Aptly Quotes & Sayings

There is a movement happening, a quiet one.
A low-profile, low-resolution revolution.
Comprised of writers and dreamers, of guerrilla artists and thought-ninjas.
Those with something to say.
They communicate through text inscribed on true public spaces, rather than blogs and forums.
Choosing fewer words, even without being bound by 140 character limits.
Using ink instead of pixels.
Sending messages in living, breathing space.
Pens scream louder into the void.
Even if permanent ink is not aptly named. — Erin Morgenstern

A book can tell you all the emotions and subtext that are so rarely aptly portrayed in film. You understand the nuances of each character. You breathe every breath with them and cry every tear. — AnnaLisa Grant

Listen amply.
Listen aptly.
Listen avidly.
Listen amiably. — Matshona Dhliwayo

The year 1896 ... marked the beginning of what has been aptly termed the heroic age of Physical Science. Never before in the history of physics has there been witnessed such a period of intense activity when discoveries of fundamental importance have followed one another with such bewildering rapidity. — Ernest Rutherford

Interesting phenomena occur when two or more rhythmic patterns are combined, and these phenomena illustrate very aptly the enrichment of information that occurs when one description is combined with another. — Gregory Bateson

'Letters From Home' is a 90,000-word WWII love story with a twist, aptly summarized as 'The Notebook' meets 'Saving Private Ryan.' — Kristina McMorris

Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace. — John Tyler

Guerrilla leaders spend a great deal more time in organization, instruction, agitation, and propaganda work than they do fighting, for their most important job is to win over the people. "We must patiently explain," says Mao Tse-tung. "Explain," "persuade," "discuss," "convince" - these words recur with monotonous regularity in many of the early Chinese essays on guerrilla war. Mao has aptly compared guerrillas to fish, and the people to the water in which they swim. If the political temperature is right, the fish, however few in number, will thrive and proliferate. It is therefore the principal concern of all guerrilla leaders to get the water to the right temperature and to keep it there. More — Mao Zedong

Warren had a most unusual household. A recent widower with four children between the ages of two and eight, he was not only a leading patriot but also had one of the busiest medical practices in Boston. He had two apprentices living with him on Hanover Street, and he sometimes saw as many as twenty patients a day. His practice ran the gamut, from little boys with broken bones, like John Quincy Adams, to prostitutes on aptly named Damnation Alley, — Nathaniel Philbrick

There are a lot of colloquialisms in the Cantonese language that can never be represented aptly in Mandarin. — Jia Zhangke

For those who must deal with human corpses regularly, it is easier (and, I suppose, more accurate) to think of them as objects, not people. For most physicians, objectification is mastered their first year of medical school, in the gross anatomy lab, or "gross lab," as it is casually and somewhat aptly known. To help depersonalize the human form that students will be expected to sink knives into and eviscerate, anatomy lab personnel often swathe the cadavers in gauze and encourage students to unwrap as they go, part by part. — Mary Roach

In my opinion, ADD more aptly refers to Attention to Dreams and Discoveries, and ADHD describes Alert to Daydreams and Humorous Diversions - in — Mariaemma Willis

The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. That is why, as one historian aptly has said, far from the heroic and romantic heraldry that customarily is used to symbolize the European settlement of the Americas, the emblem most congruent with reality would be a pyramid of skulls. — David E. Stannard

What Bell is to the telephone - or, more aptly, what Eastman is to photography - Haloid could be to xerography. — Chester Carlson

After all, what Buddhism offers as a solution is universalised indifference - a learning of how to withdraw from too much empathy. This is why Buddhism can so easily turn into the very opposite of universal compassion: the advocacy of a ruthless military attitude, which is what the fate of Zen Buddhism aptly demonstrates. — Slavoj Zizek

For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him? — John Calvin

C. Samuel Storms has so aptly written, Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to bestow it in the presence of human merit ... Grace ceases to be grace if God is compelled to withdraw it in the presence of human demerit ... [Grace] is treating a person without the slightest reference to desert whatsoever, but solely according to the infinite goodness and sovereign purpose of God.4 — Jerry Bridges

