Clear Stamp Quotes & Sayings

What is it about this book - essentially a military history of the first month of the First World War - which gives it its stamp and has created its enormous reputation? Four qualities stand out: a wealth of vivid detail which keeps the reader immersed in events, almost as an eyewitness; a prose style which is transparently clear, intelligent, controlled and witty; a cool detachment of moral judgment - Mrs. Tuchman is never preachy or reproachful; she draws on skepticism, not cynicism, leaving the reader not so much outraged by human villainy as amused and saddened by human folly. These first three qualities are present in all of Barbara Tuchman's work, but in The Guns of August there is a fourth which makes the book, once taken up, almost impossible to set aside. Remarkably, she persuades the reader to suspend any foreknowledge of what is about to happen. — Barbara W. Tuchman

All those postage-stamp front yards we used to have were reminders that we like clear spaces to see predators coming. — Daniel H. Wilson

It is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring, effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon the wax. — Edgar Allan Poe

Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness, that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features. — Mary Shelley

Then, while Cinnamon straightened up the kitchen as usual, Nutmeg and I sat at a small table, drinking tea. She ate only one slice of toast, with a little butter. Outside, a cold, sleety rain was falling. Nutmeg said little, and I said little - a few remarks about the weather. She seemed to have something she wanted to say, though. That much was clear from the look on her face and the way she spoke. She tore off stamp-sized pieces of toast and transported them, one at a time, to her mouth. We looked out at the rain now and then, as if it were our longtime mutual friend. — Haruki Murakami

Now see what a Christian is, drawn by the hand of Christ. He is a man on whose clear and open brow God has set the stamp of truth; one whose very eye beams bright with honor; in whose very look and bearing you may see freedom, manliness, veracity; a brave man
a noble man
frank, generous, true, with, it may be, many faults; whose freedom may take the form of impetuosity or rashness, but the form of meanness never. — Frederick William Robertson

O Zeus, why is it you have given men clear ways of testing whether gold is counterfeit but, when it comes to men, the body carries no stamp of nature for distinguishing bad from good. — Euripides