Commence Quotes & Sayings

Be confident and courageous when you are about to make a start. Courage is key! — Israelmore Ayivor

I really think I shall commence chapter forty-four," he said, patting his hands together. "I shall commence, I think, with a slight exaggeration and go on from there into an outright lie. Constance, my dear?"
"Yes, Uncle Julian?"
"I am going to say that my wife was a beautiful woman. — Shirley Jackson

It would much conduce to the public benefit, if, instead of discouraging free-thinking, there was erected in the midst of this free country a dianoetic academy, or seminary for free-thinkers, provided with retired chambers, and galleries, and shady walks and groves, where, after seven years spent in silence and meditation, a man might commence a genuine free-thinker, and from that time forward, have license to think what he pleased, and a badge to distinguish him from counterfeits. — George Berkeley

All black people who are even minimally conscious, black people who have ever experienced Europe's technological power crusading in the vanguard of a civilizing mission, have profound feelings of inferiority and bitterly regret the fact that the Industrial Revolution did not agreeably commence in Dahomey or Dakar. Nothing is achieved by concealing this fact. — Lewis Nkosi

I detest all books which run chronologically, which commence at the cradle and end with the grave. Even life doesn't run that way, much as people think it does. Life only commences at the hour of spiritual birth - which may be at eighteen or at forty-seven. And death is never the goal - but life! more life! — Henry Miller

A truly good book ... teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living on its hint. When I read an indifferent book, it seems the best thing I can do, but the inspiring volume hardly leaves me leisure to finish its latter pages. It is slipping out of my fingers while I read ... What I began by reading I must finish by acting. — Henry David Thoreau

The Reproductions of the living Ens
From sires to sons, unknown to sex, commence ...
Unknown to sex the pregnant oyster swells,
And coral-insects build their radiate shells ...
Birth after birth the line unchanging runs,
And fathers live transmitted in their sons;
Each passing year beholds the unvarying kinds,
The same their manners, and the same their minds. — Erasmus Darwin

Although all new ideas are born in France, they are not readily adopted there. It seems that they must first commence to prosper in a foreign country. — Sarah Bernhardt

Commence," was Monsieur Defarge's not unreasonable reply, "at the commencement. — Charles Dickens

Let us together commence a journey of peace, harmony and progress in South Asia. — Atal Bihari Vajpayee

V-day is a movement: an organized effort to finally end violence against women.
V-Day is a vision: we see a civilization where women live in freedom and safety.
V-Day is a spirit: affirming that life should be live creating and thriving rather than surviving or recovering from terrible atrocities.
V-Day is a catalyst: by raising wide public awareness of the issue, it will reinvigorates efforts already under way and commence new initiatives in publicity, education, and law.
V-Day is a vital ongoing process: we proclaim Valentine's Day as V'day until the violence against women stops, and the it will become Victory Day. — Eve Ensler

Infinitesimally soon, the eternity of his own death would commence and render all of this unreal. — Jonathan Franzen

Does not the discipline of the scientific spirit just commence when one no longer harbours any conviction? — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best reformers the world has ever seen
are those who commence on themselves. — George Bernard Shaw

Thus it is necessary to commence from an inescapable duality: the finite is not the infinite. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

It is about a dragon and a prince and a princess." "Oh, lovely! Does it end happily?" "Happily for the humans. Not so well for the dragon." "Just as it should be. Commence. — Michael D. O'Brien

He that writes may be considered as a kind of general challenger, whom every one has a right to attack; since he quits the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his merit to the public judgement. To commence author is to claim praise, and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace. — Samuel Johnson

Let's say that he should go out and hang himself because he finds that writing well is impossibly difficult. Then he should be cut down without mercy and forced by his own self to write as well as he can for the rest of his life. At least he will have the story of the hanging to commence with. — Ernest Hemingway,

The Kabbalah says if we have not fulfilled our condition during one life, we must commence another ... until we have acquired the condition that fits our reunion with God. — M.J. Rose

Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life. — Plato

I have recently started acting lessons in south France, and I intend to commence acting lessons at Rada. — David Ginola

The study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment ... We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts of our mental weapons to grasp it. — Alfred North Whitehead

