Alternatively Quotes & Sayings

Which brings us back around to drinkies. Lord Akeldama suggests a Pink Slurp (champagne & blood), but he's a vampire and they have questionable palates. Alexia recommends substituting blackberry cordial for the blood, resulting in a truly excellent and festive drink. Alternatively, for those particularly cold nights, one might opt for mulled wine, which can be a most excellent way to disguise the quality of one's vino. Bottoms — Gail Carriger

Humility is by far the most spiritual virtue of the lot. The only way by which one may cease obsessing over himself is to wholly step outside his flesh. But who could do this by himself? And who would really want to under his natural pretense? And even if somehow he could and he succeeded, would not it be artificial? Would not he seem far too aware of his own talents of achieving humility for it to be such? Alternatively, he would need a distraction, something else to love; it is not that the Humbleman thinks poorly of himself, nor highly for that matter, but rather he does not think of himself at all - and this is because he is too busy loving something or someone else to do it. For the humility of this kind 'rears its head' as the most love-driven and free, spiritual of virtues; whereas its opposite, pride, the most self-imprisoning human vice. — Criss Jami

The prostitute is the scapegoat for everyone's sins, and few people care whether she is justly treated or not. Good people have spent thousands of pounds in efforts to reform her, poets have written about her, essayists and orators have made her the subject of some of their most striking rhetoric; perhaps no class of people has been so much abused, and alternatively sentimentalized over as prostitutes have been but one thing they have never yet had, and that is simple legal justice. — Alison Roberta Noble Neilans

There is no religion and no philosophy that can give us a comprehensive answer to the whole of our problems, and the abandonment and isolation of the individual who is given no answer, or only inadequate answers, to his question lead to a situation in which more and more cheap, obvious solutions and answers are sought and provided. As, everywhere and in all departments of life, there are contradictory schools and parties, and an equal number of contradictory answers, one of the most frequent reactions is that modern man ceases to ask questions and takes refuge in a conception that considers only the most obvious, superficial aspects, and becomes skeptical, nihilistic, and egocentric. Or, alternatively, he tries to solve all his problems by plunging headlong into a collective situation and a collective conviction, and seeks to redeem himself in this way. — Erich Neumann

Will we turn our backs on science because it is perceived as a threat to God, abandoning all the promise of advancing our understanding of nature and applying that to the alleviation of suffering and the betterment of humankind? Alternatively, will we turn our backs on faith, concluding that science has rendered the spiritual life no longer necessary, and that traditional religious symbols can now be replaced by engravings of the double helix on our alters?
Both of these choices are profoundly dangerous. Both deny truth. Both will diminish the nobility of humankind. Both will be devastating to our future. And both are unnecessary. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate and beautiful - and it cannot be at war with itself. Only we imperfect humans can start such battles. And only we can end them. — Francis S. Collins

A person can allow a tyrannical world to bully them. One can kowtow to the demands of petty tormentors; blithely accept being the drummer boy for other people's private parade. Alternatively, a person can seek to obtain autonomy over their life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Throughout evolutionary history, anxiety and fear have helped every species to be wary and to survive. Fear can signal us to act, or, alternatively, to resist the impulse to act. It can help us to make wise, self-protective choices in and out of relationships where we might otherwise sail mindlessly along, ignoring signs of trouble. — Harriet Lerner

Allegorical stories of saints battling with giants, monsters and demons may be interpreted as symbolizing the Christian's fight against paganism. At Bwlch Rhiwfelen (Denbigh) St Collen fought and killed a cannibal giantess, afterwards washing away the blood-stains in a well later known as Ffynnon Gollen. In Ireland, the tales of saints slaying giant serpents may have the same meaning; alternatively they (or some of them) may refer to early sightings of genuine water monsters. St Barry banished a serpent from a mountain into Lough Lagan (Roscommon), and a holy well sprang up where the saint's knee touched the ground. — Colin Bord

What's real and what's unreal are like two balls that you alternatively toss in the air, catching one as you throw up the other. — Chloe Thurlow

