Barred Out Quotes & Sayings

Again the Prince found himself facing one of the enigmas of Sicily; in this secret island, where houses are barred and peasants refuse to admit they even know the way to their own village in clear view on a hillock within a few minutes' walk from here, in spite of the ostentatious show of mystery, reserve is a myth. — Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

You will not enter it until you learn that you do not need to convince or to conquer the world. When you learn it, you will see that through all the years of your struggle, nothing had barred you from Atlantis and there were no chains to hold you, except the chains you were willing to wear. Through all those years, that which you most wished to win was waiting for you ... waiting as unremittingly as you were fighting, as passionately, as desperately - but with a greater certainty than yours. — Ayn Rand

Cinema is the culmination of the obsessive, mechanistic male drive in western culture. The movie projector is an Apollonian straight-shooter, demonstrating the link between aggression and art. Every pictorial framing is a ritual limitation, a barred precinct. — Camille Paglia

Reality came knocking but the door was barred — Sydney Mugerwa

And then he left the palace to roam the streets of Ombria, where he painted shadows as he searched for light within them, painted thick, barred doors, as he searched in their hewn, scarred grains for what it was they hid, painted high windowless walls as if, rebuilding them stone by stone on paper, he could dismantle them and finally see the secret life behind the real. — Patricia A. McKillip

The typewriter is indeed my passport into a world otherwise barred to me and my kind. — Suzanne Rindell

It went on from there. One last, god-awful, no-holds-barred blue; one of those fights where you pour out every poisonous thought you've ever had, the dregs of every grievance, and you set the cup in front of the other person and force them to drink it. — Geraldine Brooks

I opened my eyes today to a world that felt alien. For though things resembled the familiar, nothing was the same. Walls I once considered confining, crumbled at the slightest shove. Mountains that for ages had barred my view now faded, transparent. Meandering roads stretched out as straight as an arrow, void of stop signs. Obstacles no longer stood stationary. Pinnacles loomed within reach. Beasts were tame, bullies timid, wagging tongues all tied into knots, and in the palm of my hand glistened the end of a glorious rainbow. It took but a moment to realize that in my newfound sight, everything I'd ever longed for was accessible. Incredibly, the only thing that had really changed was the way I saw the world. — Richelle E. Goodrich

One of the things I learned in my maddest years was that one could be in a room, with walls and barred windows and locks on the doors, surrounded by other crazy people, or even stuffed into an isolation cell all alone, but that really wasn't the room one was in at all. The real room that one occupied was constructed by memory, by relationships, by events, by all sorts of unseen forces. Sometimes delusions. Sometimes hallucinations. Sometimes desires. Sometimes dreams and hopes, or ambitions. Sometimes anger. That was what was important: to always recognize where the real walls were. (176) — John Katzenbach

When 'The Awakening' was published it was considered so scandalous it was banned in the author's home-town library, and she herself was barred from the Fine Arts Club in the same city. What the novel has to offer, among other things, is honesty. — Jane Smiley

The doors of Hell are never bolted or barred, to those who belong there. — Simon R. Green

In reality, at the time I was being incredibly negative and seeing things worse than they were. I was using my pessimism as a shield. It was my feeble attempt at protecting myself from the pain of failed expectations: I'd do anything to keep from being disappointed once again. But in adopting this pattern, this same barrier that kept me out of pain also kept me out of pleasure. It barred me from solutions and sealed me in a tomb of emotional death where one never experiences too much pain or too much pleasure, and where one continuously justifies one's limited actions by stating they're just being realistic. — Anthony Robbins

Many U.S. organizations believe that I am being barred from the country not because of my actions but because of my ideas. The conclusion seems inescapable. — Tariq Ramadan

The truth was that upsilamba was one of Nabokovs fascinating creations, possibly a word he invented. I said I associate Upsilamba with the impossible joy of a suspended leap. Yassi, who seemed excited for no particular reason, cried out that she always thought it could be a name of a dance- you know, "C'mon, baby, do the Upsilamba with me". Manna suggested that the word upsilamba evoked the image of small silver fish leaping in and out of a moonlit lake. Nima added in parentheses, Just so you won't forget me, although you have barred me from your class: an upsilamba to you too! For Azin it was a sound, a melody. Mahashid described an image of three girls jumping rope and shouting" Upsilamba" with each leap. For Sanaz, the word was a small African boy's secret magical name. Mitra wasn't sure why the word reminded her of the paradox of a blissful sigh. And for Nassrin it was a magic code that opened the door to a secret cave filled with treasures. — Azar Nafisi

