Besieged Quotes & Sayings

At every point I am besieged by people who would like me to conform to some social norm of whatever sort of social group they expect me to be a part of. I never have any identification with these social groups. — Sean Parker

We had another game where he was the doctor making a house call and I was the proper Victorian lady besieged by hysteria (also known as sexual frustration) which could only be relieved by a paroxysm (also known as an orgasm) the doctor brought on with either his hand or my vibrator. (At first Quinn didn't believe me when I told him that this actually happened in history, and that vibrators were, in fact, invented by doctors whose hands were cramping up from flicking sexually frustrated Victorian beans all day long, but I swear to God it's true. Just another one of those fun facts stored up in my brain.) — Melanie Harlow

In my life, I've been both the besieged and the besieged, and I know damned well which I prefer! — Sharon Kay Penman

Having a body is in itself the greatest threat to the mind ... The body encloses the mind in a fortress; before long the mind is besieged on all sides, and in the end the mind has to give itself up. — Marcel Proust

I am besieged by such strange thoughts, such dark sensations, such obscure questions, which still crowd my mind - and somehow I have neither the strength nor the desire to resolve them. It is not for me to resolve all this! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Term Paper Artist' represents two models of writing, one of the little boy bouncing his ball, generating stories for the sheer pleasure of it, and the besieged adult, writing to make a living, having to contend with a very competitive, very unreliable world in which public image counts. — David Leavitt

Michael Jackson fundamentally altered the terms of the debate about African American music. Remember, he was a chocolate, cherubic-faced genius with an African American halo. He had an Afro halo. He was a kid who was capable of embodying all of the high possibilities and the deep griefs that besieged the African American psyche. — Michael Eric Dyson

When your mind is besieged by some inauspicious thoughts, you can bring the sunshine into your life by staying calm! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The servants of God who had been a besieged garrison became a marching army; the ways of the world were filled as with thunder with the trampling of their feet and far ahead of that ever swelling host went a man singing; as simply he had sung that morning in the winter woods, where he walked alone. — G.K. Chesterton

Sybil's female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars. The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel. — Terry Pratchett

For as a city which has been once besieged and not sacked will ever after be more strong to hold out if it be assaulted by the like danger ... so those who are besieged and assaulted by their spiritual enemies will ever after more carefully arm themselves against them with the graces of God's Spirit, that they may not be overcome nor foiled by them. — George Downame

By flatterers besieged And so obliging that he ne'er obliged. — Alexander Pope

Being raised Catholic in a pressure-cooker household besieged by alcohol and bill collectors enforced and heightened a sense of sentry duty in me, the oldest of five children and the one most responsible for keeping everything from capsizing. Wild indulgence was for other people, the non-worriers. — James Wolcott

The Seer pulled out a flask and removed the cap. Saul knelt before the Seer. Samuel poured the contents of the flask over Saul's head. The anointing oil flowed down over his face and beard. The crowd noise increased again. Samuel cried out, "Behold the man of Yahweh's choosing. Behold your king!" And the mass of Israelite leaders all responded, "LONG LIVE THE KING!" When the crowd died down in its applause, Samuel announced, "Hear O Israel! I have received word that the Ammonites have besieged the city of Jabesh-gilead. But I am no longer your judge over you. Hear now the words of your king! — Brian Godawa

Donna E. Smyth - adventures with words; she is always doing something new and unique. Beginning with her visceral morality, her stories are startling, nerve wracking, provocative: she combines Angela Carter's beautiful style with Patricia Highsmith's malevolent atmospheres. Smyth shatters clichs and dismisses mere sociology. She knows that pleasure is besieged by terror. She tells us what we don't want to know, but need to know. Smyth's writing disturbs us, enrichingly, because truth can never be at peace with language. — George Elliott Clarke

The realm of death seems an enemy's country to most men, on whose shores they are loathly driven by stress of weather; to the wise man it is the desired port where he moors his bark gladly, as in some quiet haven of the Fortunate Isles; it is the golden west into which his sun sinks, and, sinking, casts back a glory upon the leaden cloud-tack which had darkly besieged his day. — James Russell Lowell