This work should commence with the conception of man, and should describe the nature of the womb, and how the child inhabits it, and in what stage it dwells there, and the manner of its quickening and feeding, and its growth, and what interval there is between one stage of growth and another, and what thing drives it forth from the body of the mother, and for what reason it sometimes emerges from the belly of its mother before the due time. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Oh, goodie. Let the bloodbath commence. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Of your own indefatigable labor from early dawn and of your explicit instructions, that the batteries should reserve their ammunition, until the grand charge should commence, for which the enemy were undoubtedly preparing. — John Bigelow

We only begin to realize the value of our possessions when we commence to do good to others with them. No earthly investment pays so large an interest as charity. — Joseph Cook

I'faith, 'tis an Occasion of no small Satisfaction to commence this Enquiry into the Romances & Fiction of the English--& their antick Neighbors, the Irish & the Scotch--free at last from the Tyranny of scurvy Translators--& to reacquaint myself with the earliest Works that engender'd my Love for the Novel. O Swift, O Fielding, O Sterne, I hail thee after too long an Absence, keen to revel once more in your rare Inventions and pricking Raillery, along with those of your less-fam'd Countrymen. Prithee look kindly on these Efforts of yr humble Servant to blazon your Glories to the gaping Pucklick. — Steven Moore

The descent into matter must be complete before the ascent to spirit can commence. — Dion Fortune

At around 6:00 a.m., April 30, 1987, we were awakened by a loud bull horn while inside our rented mobile home at an Ozark, Missouri trailer park.
"Glenn Miller, Jack Jackson, Douglas Sheets, Tony Wydra, this is a United States Marshal. You have three minutes to come out with your hands up, or we will commence firing."
The feds had flown in two SWAT teams; one from Kentucky, the other from Louisiana (40 in all, plus the Marshals and local authorities) to make the arrests.
We were surrounded.
I had a hang-over, couldn't find my pants, and had to pee, bad. — Frazier Glenn Miller

A great man may commence life in a hovel. — Publilius Syrus

I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way.But in this water there are countless objects at different depths; and certain influences will give certain kinds of those objects an upward influence which may be intense enough and continue long enough to bring them into the upper visible layer. After the impulse ceases they commence to sink downwards. — Charles Sanders Peirce

I hope that when I commence that oath, my tongue may cleave to the roof of my mouth. If I ever sign one line to show allegiance, I hope my arm falls paralyzed to my side ... Get out. I'm so disgusted I can't endure your presence any longer. — Belle Boyd

If any young man is about to commence the world, we say to him, publicly and privately, Go to the West — Horace Greeley

All men will commence in their present rank and promotion will be open to all men alike, without any distinctions or qualifications, political or otherwise. — John Amery

She cares about fall's magnificence in the rain
The dipping raindrops' dance assigning thence Indicated rhyme that eases her refrain
Before they met - her paces commence. — Victoria Haugnes

Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. — Benjamin Disraeli

Once you really commence to see things, then you really commence to feel things. — Edward Steichen

Prepare to evacuate soul in ten, in nine, eight.
Chloe's splashing through the ankle-deep back-up of renal fluid from her failed kidneys.
Death will commence in five.
Five, four.
Around her, a parasitic life spray paints her heart.
Four, three.
Three, two.
Chloe climbs hand-over-hand up the curled lining of her own throat.
Death to commence in three, two.
Moonlight shines in through the open mout ...
h.
Prepare for the last breath, now.
Evacuate.
Now.
Soul clear of body.
Death commences.
Now. — Chuck Palahniuk

I shall now call myself;
I shall now call.
In the forest of my heart, seeing myself,
I shall love myself and love myself.
I shall be my own quest,
My absolute wealth.
The journey of light supreme will commence
In the heart of freedom. — Sri Chinmoy

When you first commence painting everything is a muddle. Even the commonest colors seem to have the devil in them. — Thomas Eakins

Several of my young acquaintances are in their graves who gave promise of making happy and useful citizens and there is no question whatever that cigarettes alone were the cause of their destruction. No boy living would commence the use of cigarettes if he knew what a useless, soulless, worthless thing they would make of him. — Luther Burbank

There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life. — John Stuart Mill

Never start with a clear idea of storyline. Instead, commence blindly, with a vague notion of trying to include a reference to your favourite band, gift shop, or chocolate bar. — Alan C. Martin