What they'd got was a fat, balding academic who bandied about the phrase "family annihilation", especially when there were cameras pointed at him, and mentioned the titles of books and articles he'd written to anyone who would listen; who blatantly thought he was the mutt's nuts, as Sellers had so aptly put it. — Sophie Hannah

Hardly any original thoughts on mental or social subjects ever make their way among mankind or assume their proper importance in the minds even of their inventors, until aptly selected words or phrases have as it were nailed them down and held them fast. — John Stuart Mill

Conservatives: Self-hating moral relativists, unless you can convince me that an intellectual class that publicly praises family values but privately engages in sodomy, coke and trophy wives is more aptly described in some other way. — John Scalzi

Medicine is aptly described as an art, not a science. To this end, four different doctors may have up to four different diagnoses or prescriptions. — Andrew Saul

All the dancer's gestures are signs of things, and the dance called rational, because it aptly signifies and displays something over and above the pleasure of the senses. — Saint Augustine

Well met, Mistress Lirael. This ragamuffin, as your servant so aptly described him, is His Highness Prince Sameth, the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Hence the bells. But on to more serious matters. Could you please rescue us? Prince Sameth's personal vessel is not quite what I'm used to, and he is eager to catch me a fish before my morning nap. — Garth Nix

From its aptly noirish title on, Martin Preib's The Wagon has rightness of authenticity about it. From the perspective of a cop he fashions a compelling view of the Chicago Algren once called 'the dark city.' There's a unique quality to his essays which manage to be broodingly meditative even as their narrative drive keeps you turning pages. — Stuart Dybek

A pronoun, too, will aptly reflect the number of its antecedent: "they" does not refer to one person, no matter how many personalities she or he has, or how eager you are to skirt the gender frays. — Karen Elizabeth Gordon

[The] weakness of biological balance studies has aptly been illustrated by comparison with the working of a slot machine. A penny brings forth one package of chewing gum; two pennies bring forth two. Interpreted according to the reasoning of balance physiology, the first observation is an indication of the conversion of copper into gum; the second constitutes proof. — Rudolph Schoenheimer

We fit the stereotype that Tim Brooks described as "antisocial" at least insofar as having no desire to waste our time and effort contributing to the morass of social networking's "pointless babble" - as researchers at Pear Analytics aptly described the largest category of Twitter messages. Dear Netflix executives, you are probably equally "antisocial" in this regard. — Blake Linton

Most change initiatives either fail or fall far short of original (perhaps unrealistic) expectations. More often than not, resistance is cultural in nature, the result of what James O'Toole so aptly characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." — John Daly

A felon could plead "benefit of clergy" and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the "neck verse", which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51. — William Hazlitt

Are you a Dominant, Sir?"
"Yes." A smile played at his lips. Hearing her call him that would never get old.
"And I'm a submissive?"
"Absolutely," Law whispered in her ear. "You're the sweetest little sub I've ever seen."
A grin curled her mouth up. "So I call you my Doms?"
"Yes, pet."
Her smile widened until she looked as if she was trying to keep a straight face. "You're Dominic, the Dom."
He sighed. "Yes, pet. I think I was aptly named."
"You're Dom Dominic."
"While true, that's not exactly how you should phrase it." He frowned.
"You're Dom Dom." The smile zipped across her face. "I get to call you Dom Dom. — Shayla Black

Books, as Dryden has aptly termed them, are spectacles to read nature. Aeschylus and Aristotle, Shakespeare and Bacon, are priests who preach and expound the mysteries of man and the universe. They teach us to understand and feel what we see, to decipher and syllable the hieroglyphics of the senses. — Augustus William Hare

The Americans want a surplus stocked up to supply their every whim. And their appeals are much less requests, more demands. Indeed, the phrase might be more aptly put: Demand and Surplus. — Geoffrey Wood

What Anacharsis said of the vine may aptly enough be said of prosperity. She bears the three grapes of drunkenness, pleasure, and sorrow; and happy is it if the last can cure the mischief which the former work. When afflictions fail to have their due effect, the case is desperate. — Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