With heart for mind, we love not wise
Besieged by what Man took for eyes. — Helen McKinnon Doan

When their city was occupied by the Gauls, and the Romans, who were besieged in the Capitol, had made military engines from the hair of the women, they dedicated a temple to the Bald Venus. — Lactantius

The spiritual reformer cannot expect to have the majority on his side. He must be prepared to stand alone like Ezekiel and Jeremy. He must take as his example St. Augustine besieged by the Vandals at Hippo, or St. Gregory preaching at Rome with the Lombards at the gates. For the true helpers of the world are the poor in spirit, the men who bear the sign of the cross on their foreheads, who refuse to be overcome by the triumph of injustice and put their sole trust in the salvation of God. — Christopher Henry Dawson

I don't get involved with people because quite frankly most people aren't worth getting involved with. I don't need somebody to complete me, be the other half of me or any of that freaky shit. — L.P. Lovell

Most of us prefer to be as quiet as possible about giving, because every time it's publicized that we do something, if it's something of the nature of giving, we'll be doubly besieged, and you really get sick of being always criticized no matter what you do. — Alex Haley

She couldn't read his expression. As he started toward her, she recalled the way he'd seemed to glide through the sand the first time she'd ever seen him; she remembered their kiss on the boat dock the night of his sister's wedding. And she heard again the words she'd said to him on the day they'd said good-bye. She was besieged by a storm of conflicting emotions - desire, regret, longing, fear, grief, love. There was so much to say, yet what could they really begin to say in this awkward setting and with so much time already passed? — Nicholas Sparks

She said if good-hearted families travel to Night Vale only to find their subconsciouses besieged with unforgettable revelations, horrors buried so deep as to be completely indescribable, revealing wholly unbearable new truths, then we certainly can't expect these people to return, let alone leave good Yelp ratings for local businesses. — Joseph Fink

It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged. — Walter De La Mare

Within twelve hours of the Sunday Herald hitting the streets, Golgotham suddenly found itself besieged by the young, bored, and semi-affluent. — Nancy A. Collins

The Hohenstaufen army besieged the Bavarian rebels in the town and fortress of Weinsberg; there, says an old tradition, the rival cries "Hi Welf!" and "Hi Weibling!" established the names of the warring groups; and there (says a pretty legend), when the victorious Swabians accepted the surrender of the town on the understanding that the women alone were to be spared, and were to be allowed to depart with whatever they could carry, the sturdy housewives marched forth with their husbands on their backs. — Will Durant

Civilization is an achievement not a gift; it is always besieged, must constantly be defended, and once lost, is immeasurably difficult to reclaim. We see the results of the assaults against freedom all around us. — Roger Kimball

I know a plastic surgeon who put the gun/ in his mouth, fired, and lived./ Thing of the echo. The brain in its great hall/ banqueting, then besieged. — Keith Ratzlaff

The reflexive sense of wonder, of crying over a medal of the Madonna del Granduca and not knowing why, will be mostly replaced by survival and knowing perfectly well why. And survival will mean replacing the love of the beautiful with the love of what is funny, humor being the last resort of the besieged Jew, especially when he is placed among his own kind. — Gary Shteyngart

Advertising, an art, is constantly besieged and compromised by logicians and technocrats, the scientists of our profession who wildly miss the main point about everything we do ... — George Lois

It is pretentious for photographers to believe that their pictures alone change things. If they did, we wouldn't be besieged by war, by incidents of genocide, by hunger. A more realistic assessment of photography's value is to point out that it is illustrative of what's going on, that it provides a record of history, that photographs can prompt dialogue. — Eugene Richards

And the Austrian army, awfully arrayed, boldly, by battery, besieged Belgrade. — Patrick Leigh Fermor