Leonardo's twenty-six-year-old father, Ser Piero, was (as his honorary title implied) a notary: someone who wrote wills, contracts, and other commercial and legal correspondence. The family had produced notaries for at least five generations, but with Leonardo the chain was to snap. He was, as his grandfather's tax return stated a few years later, "non legittimo" - born out of wedlock - and as such he (along with criminals and priests) was barred from membership in the Guild of Judges and Notaries. Leonardo's mother was a sixteen-year-old girl named Caterina, and an apparent difference in their social status meant she and Piero, a bright and ambitious young man, did not marry. Almost — Ross King

I do engage veterans. I meet with the veterans' service organizations monthly. It's a direct, no-holds-barred discussion. I travel to their conventions, where I speak to the veterans membership. I do travel. I've been to all 50 states. When I do, I engage veterans locally. So I get direct feedback from those veterans. — Eric Shinseki

Where would we go, then, Skintick? We don't even know where we are. What realm is this? What world lies beyond this forest? Cousin, we have nowhere else to go.'

'Nowhere, and anywhere. In the circumstances, Nimander, the former leads to the latter, like reaching a door everyone believes barred, locked tight, and lo, it opens wide at the touch. Nowhere and anywhere are states of mind. See this forest around us? Is it a barrier, or ten thousand paths leading into mystery and wonder? Whichever you decide, the forest itself remains unchanged. — Steven Erikson

Sister, why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Cage the animals at night?"
"Well ... " She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me."We don't want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn't cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It's not the best thing, but it's the only way we have to take care of them."
"But if somebody loved one them," I asked, "wouldn't it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?"
"Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow." She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. "But I can't. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It's better if we keep them together. — Jennings Michael Burch

But once you've learned the nasty, street-fighting, no-holds-barred art of Max Kwon Do, you never really forget — James Patterson

Christianity is the gayest religion, you know. Its core commandment to men is to form a deep lifelong partnership with ANOTHER MAN. It demands real man-on-man, man-on-Jesus love action, no holds barred. It's the most homophilic religion in the universe. — Joe

Most of the pubs had barred Des, but he came in to the Tiger bar and he points to me and says, 'And you, out! I want you by the back of the car park.' So I obliged him and proceeded to kick the poor cunt all around the car park, he ended up in hospital for a week! Eventually, when he came out of hospital he said that I was the best thing that had happened to him, I'd cured him! — Stephen Richards

If politi-cians - however well-intentioned - were barred from planning, manipulating, or directing the affairs of their fellow citizens, then extremists of Right and Left alike would be kept at bay. — Tony Judt

Of course I put a chain on him - he's recovering fast and he's quite muscular." He frowned on a thought. "You shouldn't be visiting him now that he can move about - he might grab you." She gave him an incredulous look. He grimaced. "I can find a suitable place for him, perhaps a room with a barred door - " "You mean a cage." "We've already discussed this: I'll not let a madman near you. — Elizabeth Hoyt

It isn't only the Utopians who become a little more immortal with every blade they take away. It isn't only they who delight in seeing unicorns and wingrays in the street, who gaze through Griffincloth into enchanting nowheres, and ride the shuttles to the brave, bare Moon, which their efforts make a little less bare every day. We all enjoy these wonders, all of us, all Hives, all Hiveless. Reader, you should not have barred Apollo Mojave from the Pantheon. — Ada Palmer

If you think of modern art like sex in all its forms - heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, multipartnered, bestial, whatever, with absolutely no holds barred and with everything available and permissible - that would be modern art. — Eve Arnold

Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn't trust it. Often you couldn't even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else - coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer. — Terry Pratchett

When you go into the psych ward, you can't have anything with you except colored pencils. You can't have any electronics. If you have a drawstring on your pants, a belt, shoelaces, a hood, or extra-long fabric, your very clothes are ripped off your back. They search you with a metal detector like you're a criminal, doing everything short of putting their hand up your butt. Before you go through those cold, automatic, barred doors, you know your life is not your own. This is especially true during the first week, while you stare at florescent lighting and wait impatiently for your meds to kick in. I wish I had remembered the psych ward prison cell a week ago. If I had, maybe I wouldn't be wearing this hospital gown that they gave me until I can get more compliant clothes. — Jacquelyn Nicole Davis