The significance of the resurrection claim within "true" Christian descriptions of the self, world and God is that, despite how tragic and hopeless present situations and circumstances appear to be, there is a God who sits high and looks low, a God who came into this filthy, fallen world in the form of a common peasant in order to commence a new epoch, an epoch in which Easter focuses our attention on the decisive victory of Jesus Christ and hence the possibility of our victory over our creature hood, the old creation and this old world, with its history of oppression and exploitation. So to be a Christian is to have a joyful attitude toward the resurrection claim, to stake one's life on it and to rest one's hope upon its promise - the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. — Cornel West

Here is a story that's stranger than strange.
Before we begin you may want to arrange:
a blanket, a cushion, a comfortable seat,
and maybe some cocoa and something to eat.
I'll warn you, of course, before we commence,
my story is eerie and full of suspense,
brimming with danger and narrow escapes,
and creatures of many remarkable shapes.
Dragons and ogres and gorgons and more,
and creatures you've not even heard of before.
And faraway places? There's plenty of those!
(And menacing villains to tingle your toes.)
So ready your mettle and steady your heart.
It's time for my story's mysterious start ... — Robert Paul Weston

Tyranny Absolves all faith; and who invades our rights, However his own commence, can never be But an usurper. — Henry Brooke

Where philosophy ends, poetry must commence. There should not be a common point of view, a natural manner of thinking which standsin contrast to art and liberal education, or mere living; that is, one should not conceive of a realm of crudeness beyond the boundaries of education. Every conscious link of an organism should not perceive its limits without a feeling for its unity in relation to the whole. For example, philosophy should not only be contrasted to non-philosophy, but also to poetry. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. — Albert Einstein

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. — John Adams

He settled into his ergonomically designed, yet inexpensive, chair and logged into his computer. He could do this. Just turn the computer on, shut brain down, and commence typing until fingers fell off. - Captain Lewis — Jacqueline Patricks

If man should commence by studying himself, he would see how impossible it is to go further. — Blaise Pascal

The realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and of external utility is required. — Karl Marx

A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims. — Thomas Jefferson

People are the stocks into which we are to invest our time ... the best of all investments you can make is to help people come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. You can make a commitment right here and now ... I'm asking you today not to graduate but commence a new life for God every step of the way. — Billy Graham

After men have got their exaltations and their crowns
have become Gods, even the sons of God
are made Kings of kings and Lords of lords, they have the power then of propagating their species in spirit; and that is the first of their operations with regard to organizing a world. Power is then given to them to organize the elements, and then commence the organization of tabernacles. — Brigham Young

Whatever you begin will see the light of day provided you can dream big and be a ruler over your dreams with persistent actions. — Israelmore Ayivor

They say that the British cannot fix anything properly without a dinner, but I'm sure the Americans can fix nothing without a drink. If you meet, you drink; if you part, you drink; if you make acquaintance, you drink; if you close a bargain, you drink; they quarrel in their drink, and they make it up with a drink. They drink, because it is hot; they drink, because it is cold. If successful in elections, they drink and rejoice; if not, they drink and swear; - they begin to drink early in the morning, they leave off late at night; they commence it early in life, and they continue it, until they soon drop into the grave. To use their own expression, the way they drink is "quite a caution." As for water, what the man said, when asked to belong to the Temperance Society, appears to be the general opinion: "it's very good for navigation. — Frederick Marryat

True belief and true repentance are twins: it would be idle to attempt to say which is born first. All the spokes of a wheel move at once when the wheel moves, and so all the graces commence action when regeneration is wrought by the Holy Ghost. Repentance, however, there must be. — Charles Spurgeon

Commence mental back patting. — Adrianne Brooks

I was never educated to be an actor. I went to a regular college. It was a great thing for me because I feel that the main thing to get out of college is a thirst for knowledge. College should teach you how to be curious. Most people think that college is the end of education, but it isn't. The ceremony of giving you the diploma is called commencement. And that means you are fit to commence learning because you have learned hot to learn. — Vincent Price

When a couple of young people strongly devoted to each other commence to eat onions, it is safe to pronounce them engaged. — James Montgomery Bailey

Do not commence your exercises in philosophy in those regions where an error can deliver you over to the executioner. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

His ears were attuned for the steady firing of Couzens' heavy machine guns, which he knew should now commence, and the thud of his carefully sited mortars, but he did not hear them and he realized, suddenly and sickeningly, that the Chinese had not attacked across the spit of land. They were pouring across the ice, and had taken Dog Company in the rear. — Pat Frank