Alternatively you can twist the cylinder round twice clockwise; that turns it into a hand grenade. Five-second fuse. I tested it on one of my assistants. Poor old Bennett ... he should be out of hospital in a couple of months. — Anthony Horowitz

If your attached friends are bugging you about being single (favourite accusation: "You're too picky!") turn it around on them. "Do you know any gorgeous single men I could meet?" (This could backfire if they're keen to set you up and their idea of "gorgeous" is vastly different from yours. And it will be.) Alternatively, be super-sweet and tell them you're waiting for your ideal partner "just like you did". (It won't work if you snigger at this point.) — Rosie Blythe

But if man genuinely produces man, it is precisely not through work and it's concrete results, not even the 'work on oneself' so widely praised in recent times, let alone through the alternatively invoked phenomena of 'interaction' or 'communication': it is through life in forms of practice. Practice is defined here as any operation that provides or improves the actor's qualification for the next performance of the same operation, whether it is declared as practice or not. — Peter Sloterdijk

Using any reasonable definition of a scientist, we can say that 80 to 90 percent of all the scientists that have ever lived are alive now. Alternatively, any young scientist, starting now and looking back at the end of his career upon a normal life span, will find that 80 to 90 percent of all scientific work achieved by the end of the period will have taken place before his very eyes, and that only 10 to 20 percent will antedate his experience. — Derek J. De Solla Price

The [Dow-Alcoa and Alcoa-IG] negotiations [of 1929] reveal strikingly the technique of cartel diplomacy - the steady application of "pressure" and the resort alternatively to challenges and blandishments. The similarity to power politics in which trial by battle is a last resort is marked. The procedure discloses the vast gulf between big business in practice and the patterns of behavior assumed in a regime of free competition. It shows how the conference table superseded the market as the arena for decision making. — George W. Stocking

If the dingoes in question are causing problems, then they are referred to as wild dogs and have to be controlled (the politically correct way to say killed or culled) under Australian legislation. Alternatively if the wild dogs or dingoes in question are useful or hail from an iconic stature, then they are referred to as dingoes and afforded a level of protection by legislation and the public. — Brad Purcell

And along with indifference to space, there was an even more complete indifference to time. "There seems to be plenty of it", was all I would answer when the investigator asked me to say what I felt about time. Plenty of it, but exactly how much was entirely irrelevant. I could, of course, have looked at my watch but my watch I knew was in another universe. My actual experience had been, was still, of an indefinite duration. Or alternatively, of a perpetual present made up of one continually changing apocalypse. — Aldous Huxley

It is possible that the city of London was initially named for ravens or a raven-deity. According to the Oxford Companion to the English Language, the designation comes from "Londinium," a Romanized version of an earlier Celtic name. But the word closely resembles "Lugdunum," the Roman name for both the city of Lyon in France and Leiden in the Netherlands. That Roman name, in turn, was derived from the Celtic "Lugdon," which meant, literally, "hill, or town, of the god Lugh" or, alternatively, " ... of ravens." The site of Lyon was initially chosen for a town when a flock of ravens, avatars of the god, settled there. Whether or not "Lugdunum" was the origin of "London," ravens were important for inhabitants of Britain for both practical and religious reasons. — Boria Sax

Or is there something that you "should" be doing but are not doing it? Get up and do it now. Alternatively, completely accept your inactivity, laziness, or passivity at this moment, if that is your choice. Go into it fully. Enjoy it. Be as lazy or inactive as you can. If you go into it fully and consciously, you will soon come out of it. Or maybe you won't. Either way, there is no inner conflict, no resistance, no negativity. — Eckhart Tolle

Being bold and adventurous and being sad and cautious seem like opposite personality types. However, these two paths to addiction are actually not mutually exclusive. The third way involves having both kinds of traits, where people alternatively fear and desire novelty and behavior swings from being impulsive and rash to being compulsive, fear driven, and stuck in rigid patterns. This is where some of the contradictions that have long confounded the study of addiction come into play - namely, some aspects seem precisely planned out, while others are obviously related to lack of restraint. My own story spirals around this paradoxical situation: I was driven enough to excel academically and fundamentally scared of change and of other people - yet I was also reckless enough to sell cocaine and shoot heroin. — Maia Szalavitz

