to heaven. Not because I spent years in the jungles and the Andes Mountains of Peru. Not because of piety, devotion or bible study. Not because of denominational affiliation, baptism, or participation in the Lord’s supper. If I died right now, I would go to heaven because two thousand years ago the Son of God shed His blood for this wretched man. And that is my hope.

  Paul Washer

  Son, Men, Blood

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• Not only does the proportion of the poor increase with the growth of the city, but their condition becomes more wretched.

  Josiah Strong

  Cities, Growth, Doe

  Josiah Strong (1891). “Our Country, Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis”

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• I have so much pride and love for the songs of The Smiths. However, I must ask you, if you come across any Smiths CDs, don't buy them, because all the money goes to that wretched drummer.

  Steven Morrissey

  Song, Pride, Cds

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• Life compulsively dangled the possibility of life. Life, the dramatist on speed. Life, that couldn't stop with its foreshadows and ironies and symbols and clues, its wretched jokes and false endings and twists. Life with its hopeless addiction to plot.

  Glen Duncan

  Life, Addiction, Twists

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