Through our own creative experience we came to know that the real tradition in art is not housed only in museums and art galleries and in great works of art; it is innate in us and can be galvanized into activity by the power of creative endeavor in our own day, and in our own country, by our own creative individuals in the arts. We also came to realize that we in Canada cannot truly understand the great cultures of the past and of other peoples, until we ourselves commence our own creative life in the arts. Until we do so, we are looking at these from the outside. — Lawren Harris

Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever was success so complete. — James Monroe

Caia sighed. If this guy knew that he was in a room of lykans, two of which who looked as if they could happily rip him apart, the cockiness would soon dissolve and the peeing of the pants would commence. — Samantha Young

Layla, darling, I shall be ready whenever you decide to retire to the country and commence on a life of unending debauchery. — Eloisa James

It is my intention, moreover, to recount the misfortunes which immediately came upon the whole Jewish nation in consequence of their plots against our Saviour, and to record the ways and the times in which the divine word has been attacked by the Gentiles, and to describe the character of those who at various periods have contended for it in the face of blood and of tortures, as well as the confessions which have been made in our own days, and finally the gracious and kindly succor which our Saviour has afforded them all. Since I propose to write of all these things I shall commence my work with the beginning of the dispensation of our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ. — Eusebius

Learn this, all nice and decent people. An election year commence as soon as the first gunshot buss. — Marlon James

Team Inara, commence Operation Joss-Whedon-Is-A-God. — John Ringo

One big blow can hit and destroy any strong door in front of you. As for the 1000 feeble blows, they can't even remove the cobwebs. Courage is the key. — Israelmore Ayivor

The classical anthropological question, What is man? - "how like an angel, this quintessence of dust!" - is not now asked by anthropologists. Instead, they commence with a chapter on Physical Anthropology and then forget the whole topic and go on to Culture. — Paul Goodman

Getting started is the most difficult thing to do; once you file it out, they rest of the journey is as soft as the straw. Be a good beginner. — Israelmore Ayivor

The history of my life must begin by the earliest circumstance which my memory can evoke; it will therefore commence when I had attained the age of eight years and four months. — Giacomo Casanova

Let us endeavor to commence every enterprise with a pure view to the glory of God, continue it without distraction, and finish it without impatience. — Francois Fenelon

Let the battle for peace commence — Patrick Ness

Every big castle was once started with a single block; despise no small beginnings. A little step taken every day builds up the hope of greater accomplishments. Do something every day! — Israelmore Ayivor

Too much talking and not enough writhing in ecstasy. You will commence writhing now. — Katie MacAlister

I'm about to commence four years of obeying the cause of a bruiser on a horse. I refuse to put down what might be the last book I see for months. — Tamora Pierce

Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits? — Thomas Jefferson

Live by yourself and you bound to talk yourself and when ye commence that folks start it up that you're light in the head. But I reckon it's all right to talk to a dog since most folks do even if a dog don't understand and cain't answer if he did. — Cormac McCarthy

We now have two options: We can commence operations at the Hotspots in Italy and Greece and continue to do nothing - in which case they would soon be overflowing. Or we can show responsibility and organize a distribution system that takes into account the limits of each individual member state. Migrants, for their part, must recognize that, while they have a right to protection, they do not have the right to freely choose the country. In addition, it is clear: Not everybody can come to us. — Martin Schulz

How calmly does the orange branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.

Sometime while night obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever, and from thence
A second history will commence.

A chronicle no longer gold,
A bargaining with mist and mould,
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth; and then

An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth's obscene, corrupting love.

And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.

O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me? — Tennessee Williams

Interestingly enough, for me, a character like Captain Jack, you feel like you could just continue. The possibilities are endless and limitless. There is any possibility of madness and absurdity that could commence, so you feel that, with this character, you're never really done. — Johnny Depp

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred. — Niccolo Machiavelli

There is something in human history like retribution; and it is a rule of historical retribution that its instrument be forged not by the offended, but by the offender himself. The first blow dealt to the French monarchy proceeded from the nobility, not from the peasants. The Indian revolt does not commence with the ryots, tortured, dishonoured and stripped naked by the British, but with the sepoys, clad, fed and petted, fatted and pampered by them. — Karl Marx