A word aptly uttered or written cannot be cut away by an axe. — Nikolai Gogol

We have turned doctors into gods and worship their deity by offering up our bodies and our souls - not to mention our worldly goods.
And yet paradoxically, they are the most vulnerable of human beings. Their suicide rate is eight times the national average. Their percentage of drug addiction is one hundred times higher
And because they are painfully aware that they cannot live up to our expectations, their anguish is unquantifiably intense. They have aptly been called 'wounded healers.' "

~ Barney Livingston, M.D.
(Doctors, 1989) — Erich Segal

A mouse when caught in a perilous situation reacts aptly because it has such encounters on a daily basis whereas a lion, which is rarely caught in such situations, is often late in its reaction. — Ashish Jaiswal

Having had the wrong education as a start in his racial career, the Negro has become his own greatest enemy. Most of the trouble I have had in advancing the cause of the race has come from Negroes. Booker Washington aptly described the race in one of his lectures by stating that we were like crabs in a barrel, that none would allow the other to climb over, but on any such attempt all would continue to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would make the effort to climb out. Yet, those of us with vision cannot desert the race, leaving it to suffer and die. — Marcus Garvey

There is no money in what is aptly called free association: we are instead encouraged by media and advertising to fear each other and regard public life as a danger and a nuisance, to live in secured spaces, communicate by electronic means, and acquire our information from media rather than each other. — Rebecca Solnit

There is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought. — Pierre Bayle

Crabgrass is aptly descriptive of this hated weed, for it does scuttle quickly through a lawn. — Allen Lacy

Universal peace-time conscription was adopted by almost all countries as the basis of their military system. This ensured that wars would grow bigger in scale, longer in duration, and worse in effects. While conscription appeared democratic, it provided autocrats, hereditary or revolutionary, with more effective and comprehensive means of imposing their will, both in peace and war. Once the rule of compulsory service in arms was established for the young men of a nation, it was an obvious and easy transition to the servitude of the whole population. Totalitarian tyranny is the twin of total warfare - which might aptly be termed a reversion to tribal warfare on a larger scale. — Liddell Hart

As astronomer Carl Sagan once aptly put it, you do not want to keep your mind so open that your brain is likely to fall out. — Massimo Pigliucci

Mr. Stallone had picked up a recent issue and was looking for a wrestler with a specific look - well built and blond - for a role in an upcoming movie. It would be the third in the 'Rocky' series, aptly titled 'Rocky III'...
Two wrestlers who fit that profile immediately came to ...-'Superstar' Billy Graham and Hulk Hogan... It would be the biggest break of his (the Hulk's) life. — Bill Apter

This heretical perversion of the message of Jesus that most often passes for Christianity today has been aptly termed churchianity. People go to church, profess a belief in Jesus totally devoid of a belief in his teachings, and then self-righteously proclaim themselves to be "Christians. — Robert S. McElvaine

The endangered Kiwi is aptly New Zealand's icon. There is so much promise to lay a large egg but without the ability to get it off the ground. — Grant McLachlan

How wonderful that God should endow us with this sensitive yet strong guide we call a conscience! Someone has aptly re-marked that conscience is a celestial spark which God has put into every man for the purpose of saving his soul. — Spencer W. Kimball

The Venus flytrap, a devouring organism, aptly named for the goddess of love. — Tennessee Williams

Truth and fiction are so aptly mixed that all seems uniform and of a piece. — Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl Of Roscommon

Freud has said in Totem and Taboo that acts that are illegal for the individual can be justified in another way: the one who initiates the act takes upon himself both the risk and the guilt. The result is truly magic: each member of the group can repeat the act without guilt. They are not responsible, only the leader is. Redl calls this, aptly, "priority magic." But it does something even more than relieve guilt: it actually transforms the fact of murder. This crucial point initiates us directly into the phenomenology of group transformation of the everyday world. If one murders without guilt, and in imitation of the hero who runs the risk, why then it is no longer murder: it is "holy aggression. For the first one it was not." In other words, participation in the group redistills everyday reality and gives it the aura of the sacred-just as, in childhood, play created a heightened reality. — Ernest Becker