Pleasure in this respect is like photography. What we take, in the presence of the beloved object, is merely a negative film; we develop it later, when we are at home, and have once again found at our disposal that inner darkroom, the entrance to which is barred to us so long as we are with other people. — Marcel Proust

tightly and a vein throbbed at his temple. The two guards led Rogers down a long hallway. On each side were barred cell doors. The men behind them had been talking, but when Rogers came into view they abruptly stopped. The prisoners — David Baldacci

Tender Ember
... Barred and branded
to be forever unloved
I was a tender ember
seeking solace from above ... — Muse

I laughed because he told me funny stories and it was so easy and light. I realized how long it has been since I've enjoyed that most simple of pleasures: company and conversation on a sunny afternoon. I am impatient for such pleasures, Katy. I am no longer a girl - I am a woman, and I want things, things that I will not have; but it is human, is it not, to long for that from which we are barred? What — Kate Morton

Since both Eliza and Angelica were pregnant, sister Peggy crept downstairs to retrieve the endangered child. The leader of the raiding party barred her way with a musket. "Wench, wench! Where is your master?" he demanded. "Gone to alarm the town," the coolheaded Peggy said.24 The intruder, fearing that Schuyler would return with troops, fled in alarm. — Ron Chernow

Everyone had gone to school with someone's brother or known each other up at Cambridge. These were serious young leftist intellectuals, many of them communists devoted to the idea of a classless society, but they were also upper class and English and so almost unconsciously sought out others of their kind and mixed with them, while the working-class youth stood alone just outside the perimeter of this charmed circle, coming as close as he dared, barred from entry by an invisible boundary of accent. — David Leavitt

A short scuffle, and then out into the gloom, her grey crest raised and her barred chest feathers puffed up into a meringue of aggression and fear, came a huge old female goshawk. Old because her feet were gnarled and dusty, her eyes a deep, fiery orange, and she was beautiful. Beautiful like a granite cliff or a thunder-cloud. She completely filled the room. She had a massive back of sun-bleached grey feathers, was as muscled as a pit bull, and intimidating as hell, even to staff who spent their days tending eagles. — Helen Macdonald

Funeralese has had its ups and downs. The word 'morticians,' first used in Embalmers Monthly for February, 1895, was barred by the Chicago Tribune in 1932, 'not for lack of sympathy with the ambition of undertakers to be well regarded, but because of it. If they haven't the sense to save themselves from their own lexicographers, we shall not be guilty of abetting them in their folly. — Jessica Mitford

The vast marble dome of the State House stood out in massive silhouette, its crowning statue haloed fantastically by a break in one of the tinted stratus clouds that barred the flaming sky. When — H.P. Lovecraft

All right," I said, waving the cup away and dabbing moisture very carefully from my lips. "I'm fine." I breathed shallowly, feeling my heart begin to slow down. "Well. So. At least now I know why you've been coming back from the Cherokee villages in such a state of-- off--" I felt an unhinged giggle rising, and bent over, moaning as I stifled it. "Oh, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. And here I thought it was thoughts of me, driving you mad with lust."
He snorted then himself, though mildly. He put down the cup, rose, and turned back the coverlet. Then he looked at me, and his eyes were clear, unguarded.
"Claire," he said, quite gently, "it was you. It's always been you, and it always will be. Get into bed, and put the candle out. As soon as I've fastened the shutters, smoored the hearth, and barred the door, I'll come and keep ye warm. — Diana Gabaldon

Between 1900 and 1930, the percentage of PhDs awarded to women doubled, and then, for three decades, it fell.6 The gains made by women in the beginning of the twentieth century were lost, everywhere, as women who had fought their way into colleges and graduate programs found that they were barred from the top ranks of the academy. No structural changes had been made that would have allowed women to pursue a life of the mind while raising children: many quit; many were kicked out; most gave up. — Jill Lepore

Full faith is an all-out, no-holds-barred approach to a life punctuated by actions of belief. — Tony Evans