We -- the industrialized, technologized world -- have never been richer. And yet to an extraordinary extent we in the West continue to inhabit a moral and cultural universe shaped by the hedonistic imperatives and radical ideals of the Sixties. Culturally, morally the world we inhabit is increasingly a trash world: addicted to sensation, besieged everywhere by the cacophonous, mind-numbing din of rock music, saturated with pornography, in thrall to the lowest common denominator wherever questions of taste, manners or intellectual delicacy are concerned. Marwick was right: 'The cultural revolution, in short, had continuous, uninterrupted, and lasting consequences'. — Roger Kimball

Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

The Indians were Araucanians from the south of Chile; several hundreds in number, and highly disciplined. They first appeared in two bodies on a neighbouring hill; having there dismounted, and taken off their fur mantles, they advanced naked to the charge. The only weapon of an Indian is a very long bamboo or chuzo, ornamented with ostrich feathers, and pointed by a sharp spear-head. My informer seemed to remember with the greatest horror the quivering of these chuzos as they approached near. When close, the cacique Pincheira hailed the besieged to give up their arms, or he would cut all their throats. As this would probably have been the result of their entrance under any circumstances, the answer was given by a volley of musketry. — Charles Darwin

September 11, 2001: Citizens of the U.S., besieged by terror's sting,
rose up, weeping glory, as if on eagles' wings.
from the poem Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001 — Aberjhani

Man is full of desires: he loves only those who can satisfy them all. "This man is a good mathematician," someone will say. But I have no concern for mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, that is to say, a decent man who can accommodate himself to all my desires in a general sort of way. — Blaise Pascal

A terrible feeling of loneliness besieged her, so strong it was almost like physical pain ... — Jennifer Wilde

I was besieged by a yearning, a craving, a burning desire. My heart had opened like one of those mysterious flowers that only bloom at night. — Chloe Thurlow

According to then current laws of war, the besieged could make terms if they surrendered, but not if they forced a siege to its bitter end, so presumably Charles felt no compunctions. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Celibacy bestows on a man the qualified freedom of a besieged city where one sometimes has to eat rats. — Sean O Faolain

Thwarted by the British and French on the world stage, Berlin decided in 1913 to concentrate Germany's military objectives in Europe. That year Germany grew into a singularly dangerous continental presence: besieged, paranoid and armed to the teeth. — Paul Ham

I don't have a type. I don't discriminate when it comes to pussy.- Hugo, Besieged. — L.P. Lovell

It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination. — Benjamin Disraeli

I don't play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge. — Vincent Price

And when the elderly man refused to listen and mumbled on, an odd image came to his mind of a lighthouse besieged by the flying bodies of lost birds, who were dashed senseless, by the gale, against the glass. He had a strange sensation that he was both lighthouse and bird; he was steadfast and brilliant; and at the same time he was whirled, with all other things, senseless against the glass. — Virginia Woolf

The disease and its medicine are like two factions in a besieged town; they tear one another to pieces, but both unite against their common enemy, Nature. — Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey

It is impossible to study the works of the great mathematicians, or even those of the lesser, without noticing and distinguishing two opposite tendencies, or rather two entirely different kinds of minds. The one sort are above all preoccupied with logic; to read their works, one is tempted to believe they have advanced only step by step, after the manner of a Vauban who pushes on his trenches against the place besieged, leaving nothing to chance. The other sort are guided by intuition and at the first stroke make quick but sometimes precarious conquests, like bold cavalrymen of the advance guard.
[1913, p210] — Henri Poincare

Perhaps because we knew we couldn't win against their might we turned on each other, riven by petty jealousies, split apart by treachery, our lives a dark tangle of fear. Victims often attack one another, they become chickens in a pen, bickering, frenzied. We did the same. Not only were our people besieged by the Romans but they were at war with each other. The priests were deferential, siding with Rome, and those who opposed them were said to be robbers and thugs, my father and his friends among them. Taxes were so high the poor could no longer feed their children, while those who allied themselves with Rome had prospered and grown rich. People gave testimony against their own neighbors; they stole from each other and locked their doors to those in need. The more suspicious we were of each other, the more we were defeated, split into feuding mobs when in fact we were one, the sons and daughters of the kingdom of Israel, believers in Adonai. — Alice Hoffman