Addiction" might be the best word to explain the lostness that so deeply permeates society. Our addiction make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love. These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs. As long as we live within the world's delusions, our addictions condemn us to futile quests in "the distant country," leaving us to face an endless series of disillusionments while our sense of self remains unfulfilled. In these days of increasing addictions, we have wandered far away from our Father's home. The addicted life can aptly be designated a life lived in "a distant country." It is from there that our cry for deliverance rises up. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

If thou wouldst hear what seemly is and fit, inquire of noble woman; they can tell, who in life's common usage hold their place by graceful deed and aptly chosen word. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I was beginning to fear that you had turned into one of those boring females who can only say 'Yes, my dear' ... You know very well, Peabody, that our little discussions are the spice of life
'The pepper in the soup of marriage'
Very aptly put, Peabody. If you become meek and acquiescent, I will put an advertisement in the Times telling Sethos to drop by and collect you. Promise me you will never stop scolding ... — Elizabeth Peters

The key point is that anthropomorphism is not always as problematic as people think. To rail against it for the sake of scientific objectivity often hides a pre-Darwinian mindset, one uncomfortable with the notion of humans as animals. When we are considering species like the apes, which are aptly known as "anthropoids" (humanlike), however, anthropomorphism is in fact a logical choice. Dubbing an ape's kiss "mouth-to-mouth contact" so as to avoid anthropomorphism deliberately obfuscates the meaning of the behavior. It would be like assigning Earth's gravity a different name than the moon's, just because we think Earth is special. — Frans De Waal

I could start this review by stating that Dumb and Dumberer lives up to its name, or by calling it stupid, moronic, and idiotic, but I believe that approach is a trap, since a movie like this might relish being the object of such bland invectives. Instead, let me try a few that can't possibly be misconstrued as twisted praise: unfunny, boring, torturous, and unwatchable ... [N]o movie could be more aptly compared to raw sewage than this film - Directed By Troy Miller. — James Berardinelli

Wont to unlearn from history, we aptly repeat even its most brazen mistakes. — Eskinder Nega

As Boettner so aptly observes, for the Calvinist, the atonement "is like a narrow bridge which goes all the way across the stream; for the Arminian it is like a great wide bridge that goes only half-way across." p. 41 — David N. Steele

As Peter Drucker aptly said, "An organization, like a person, cannot just eat but also must eliminate. Perhaps the most important decisions are the ones to abandon unnecessary process, people, products, services, and other such things. One can do this humanely, but one must do this to survive let alone prosper." Reducing — Deaver Brown

I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar. — Miguel De Cervantes

In our view the Olympic idea involves a strong physical culture supplemented on the one hand by mobility, what is so aptly called 'fair play', and on the other hand by aesthetics, that is the cultivation of what is beautiful and graceful. — Pierre De Coubertin

The bulky caveman boot certainly has a modern heir: Uggs. I feel they are aptly named and don't belong in this millennium, but I realize I'm in the minority on that. — Tim Gunn

This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly. — Lancelot Hogben

Well this is aptly called a junket, for both of us. I have never been to a house of prostitution, but I understand that you get in more than seven minutes. — Dustin Hoffman

It has been aptly said that all Egypt is but the facade of an immense sepulcher. — Amelia B. Edwards

In the aftermath of September 11, and as the 9/11 Commission report so aptly demonstrates, it is clear that our intelligence system is not working the way that it should. — Hillary Clinton

He was a longtime street thug who had just enough ruthlessness to rise to legitimate businesses and not quite enough intelligence to leave his dark life behind him. Aptly suited as a banker. — Brian McClellan

To presume that dictionary-making can somehow avoid or transcend ideology is simply to subscribe to a particular ideology, one that might aptly be called Unbelievably Naive Positivism. — David Foster Wallace

I was raised as a Baptist in the Bible Belt of the South. Until the age of 37, I had never heard anyone teach or preach about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Oh yes, I had heard those scriptures read, more aptly read over, and had read over them myself, but I had never heard anyone try to explain this amazing experience or even give it any credence. — Kimberly Eady

Government is frequently and aptly classed under two descriptions-a government of force, and a government of laws; the first is the definition of despotism-the last, of liberty. — Alexander Hamilton

Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs? — Marcus Aurelius

This, then, is the legacy of January 1973. The "me generation" found its voice, religion became a political force, poverty and civil rights became someone else's problem, and the national will for concerted action for the common good of all its citizens was scattered into "a thousand points of light."