A figure barred their way. It hadn't been there a moment ago but it looked permanent now. It seemed to have been made of snow, three balls of snow piled on one another. It had black dots for eyes. A semi-circle of more dots formed the semblance of a mouth. There was a carrot for the nose. And, for the arms, two twigs. At this distance, anyway. One of them was holding a curved stick. A raven wearing a damp piece of red paper landed on one arm. 'Bob bob bob?' it suggested. 'Merry Solstice? Tweetie tweet? What are you waiting for? Hogswatch?' The dogs backed away. The snow broke off the snowman in chunks, revealing a gaunt figure in a flapping black robe. Death spat out the carrot. HO. HO. HO. — Terry Pratchett

Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money. — Donald Trump

I often went to Catholic mass or Eucharist at the Episcopal church, nourished by the symbol and power of this profound feeding ritual. It never occurred to me how odd it was that women, who have presided over the domain of food and feeding for thousands of years, were historically and routinely barred from presiding over it in a spiritual context. And when the priest held out the host and said, "This is my body, given for you," not once did I recognize that it is women in the act of breastfeeding who most truly embody those words and who are also most excluded from ritually saying them. — Sue Monk Kidd

It is well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in "The King in Yellow," all felt that human nature could not bear the strain nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwards with more awful effect. — Robert W. Chambers

If a novelist were so uncouth and possessed of so little moral sense that he should write of illicit love, his book would be barred from the public libraries and he woukd be ostracized by society. — Clyde Brion Davis

Oxford

It is well that there are palaces of peace
And discipline and dreaming and desire,
Lest we forget our heritage and cease
The Spirit's work - to hunger and aspire:

Lest we forget that we were born divine,
Now tangled in red battle's animal net,
Murder the work and lust the anodyne,
Pains of the beast 'gainst bestial solace set.

But this shall never be: to us remains
One city that has nothing of the beast,
That was not built for gross, material gains,
Sharp, wolfish power or empire's glutted feast.

We are not wholly brute. To us remains
A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams,
A place of visions and of loosening chains,
A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams.

She was not builded out of common stone
But out of all men's yearning and all prayer
That she might live, eternally our own,
The Spirit's stronghold - barred against despair. — C.S. Lewis

There is a level of consciousness between sleeping and fully wakening when the worries of the day have not settled upon us; the body is stilled, and the senses wholly receptive. If the sun is bright, there is pure silence, or the birds are beginning to sing, this shining level of consciousness can come to be the nearest we will get to paradise this side of our quietus, Every day should begin so, This is no dream. This is the reality. The world outside is beautiful. We do our best to hide it. We cover it. We push it father back. The ugliness we make ourselves. We originate our own worries. We put on our own shackles; build our prisons. We can only glimpse the golden reality, briefly, through our tiny barred windows. — John Wyatt

One of the genuine phenomenons over the past four decades has been the liberal community's steadfast insistence that God should be barred from the public sphere. This is not law. It is religious prejudice. — Armstrong Williams

[ ... ] and the barred owl calls from the well of my mind,
more echo than thought, as it fades through the wind
and flickers away to the silence beyond
like that voice, in myself, of another. — John Burnside

Judge [Gonzalo] Curiel has not said anything, and in fact, cannot say anything. But I would even broaden it out to, you know, judges who are victims of attack ads in say state Supreme Court elections can't talk back. Judges are really barred from commenting on this kind of huge public hue and cry. — Dahlia Lithwick

He was the kind of guy who dragged you out of the lake, shoved you down on the ground, growling and groping you, telling you all the dirty things he wanted to do to you ... and then he did them. No-holds-barred, invasive, mind-numbing, disturbingly awesome things. — Madeline Sheehan

Henderson sighed. There was a time, he reflected, when the coming of this night meant something. A dark Europe, groaning in superstitious fear, dedicated this Eve to the grinning Unknown. A million doors had once been barred against the evil visitants, a million prayers mumbled, a million candles lit. There was something majestic about the idea, Henderson reflected. — Robert Bloch

I feel caged. Always. I feel like I am this bird, trapped and stifled and caged, and I keep looking for a way to escape, but I am barred at every turn. — Julianne Donaldson

No one should ever be forced upon those in grief, and all over-emotional people, no matter how near or dear, should be barred absolutely. — Joan Didion

He had barred himself from mourning because...because he had never been part of Manon's life. Because there was nobody to mourn with him. Because he was alone, totally alone with the burden of his love. — Nina George

Free speech rights means that government officials are barred from creating lists of approved and disapproved political ideas and then using the power of the state to enforce those preferences. — Glenn Greenwald