A revenant is also a deceased person returning from the dead to haunt the living, either as a disembodied ghost or alternatively as a corpse. Some people believe the ghost or spirit never leaves Earth until there is no-one left to remember the — Charmaine Weems

Fluttershyes are like regular shyes, only shinier, and, apparently - also shyer. Whenever petted - they don't flutter, but run away instead. — Will Advise

[she] told me once that if you ask the sea for help it never fails you. I tried it a few times. It does make you feel better. You can just ask the sea for help and see what happens, or, alternatively, you can give it your problems. It's big enough to take them, after all. You could choose some large stones, make each one represent one of your problems and throw them in the water.' He shrugged. 'Probably sounds a bit hippy for you. I know you're more down to earth than we are - but sometimes you just need something to help you focus and let things go. — Scarlett Thomas

I remember, on one occasion, as I went round Addison's Walk, I saw him coming slowly towards me, his round, rubicund face beaming with pleasure to itself. When we came within speaking distance, I said 'Hullo, Jack! You look very pleased with yourself; what is it?'
'I believe,' he answered, with a modest smile of triumph, 'I believe I have proved that the Renaissance never happened in England. Alternatively' - he held up his hand to prevent my astonished exclamation - 'that if it did, it had no importance! — Jocelyn Gibb

In his early text, somewhat cumbersomely titled 'Towards a Critique of Hegel's PHILOSOPHY OF RIGHT,' the young Karl Marx famously noted that religion - the Christian faith, he meant primarily - is 'the opiate of the people.' It's a drug, and it's a 'downer' or 'depressant' insulating people from the pain of oppressive social realities and consoling them with a dream world of heavenly bliss. Alternatively, religion can function as an 'upper,' a 'stimulant' energizing people for the tasks at hand - a function of religion Marx failed to grasp. — Miroslav Volf

Their point of resemblance to each other and their difference from so many American women, lay in the fact that they were all happy to exist in a man's world
they preserved their individuality through men and not by opposition to them. They would all three have made alternatively good courtesans or good wives not by the accident of birth but through the greater accident of finding their man or not finding him. — F Scott Fitzgerald

When a volcano erupts, people get surprised, but it is a volcano! There is no 'place' for the surprise! The biggest problem with people is that they are not serious about the matters of life and death! Be serious or alternatively lose your existence! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

the biggest perceived enemy of the U.S. is called the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or alternatively the Islamic State of the Levant (ISIL). They are bent on taking over territory by means of terror. If the Western countries did not need the oil that these terrorists control, the money that ultimately funds their operations would dry up. They could no longer operate as a terrorist state, — Bill Nye

Laclos thought, how about a one-way ticket to Pennsylvania? You'd enjoy life among the Quakers. Alternatively, how about a nice dip in the Seine? — Hilary Mantel

Alternatively, anyone who favors Intelligent Design in lieu of evolution might pause to wonder why God devoted so much of His intelligence to designing malarial parasites. — David Quammen

The wretched Artist himself is alternatively the lowest worm that ever crawled when no fire is in him; or the loftiest God that ever sand when the fire is going. — Caitlin Thomas

The only way people are going to change their car buying habits, and the only way government will get behind alternatively fueled vehicles, is if gasoline prices continue to go up. — Alexandra Paul

It used to be that he, John, had too little employment. Now that is about to change. Now he will have as much employment as he can handle, as much and more. He is going to have to abandon some of his personal projects and be a nurse. Alternatively, if he will not be a nurse, he must announce to his father: I cannot face the prospect of ministering to you day and night. I am going to abandon you. Goodbye. One or the other: there is no third way. — J.M. Coetzee

A gentleman of ambition is aware of the people he wishes to be associated with both socially and commercially. He knows that moving through different levels of society is akin to stepping through different rooms in an enormous house, each door leading to a grander environment than the last. He may, of course, settle for the comfort of any room he reaches. Alternatively, he may continue through successive doors to surround himself with even greater fineries and riches. — Chris Murray