And so even the righteous heart is besieged by the blinding light of false knowledge. Falsity is like an ocean that presses around solitary moments of truth, treatening to overwhelm or blind the seekers of knowledge, to eradicate them in an instant of self-deceiving brilliance.
Knowledge is power; it guards our souls - guard it well. — C.S. Goto

Evidently, rigging cables is therapy for the Swiss: or part of their theology. What was it that he used to say? A balanced arc between mountain rows / as servant to his master shows / the power of besieged belief / in something something something, something something something-something to do with ducks, or rainbows. — Mark Helprin

Whenever she felt besieged by doubts, she would think of herself as standing valiantly alone, as almost heroic, so as to squash her uncertainty. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

There is no presence of the American columns in the city of Baghdad at all. We besieged them and we killed most of them. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

You American intellectuals - you want so desperately to feel besieged and persecuted! — Gunter Grass

Morgan glanced over his shoulder to where Dougie walked behind him. "Dougie, you're lookin' a bit worn. Are you needin' to stop and, um, rest a bit?"
Dougie looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "Rest? Are you daft?"
Morgan glared at him and gave a jerk of his head toward Amalie, who struggled on determinedly before him.
Dougie winked. "Och, aye, I am a bit weary."
In no time, word had gotten up and down the line that Amalie needed to rest but was being too stubborn to admit it. And suddenly Morgan was besieged with whispered pleas to stop, his men whining of sore feet, headaches, and aching backs.
Then Connor appeared at his side, looking fashed.
"What in God's name has come over the men? They're complainin' like old wom - — Pamela Clare

He'd pushed her. He'd scared her. He'd besieged her. He'd vowed he wouldn't, and he did. — Ann Brashares

I declare the Mountain besieged. You shall not depart from it, until you call on your side for a truce and a parley. We will bear no weapons against you, but we leave you to your gold. You may eat that, if you will! — J.R.R. Tolkien

In recent decades, Europe has retreated to the conduct of soft power. But besieged as it is on almost all frontiers by upheavals and migration, Europe, including Britain, can avoid turning into a victim of circumstance only by assuming a more active role. — Henry Kissinger

This boa, the American columns, are being besieged between Basra and other towns north, west, south and west of Basra. The Americans are the people who are under siege. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

The combination of rumination and negative mood is toxic. Research shows that people who ruminate while sad or distraught are likely to feel besieged, powerless, self-critical, pessimistic, and generally negatively biased. — Sonja Lyubomirsky

The best men are not those who have waited for chances but who have taken them; besieged the chance; conquered the chance; and made chance the servitor. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Some people accused me of being pro-Muslim in Bosnia, but I realised that our job is to give all sides an equal hearing, but in cases of genocide you can't just be neutral. You can't just say, 'Well, this little boy was shot in the head and killed in besieged Sarajevo and that guy over there did it, but maybe he was upset because he had an argument with his wife.' No, there is no equality there, and we had to tell the truth. — Christiane Amanpour

Shadow is ever besieged, for that is its nature. Whilst darkness devours, and light steals. And so one sees shadow ever retreat to hidden places, only to return in the wake of the war between dark and light. — Steven Erikson

I'm aware of how lucky I am. Being able to make pretty good money, and get to do a lot of fun work, and at the same time I'm not besieged by photographers. — John C. Reilly

when the fortress of the body is besieged on all sides the mind must at length succumb. — Marcel Proust

To me, the work I do is a means of interpreting unsettling truths, of bearing witness, and of sounding an alarm. The beauty of formal representation both carries an affirmation of life and subversively brings us face to face with news from our besieged world. — Richard Misrach