The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now
James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it?
No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too. — Virginia Woolf

Assassins take no pride in fighting fairly. We take pride in winning. — Robin Hobb

There is the image of the man who imagines himself to be a prisoner in a cell. He stands at one end of this small, dark, barren room, on his toes, with arms stretched upward, hands grasping for support onto a small, barred window, the room's only apparent source of light. If he holds on tight, straining toward the window, turning his head just so, he can see a bit of bright sunlight barely visible between the uppermost bars. This light is his only hope. He will not risk losing it. And so he continues to staring toward that bit of light, holding tightly to the bars. So committed is his effort not to lose sight of that glimmer of life-giving light, that it never occurs to him to let go and explore the darkness of the rest of the cell. So it is that he never discovers that the door at the other end of the cell is open, that he is free. He has always been free to walk out into the brightness of the day, if only he would let go. (192) — Sheldon B. Kopp

...the question of portion size. When I ate Doritos or a Big Mac, I dept on eating and eating, and later experienced McRegret. So why when I ate a fourteen-week-old barred rock [heirloom breed chicken] or a grapefruit did I find it tremendously delicious and yet tremendously satisfying? If these foods tasted better, shouldn't I have just kept on gorging?

Fred Provenza believes the difference comes down to what he calls "deep satiety." "Fundamentally," he told me, "eating too much is an inability to satiate." Wen food meets needs at "multiple levels," it provides a feeling of "completeness" and offers a satisfaction that's altogether different from being stuffed. — Mark Schatzker

Gamache knew people were like homes. Some were cheerful and bright, some gloomy. Some could look good on the outside but feel wretched on the interior. And some of the least attractive homes, from the outside, were kindly and warm inside.
He also knew the first few rooms were for public consumption. It was only in going deeper that he'd find the reality. And finally, inevitably, there was the last room, the one we keep locked, and bolted and barred, even from ourselves. Especially from ourselves. — Louise Penny

Let there be a door to thy mouth, that it may be shut when need arises, and let it be carefully barred, that none may rouse thy voice to anger, and thou pay back abuse with abuse. — Saint Ambrose

The honest preachers had energy and go. They
fought the devil, no holds barred, boots and eye-gouging permitted. You might get the idea that they howled truth and beauty the way a seal bites out the National Anthem on a row of circus horns. But some of the truth and beauty remained, and the anthem was recognizable. — John Steinbeck

But it is human, is it not, to long for that from which we are barred? — Kate Morton

The Universe is vast. Nothing is more curious than the self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge. Skeptics and believers are alike. At this moment scientists and skeptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted; fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure. — Alfred North Whitehead

the moment when the kingdom of God overcomes the kingdoms of the world. It is the moment when a great old door, locked and barred since our first disobedience, swings open suddenly to reveal not just the garden, opened once more to our delight, but the coming city, the garden city that God had always planned and is now inviting us to go through the door and build with him. The dark power that stood in the way of this kingdom vision has been defeated, overthrown, rendered null and void. Its — N. T. Wright

She nodded, her gaze locked on his mouth. He could tell she wanted it on hers, and for once, they were perfectly in sync. Having no idea what he was doing, he kissed her again, another no-holds-barred, tongues tangling, rock-his-fucking-world kiss that left him staggered and her apparently unable to speak as they tore apart for air and waited for the world to right itself.
Didn't happen. — Jill Shalvis

Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality. — Douglas Adams

You are so fucking sexy." He peppered kisses along my jaw ... "The things I'm going to do to you, babe. I'm going to make you mine, every single piece of you." Our eyes locked, his filled with sexual promise. "No holds barred, Grace. Not with me. I'm going to fuck you like there's no tomorrow, and you're going to let me."
... His voice lowered and he leaned down to brush his mouth softly over mine. "But right now I'm going to make love to you. — Samantha Young

I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons ... I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out. — William Cohen

Anyone buying this book is going to be out a tidy sum if he is sucked in by the title. I wish I could write a real sexy book that would be barred from the mails. Apparently nothing whets a reader's appetite for literature more than the news that the author has been thrown into a federal pokey for disturbing the libido of millions of Americans. — Groucho Marx

Absent the rapid mobilization of climate advocates at every level - and the pooling of all their energy, creativity, and resources into a coordinated, no-holds-barred campaign - we will soon be crossing the threshold into climate hell. — Ross Gelbspan