The will of God or the lunacy of man - it seemed to him that you could take your choice, if you wanted a good enough reason for most things. Or, alternatively (and he thought of it as he contemplated the small orderliness of the cabin against the window background of such frantic natural scenery), the will of man and the lunacy of God. — James Hilton

Women don't need to have our own little corner of the church where we can feel precious or, alternatively, cranky. In every essential thing, as far as life in Christ is concerned, the differences between men and women are irrelevant. — Frederica Mathewes-Green

At school, the news that Pia Kolvenbach was moving to England and that her parents were divorcing had circulated with lightening speed. Suddenly I was no longer ostracized for being the Potentially Exploding Girl, but the new attention was worse. I could tell that the girls who sidled up to me and asked with faux-sympathetic smiles whether it was true were doing it on the basis of discussions they had heard between their own parents, to who they would report back like scouts. Soon there would be nothing left of me at all, nothing real: I would be a walking piece of gossip, alternatively tragic and appalling and, worse of all, a poor thing. — Helen Grant

Imagine living in abject poverty and not knowing anything other than that for generations. Or alternatively, imagine being born into a really wealthy family, but there was no real love. Everyone's living these extraordinary, interesting lives whether they know it or not. — Annie Lennox

Play is a subset of voluntary behaviour involving a selective mechanism which reverses the usual contingencies of power so as to permit the subject a controllable and dialectical simulation of the moderately unmastered arousals and regulations of everyday life, in a way that is alternatively vivifying and euphoric. — Brian Sutton-Smith

Is "consciousness" ultimate and simple, something to be merely accepted and contemplated? Or is it something complex, perhaps consisting in our way of behaving in the presence of objects, or, alternatively, in the existence in us of things called "ideas," having a certain relation to objects, though different from them, and only symbolically representative of them? — Bertrand Russell

He's going on and on, and I can't be bothered. I just can't be fuckin well arsed saying something like: Solaris shites all over 2001, and then listening to him arguing vehemently against it. Or, alternatively, waiting for him to say it, and then being expected to argue engingly, as if to agree, even if we do, is a sign that we're effete proofs. I can't be bothered with it and I can't even be bothered to tell him that I can'be be bothered. — Irvine Welsh

Italy is definitely where I feel most at home, or alternatively, living in total wilderness, in the bush in Australia. — Noah Taylor

The human birthright includes the possibility of an easy death at extreme old age if we are healthy. Alternatively, we may experience a lot of disease, but with medical intervention probably live almost as long, suffering from suboptimum health all the way through. It's our choice. — Steve Solomon

OBVIOUSLY YOU STRIKE OUT
AGAINST PEOPLE WITHIN RANGE.
IT'S CATHARTIC TO AFFECT
SOMEONE WHEN YOU'RE ANGRY.
ALTERNATIVELY, CHOOSE
ENEMIES IMPOSSIBLY FAR AWAY
SO YOU NEVER HAVE TO FIGHT. — Jenny Holzer

In general, when a novel manipulates its material to conform to the pieties of the day, or alternatively to attack those pieties for no other reason than the visibility such an attack will generate, when its literary tropes are all too familiar, its clever prose reminiscent of other clever prose, then the compass needle is slipping away from true north ... When, on the other hand, the author renounces some easy twist, some expected payoff, to take us into territory we didn't expect but that nevertheless fits with the drift of the story, then the novel gains force and conviction. And when he or she does it again, telling quite a different story that is nevertheless driven by the same urgent tensions, then we are likely moving into the zone of authenticity. — Tim Parks

His prime resource is the leaky vessel of is own memory. At times he views it thus, quite literally- as some old pail with holes and rusted seams. Alternatively, he imagines an extensive manuscript of which there survive only a handful of charred fragments; it is like trying to piece together the Gospels from the Dead Sea Scrolls ... — Penelope Lively

the subject of free will another debated topic
do we or don't we have the ability to pick?
greatly controlled by mind at lower levels of consciousness
almost non-existent, one's free will is notably less
at this level one's actions are purely reactionary
lacking self-awareness, animal instincts are primary
not going along with the mind, free will increases
then higher up, it's surrendered until it ceases
thus, there both is and is not the capacity to choose
even when we do it's limited by one's views
choosing alternatively, with a mind conditioned and bound
free will, then, is at best constrained and drowned — Jarett Sabirsh