Every creature aflame as it swims through the night! How sea, how shore's held in a burning embrace! Then let Eros reign with whom all things commence! Hurrah for the ocean! Hurrah for the waves 8770 And their crests with the sacred fire ablaze! Hurrah for the water, hurrah for the fire, Hurrah for their union, so rare, with each other! ALL TOGETHER. Hurrah for the gentle caressing breezes! Hurrah for the caves and their secret recesses! Lift up our voices in praise of the four: Water, fire, earth, and air! — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

People of peace, men and women of desire, such is the splendor of the Temple in which you will one day have the right to take your place. Such privilege should astonish you less, however, than your ability to commence building it down here, your ability, in fact, to adorn it at every moment of your existence. Remember the saying 'as above, so below', and contribute to this by making 'as below, so above'. — Louis Claude De Saint-Martin

Following my accident, I plumped up like a freshly roasted wiener, my skin cracking to accommodate the expanding meat. The doctors, with their hungry scalpels, hastened the process with a few quick slices. The procedure is called an escharotomy, and it gives the swelling tissue the freedom to expand. It's rather like the uprising of your secret inner being, finally given license to claw through the surface. The doctors thought they had sliced me open to commence my healing but, in fact, they only release the monster- a thing of engorged flesh, suffused with juice. — Andrew Davidson

Hi."
"Honey!" exclaimed Patsy. "Good to hear your voice! Listen, I oughtta go pull my robe on 'fore we commence. You caught me nekkid as a jaybird."
" 'Nekkid' or 'naked,' mama?"
"What's the blessed difference? Are you making Yankee fun of the way I talk? The way you used to talk?"
"No, no, mama, let me tell you. Naked means you just don't have any clothes on. Nekkid means you don't have any clothes on and you're fixing to get into trouble. — Tom Robbins

How does God save His people from the pleasure of sin? The answer is, "By imparting to them a nature which hates evil and loves holiness." This takes place when they are born again, so that actual salvation begins with regeneration. Of course it does; where else could it commence? Fallen man can neither perceive his desperate need of salvation, nor come to Christ for it, till he has been renewed by the Holy Spirit. — Arthur W. Pink

(Logic meet feelings. The two of you will never see eye to eye. Let the lifelong catfight commence.) — R.K. Lilley

It is only rather recently that science has begun to make peace with its magical roots. Until a few decades ago, it was common for histories of science either to commence decorously with Copernicus's heliocentric theory or to laud the rationalism of Aristotelian antiquity and then to leap across the Middle Ages as an age of ignorance and superstition. One could, with care and diligence, find occasional things to praise in the works of Avicenna, William of Ockham, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon, but these sparse gems had to be thoroughly dusted down and scraped clean of unsightly accretions before being inserted into the corners of a frame fashioned in a much later period. — Philip Ball

Frances learns something in this moment that will allow her to survive and function for the rest of her life. She finds out that one thing can look like another. That the facts of a situation don't necessarily indicate anything about the truth of a situation. In this moment, fact and truth become separated and commence to wander like twins in a fairy-tale, waiting to be reunited by that special someone who possesses the secret of telling them apart. — Ann-Marie MacDonald

Let the wild ruckus commence. — Karen Joy Fowler

She faced Chaol. The wind ripped a few strands of hair from her braid, and she tucked them behind her ears.
"No matter what happens," she said quietly, "I want to thank you."
Chaol tilted his head to the side. "For what?" Her eyes stung, but she blamed it on the fierce wind and blinked away the dampness.
"For making my freedom mean something." He didn't say anything; he just took the fingers of her right hand and held them in his, his thumb brushing the ring she wore.
"Let the second duel commence," the king boomed, waving a hand toward the veranda. Chaol squeezed her hand, his skin warm in the frigid air.
"Give him hell," he said. — Sarah J. Maas

I get up around 7 a.m. That's very early for a stand-up comic. Then I'll have breakfast with my husband, the artist Al Ridenour, take my three dogs for a walk and commence with my work. — Margaret Cho

To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens ... this brings us to the point at which are to commence the higher branches of education ... To develop the reasoning faculties of our youth, enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, and instill into them the precepts of virtue and order. — Thomas Jefferson

She had to admit, she was impressed.
Not that she was going to commence praising on cue. The eagle in him was perfectly capable of preening his own feathers. — Thea Harrison

The ivy of the old age begins at the feet that hurt. (Le lierre de la vieillesse - Commence aux pieds qui blessent.) — Charles De Leusse