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In alms-house, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his prospects. — Charles Dickens

Hmmm," he said. "Quite a novel idea, I must say. But hardly conducive to a bestselling, tell-all, no-holds-barred biography. — Alan Bradley

The good thing about kids is that they'll tell you the truth, straight-up, no strings attached, no holds barred honesty. The bad thing about kids is that they'll tell you the truth, straight-up, no strings attached, no holds barred honesty. — C.M. Stunich

From "Not For Ourselves Alone:"
In Elizabeth Cady Stanton's time:
Women were barred by custom from the pulpit and professions
Those who spoke in public were thought indecent
Married women were prohibited from owning or inheriting property: in fact, wives were the property of their husbands, who were entitled by law to her wages and her body.
Women were prohibited from signing contracts
Women had no right to their children or even their clothing in a divorce
Women were not allowed to serve on juries and most were considered incompetent to testify.
Women were not allowed to VOTE. — Ken Burns

Behind every liberal philanthropist fortune is a huge capitalist score. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can afford now to be liberal - an expensive indulgence - because in their early incarnations they were no-holds-barred capitalists who made lots of enemies conducting business without mercy and in search of pure profit. — Victor Davis Hanson

When the first of us failed at growing or herding or plowing the fields, we were told that we could sign a piece of paper and get money for the land, without anyone taking it. Mortgage, this was called, a piece of banker's cleverness that sounded good to many. I spoke against this trick, but who listened to Nanapush? People signed the paper, got money, came home night after night full of whiskey and food. Suddenly the foreclosure notices were handed out and the land was barred. It belonged to someone else. — Louise Erdrich

A society without the authentic and vibrant influence of women is a society that is not fully alive. A culture lacking the vital creativity of women is disadvantaged. Without the bearing of women on world affairs, humanity's already tenuous grip on peace is made even less sure. When women are barred, whether by law, cultural prejudice, or political ideology, from developing their full potential and offering their unique gifts, it is an injustice to women themselves and to humanity as a whole. — Stephen Catanzarite

All I can say is that you only realize how big your mountain is once you're laying motionless, helpless, and hopeless in the valley below. No one goes there on purpose, if you get what I'm saying, because the only way to find your personal low is to slip and roll down that mountain of yours, straight through to the bottom, no holds barred. — Artie Lange

The 1947 best-seller Modern Woman: The Lost Sex urged that spinsters be barred from teaching children on the grounds of "emotional incompetence." It was the ultimate example of the pendulum swinging - instead of prohibiting the employment of married women as teachers, society now wanted marriage to be mandatory. "A great many children have unquestionably been damaged psychologically by the spinster teacher who cannot be an adequate model of a complete woman either for boys or girls," the authors argued. — Gail Collins

A few years ago, the city council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls ... saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality? — Stephen Hawking

We shall never know what Rubens' children "really looked like," but this need not mean we are forever barred from examining the influence which acquired patterns or schema have on the organization of our perception. It would be interesting to examine this question in an experimental setting. but every student of art who has intensely occupied himself with a family of forms has experienced examples of such influence. In fact I vividly remember the shock I had while I was studying these formulas for chubby children: I never thought they could exist, but all of a sudden I saw such children everywhere. — E.H. Gombrich

We all know that there are language forms that are considered impolite and out of order, no matter what truths these languages might be carrying. If you talk with a harsh, urbanized accent and you use too many profanities, that will often get you barred from many arenas, no matter what you're trying to say. On the other hand, polite, formal language is allowed almost anywhere even when all it is communicating is hatred and violence. Power always privileges its own discourse while marginalizing those who would challenge it or that are the victims of its power. — Junot Diaz

It is disgraceful that people are being barred from neighborhoods and clubs on a basis that would have barred Jesus Himself. — James Pike

He was creating the first letters of the Slavonic alphabet. He started with rounded letters, but the Slavonic language was so wild that the ink could not hold it, and so he made a second alphabet of barred letters and caged the unruly language in them like a bird. — Milorad Pavic

Within a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred; — Charles Dickens

Custom is a prison, locked and barred by those who long ago were dust, the keys of which are in the keeping of the dead. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Lance Armstrong has joined the legion of the lost, the great athletes who were barred or exiled for sins admitted or charged or suspected. — George Vecsey