I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake. — Kelly Link

Let's say that you could carry around a perfect copy of a three-dimensional realization of a Caravaggio painting (or if your tastes are more modern make it a Picasso). You would carry a small box in your pocket, and whenever you wanted, you could press a button and the box would open up into life-sized glory and show you the picture. You would bring it to all the parties you attended. The peak of the culture of the seventeenth century (or say the 1920s if you prefer Picasso) would be at your disposal. Alternatively, let's say you could carry around in your pocket an iPhone. That gives you thousands of songs, a cell phone, access to personal photographs, YouTube, email, and web access, among many other services, not to mention all the applications that have not yet been written. You will have a strong connection to the contemporary culture of small bits. — Tyler Cowen

It is truly no feat to crack a nut, and therefore no one would think to gather an audience for the purpose of entertaining them with nutcracking. But if he should do so, and if he should succeed in his aim, then it cannot be a matter of mere nutcracking. Or alternatively, it is a matter of nutcracking, but as it turns out we have overlooked the art of nutcracking because we were so proficient at it that it is this new nutcracker who is the first to demonstrate what it actually entails, whereby it could be even more effective if he were less expert in nutcracking than the majority of us. — Franz Kafka

Making people laugh is one of the highest achievements you can have. And when you can make someone laugh and cry, alternatively, as Chaplin does - now that's the highest of all personal achievements. I don't know that I aim for it, but I recognize it as the supreme goal. — Elliott Erwitt

A story in a book has its own intentions, even if unknowable to the virgin reader, who just lollops along at her own pace regardless of the author's strategies, and gets where she will. After all, a book can be set aside for weeks, or for good. (Burned in the grate.) Alternatively, a story can be adored for centuries. But it cannot be derailed. A plot, whether abandoned by a reader or pursued rapturously, remains itself, and gets where it is headed even if nobody is looking. It is progressive and inevitable as the seasons. Winter still comes after autumn though you may have died over the summer. — Gregory Maguire

We are in a bit of a policy box and it's going to require us being willing to give up one of the two, which is it's okay to take on more deficits but lets put in some massive spending. Alternatively to say, 'we're going to go through structural unemployment for a while because we want to address deficits.' — Indra Nooyi

Norstrom always used to say that I had two
different brains working alternatively in my head:
the well developed brain of a fool and the un-
developed brain of a sort of genius. — Axel Munthe

I was always the squarest person in the cool room, and alternatively, sometimes the weirder person at the mainstream table. — John Mulaney

The true structure of the Welsh grammar will be revealed only when we look at sentences slightly more complicated than its basic VSO pattern. Welsh is no different from the rest of the world: it does involve an extra step, but even that isn't all that unusual. Welsh is like Shakespearean English on acid: the verb always - not just in questions - moves to the beginning. Alternatively, it can be viewed as taking the French grammar a step further. While the verb stops at tense in French, it moves further in Welsh to a position that traditional grammarians call the complementizer (don't ask). — Charles Yang

Say your husband wants to start a business creating topiary sculptures for clients. You think the idea is bonkers, but you admire his passion, so it seems cruel to veto it. Instead, set a tripwire. Okay, dear, let's give the topiary-sculpture business a shot, but can we agree that we won't invest more than $10,000 of our savings in it? Alternatively, you might say: Go for it, but if you don't have a paying customer within three months, let's talk seriously about Plan B. — Chip Heath

If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family. — Laurence Housman

The world! It is a word capable of as diverse interpretations or misinterpretations as the thing itself a thing by various people supposed to belong to heaven, man, or the devil, or alternatively to all three. — Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won't be troubling you much longer. — Douglas Adams

Alternatively, the person may be reacting normally to an intolerable situation, but misguided professionals incorrectly focus on changing the individual rather than modifying the person's situation or environment. — F. Richard Olenchak