At some point, perhaps those scattered lights will re-form and reunite to give birth to a rededicated nation, one that includes a place for everyone, opportunity for all, and help for those who need it. After all, it only takes a moment in time and some simultaneity. As Lyndon Johnson so aptly observed in his greatest speech - the "We Shall Overcome" speech - there are times in America when "history and fate meet at a single time in a single space to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom."

Let us hop such a time is nearing. — James Robenalt

It has been aptly noted that web browsers are less Internet navigation tools than they are ebooks with highly diverse content. — Michael A. Stackpole

I finished grating a root and dropped the stub into a jar on the desk. Bloodroot is aptly named; the scientific name is Sanguinaria, and the juice is red, acrid, and sticky. The bowl in my lap was full of oozy, moist shavings, and my hands looked as though I had been disemboweling small animals. — Diana Gabaldon

We're a nation with an eating disorder, and we know it. The multiple maladies caused by bad eating are taking a dire toll on our health
most tragically for our kids, who are predicted to be this country's first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. That alone is a stunning enough fact to give us pause. So is a government policy that advises us to eat more fruits and vegetables, while doling out subsidies not to fruit and vegetable farmers, but to commodity crops destined to become soda pop and cheap burgers. The Farm Bill, as of this writing, could aptly be called the Farm Kill, both for its effects on small farmers and for what it does to us, the consumers who are financing it. — Barbara Kingsolver

Saigon, U.S.A. aptly documents the birth of a new American community, uprooted in the aftermath of war and forever torn apart by the wounds of the past, yet one capable of healing against all odds. An engrossing yet succinct film that captures not only a major incident in Vietnamese American life, but also an important chapter of American history. A profound film that manages to confront us with the deepest sorrow while allowing us to be hopeful about what it means to be human. — Nguyen Qui Duc

With each success the ability to change is reduced. My longtime friend and coach Grandmaster Yuri Dokhoian, aptly compared it to being dipped in bronze. Each victory added another coat. — Garry Kasparov

So how do we know if we've assumed the gospel? Mack Stiles days so aptly that the way to know if we've assumed the gospel is this: you don't hear it anymore. Everyone talks to themselves. — Gloria Furman

Mind, Sancho, I do not say that a proverb aptly brought in is objectionable; but to pile up and string together proverbs at random makes conversation dull and vulgar. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious. — John Calvin

There can be no greater antithesis than between the Greeks' rational and objective truth and the "truth of unreason," as Bertrand Russell aptly termed faith in religions, fictions about supernatural beings that soothe and comfort weaklings who are afraid to contemplate the grim world of reality. — Revilo P. Oliver

As Razam so aptly demonstrates, a new kind of traveler is emerging-one that embarks into the mysterious and uncharted domain within, where they aim to conquer their own hearts. Written in the tradition of a great adventure narrative, Aya Awakenings is a timely story for a new emerging era. — Yossi Ghinsberg

America was aptly described by George Bernard Shaw, who said that it was 'the only country which had gone from barbarism to decadence without once passing through civilization.' Guy — Maya Angelou

I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest, to make money they don't want, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like. - Emile — Erin Loechner

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Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good had been aptly described as that at which everything aims. — Aristotle.

To me, the best, if not the only function of imaginative writing, is to lead the human imagination outward, to take it into the vast external cosmos, and away from all that introversion and introspection, that morbidly exaggerated prying into one's own vitals - and the vitals of others - which Robinson Jeffers has so aptly symbolized as "incest." What we need is less "human interest," in the narrow sense of the term - not more. Physiological - and even psychological analysis - can be largely left to the writers of scientific monographs on such themes. Fiction, as I see it, is not the place for that sort of grubbing. — Clark Ashton Smith