Mothers should tell little girls and boys about the importance of dreams,' Aunt Habiba said. 'They give a sense direction. It is not enough to reject this courtyard
you need to have a vision of the meadows with which you want to replace it.' But how, I asked Aunt Habiba, could you distinguish among all the wishes, all the cravings which besieged you, and find the one on which you ought to focus, the important dream that gave you vision? She said that little children had to be patient, the key dream would emerge and bloom within, and then, from the intense pleasure it gave you, you would know that that it was the genuine little treasure which would give you direction and light. (p. 214) — Fatema Mernissi

There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested, commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed. — Sun Tzu

How can you lay siege to a whole country? Who is really under siege now? Baghdad cannot be besieged. — Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf

The most vexing problem Israel faces is its relations with its neighbors. From the inception of the state until today, Israelis have felt besieged, surrounded by enemies who want to make them disappear. — Edgar Bronfman, Sr.

To lead a life so wholly happy, so wholly unexamined that she could be dying, could be betrayed, could be besieged on all sides and never even know it. — Paullina Simons

Fear is a false prophet and believes that what it fears is actually coming to pass. At night every trifling occurrence seems more terrible to the besieged, for on account of the darkness no man tells what he sees but always what he hears. — Onasander

There are routes not to be followed, armies not to be attacked, citadels not to be besieged, territory not to be fought over. — Sun Tzu

The followers must feel besieged. — Umberto Eco

We conservatives bemoan the decline in values that has besieged our society. Why then should we not abhor the lack of morality involved in discharging untested chemicals into the air, ground, and water to alter and harm, to whatever degree, human life and wildlife? As a conservative, I do abhor it. — Wendell Berry

High in a turret of a great castle rising on a black crag above snowy plains, besieged and grand, crammed full of an empire's treasure, and he sitting by a log fire with a sad and lovely princess ... I used to dream about such things, he thought. I used to long for them, ache for them. They seemed the very stuff of life, its essence. So why does all this taste of ashes? — Iain M. Banks

It is not, indeed, to be supposed that you would wish to marry any one till you were asked: a girl's affections should never be won unsought. But when they are sought - when the citadel of the heart is fairly besieged - it is apt to surrender sooner than the owner is aware of, and often against her better judgment, and in opposition to all her preconceived ideas of what she could have loved, unless she be extremely careful and discreet. — Anne Bronte

This is how it starts, among the closed circles of the marooned, the shipwrecked, the besieged: jealousy, dissention, a breach in the groupthink walls. Then the entry of the foe, the murderer, the shadow slipping in through the door we forgot to lock because we were distracted by our darker selves: nursing our minor hatreds, indulging our petty resentments, yelling at one another, tossing the crockery. — Margaret Atwood

Besieged by lawsuits that threatened to engulf almost everyone at the White House, Clinton assistants shunned paper or e-mail records of their daily deliberations. One told me that he would go down the hall to confer with his division chief face to face rather than discuss an issue on the telephone. — Robert Dallek

When besieged, I'm calm as a baby. When all hell breaks loose, I'm collected and cool. — Eugene H. Peterson

The repeated requests for us to' wait,' and' wait,' and' wait' while our people are suffering, while our people are besieged, while our land is being colonized, and while the two-state solution is being destroyed and the prospects for peace are evaporating, must understand that such requests are not viable under these circumstances and are unsustainable. — Riyad Mansour

If you feel besieged by life today, lean on the God of peace - the God of hope and the future. The same God who has a plan for Israel has a plan for you. Trust that He will direct your path. — David Jeremiah

From the beginning, Mandela and Tambo was besieged with clients. We were not the only African lawyers in South Africa, but we were the only firm of African lawyers. For Africans, we were the firm of first choice and last resort. — Nelson Mandela

The danger of religious faith is that it allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy. Because each new generation of children is taught that religious propositions need not be justified in the way that all others must, civilization is still being besieged by the armies of the preposterous. We are, even now, killing ourselves over ancient literature. Who would have thought something so tragically absurd could be possible? — Sam Harris

Men propound mathematical theorems in besieged cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on the scaffold, discuss a new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature. — C.S. Lewis