And you probably have little idea of how delicious - how toothsome - how scrumptious - they are when eaten fresh. Of course, I have my worm larder -" He corrected himself. "Worm larders, well stocked, but the earthworm pursued, or promptly pounced upon, and eaten fresh - as I've said - Ah! the earthworm, there's nothing like it! You can have your slugs and your wireworms and your leatherjackets and as many ground beetles as you like to eat - snap! crackle! crunch! You can have them all! There's nothing to equal the near liquefaction of worm meat as I pass its length through my fingers, sieving out the earth granules from the creature's incessant feeding. Or alternatively tear it to eat at once in great guzzling, gulping chunks. — Philippa Pearce

If the situation or problem is such that it can be remedied, then there is no need to worry about it. In other words, if there is a solution or a way out of the difficulty, then one needn't be overwhelmed by it. The appropriate action is to seek its solution. It is more sensible to spend the energy focusing on the solution rather than worrying about the problem. Alternatively, if there is no way out, no solution, no Possibility of resolution, then there is also no point in being worried about it, because you can't do anything about it anyway. In that case, the sooner you accept this fact, the easier it will be on you. This formula, of course, implies directly confronting the problem. Otherwise you won't be able to find out whether or not there is a resolution to the problem. — Dalai Lama XIV

Everyone is after me to exercise, get in shape, play football, rush about, even go swimming and flying.
Fair enough.

Everyone is after me to take it easy. They all make doctor's appointments for me, eyeing me in that quizzical way.
What is it?

Everyone is after me to take a trip, to come in, to leave, not to travel, to die and, alternatively, not to die
It doesn't matter. — Pablo Neruda

He had fought back with every weapon in his arsenal, being alternatively obtuse, evasive and pedantic, for it was wonderful how you could obscure an emotional issue by appearing to seek precision. — J.K. Rowling

The Iron Rule of prudence for an Istanbulite Woman: If you are as fragile as a tea glass, either find a way to never encounter burning water and hope to marry an ideal husband or get yourself laid and broken as soon as possible. Alternatively, stop being a tea-glass woman! — Elif Shafak

Look, I've always had an empty place in my life that I've alternatively tried to fill with food and penises, but now I have something. — Christopher Moore

Alternatively, suppose Qaddafi winds up hanging from a lamppost in his favorite party dress. If you're a Third World dictator, what lessons would you draw? Qaddafi was the thug who came in from the cold, the one who (in the wake of Saddam's fall) renounced his nuclear program and was supposedly rehabilitated in the chancelleries of the West. He was a strong partner in the war on terrorism, according to U.S. diplomats. And what did Washington do? They overthrew him anyway. — Mark Steyn

So prevalent was the belief among Delhiwallahs that Englishmen were the product of an illicit union between apes and the women of Sri Lanka (or alternatively between 'apes and hogs') that the city's leading theologian, Shah Abdul Aziz, had to issue a fatwa expressing his opinion that such a view had no basis in the Koran or the Hadiths, and that however oddly the firangis might behave, they were none the less Christians and thus People of the Book.15 As long as wine and pork were not served, it was therefore perfectly permissible to mix with them (if one should for any strange reason wish to do so) — William Dalrymple

Holiness is the character of a community observing a comprehensive pattern of life that is healthful... the Priestly vision of holiness emphatically includes the land, the covenanted community of creatures who prosper along with a people living in accordance with the design of the creation -- or, alternatively, who suffer when the intended pattern is violated. — Ellen F. Davis

These people were content with their environment, and felt no particular objection to an impersonal steel and concrete landscape, no qualms about the invasion of their privacy by government agencies and organizations, and if anything welcoming these intrusions, using them for their own purposes. These people were the first to master a new kind of 20th century life. They thrived on the rapid turnover of acquaintances, the lack of involvement with others, and the total self-sufficiency of lives which, needing nothing, were never disappointed. Alternatively, their real needs might emerge later. — J.G. Ballard

Dancing takes a certain lightness, a spring in the step, an elasticity in the calves; a kind of joie de vivre, or alternatively a leavening element of self-proclaiming stupidity in one's make-up. — Ronald Frame

Why was this bloody world created?"
"As a sewer for the stars," a voice in front of him said. "Alternatively to know God and to glorify Him forever."
" [ ... ] The two answers are not, of course, necessarily alternative. — Charles Williams