Confound It Quotes & Sayings

There is nothing in life so irrational, that good sense and chance may not set it to rights; nothing so rational, that folly and chance may not utterly confound it. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less. — Samuel Johnson

Lust is a mysterious wound in the side of humanity; or rather, at the very source of its life! To confound this lust in man with that desire which unites the sexes is like confusing a tumor with the very organ which it devours, a tumor whose very deformity horribly reproduces the shape. — Georges Bernanos

It is shallow desires which make a young man bold; strong desires confound him. — Giacomo Casanova

A certain amount of reverie is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. It soothes the fever, occasionally high, of the brain at work, and produces in the mind a soft, fresh vapor that corrects the all too angular contours of pure thought, fills up the gaps and intervals here and there, binds them together, and dulls the sharp corners of ideas. But too much reverie submerges and drowns. Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie it's pleasure. To replace thought with reverie is to confound poison with nourishment. — Victor Hugo

It is the duty of mankind on all suitable occasions to acknowledge their dependence on the Divine Being ... Almighty God would mercifully interpose and still the rage of war among the nations ... He would take this province under His protection, confound the designs and defeat the attempts of its enemies, and unite our hearts and strengthen our hands in every undertaking that may be for the public good, and for our defense and security in this time of danger. — Benjamin Franklin

Gandalf: Confound it all, Samwise Gamgee. Have you been eavesdropping?
Sam: I ain't been droppin' no eaves sir, honest. I was just cutting the grass under the window there, if you'll follow me.
Gandalf: A little late for trimming the verge, don't you think?
Sam: I heard raised voices.
Gandalf: What did you hear? Speak.
Sam: N-nothing important. That is, I heard a good deal about a ring, and a Dark Lord, and something about the end of the world, but ... Please, Mr. Gandalf, sir, don't hurt me. Don't turn me into anything ... unnatural. — J.R.R. Tolkien

And if literature is not the Bride and Bedfellow of Truth, what is she? 'Confound it all.' he cried, 'why say Bedfellow when one's already said Bride? Why not simply say what one means and save it? — Virginia Woolf

For Alwyn's grandfather, who was known as "the greatest talker in the country," used words which no one else understood, words which he did not understand, and words which do not exist, to swell a passionate theme, to confound his neighbors in an argument, and for their own sake. He would say, for example, "My farm was the very apocalypse of fertility, but the renter has rested on his oars till it is good for nothing," or "Manifest the bounty to pass the salt shaker in my direction." Something of the Bible, something of an Irish inheritance, something of a liar's anxiety, made of his most ordinary remark a strange and wearisome oratory. — Glenway Wescott

Good writing is always a breaking of the soil, clearing away prejudices, pulling up of sour weeds of crooked thinking, stripping the turf so as to get at what is fertile beneath. It would be amusing to carry the simile further. Those bulbs that flower in the sand and wither! The gay fiction annual that has to be planted again every year! Those experimental plants from Russia, France, and Greenwich Village that are always getting winter killed - confound 'em! - is it worth while planting them again? The stocky perennial that keeps coming up and coming up - so easy to grow and so ugly. Scarlet sage that gives a touch of fiery sin to the edge of the suburbanite's concrete walk! And then the good flowers - as honest as they are beautiful! The well-ordered gar den! The climbing rose that escapes and is the most beautiful of all! — Henry Seidel Canby

Confound you handsome young fellows! You think of having it all your own way in the world. You don't understand women. They don't admire you half so much as you admire yourselves. — George Eliot

They were innocent people. They could just do things you couldn't imagine. I can see code, do you get it? Algorithms that confound straights are just patterns to me. They come in my dreams. I dream the most beautiful programs never written. — Marcus Sakey

Strange is it that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty. — William Shakespeare

Amity Gaige has written a flawless book. It does not contain a single false note. Playful and inventive, SCHRODER movingly depicts the ways we confound our own hearts
how even with the best intentions, we fail to love those closest to us as well as we wish we could. Eric Schroder should take his place among the most charismatic and memorable characters in contemporary fiction, and Amity Gaige her place among the most talented and impressive writers working today. — David Bezmozgis

Zip! Back to the mansion. Zip! to Market Square. Zip! and there was the castle yet again. She was getting the hang of it. Zip! Here was Upper Folding - but how did you stop? Zip! "Oh, confound it!" Sophie cried, almost in Marsh Folding again. — Diana Wynne Jones

O Reader! hast thou eer stood to see The Holly-tree? The eye that contemplates it well perceies Its glossy leaes Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries. — Robert Southey

Fearlessness is a more than ordinary strength of mind, which raises the soul above the troubles, disorders, and emotions which theprospect of great dangers are used to produce. And by this inward strength it is that heroes preserve themselves in a calm and quiet state, and enjoy a presence of mind and the free use of their reason in the midst of those terrible accidents that amaze and confound other people. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Always remember how much more valuable is the strength of fortitude, than the grace of sensibility. Do not, however, confound fortitude with apathy; apathy cannot know the virtue. Remember, too, that one act of beneficence, one act of real usefulness, is worth all the abstract sentiment in the world. Sentiment is a disgrace, instead of an ornament, unless it lead us to good actions. The miser, who thinks himself respectable, merely because he possesses wealth, and thus mistakes the means of doing good, for the actual accomplishment of it, is not more blamable than the man of sentiment, without active virtue. You may have observed persons, who delight so much in this sort of sensibility to sentiment, which excludes that to the calls of any practical virtue, that they turn from the distressed, and, because their sufferings are painful to be contemplated, do not endeavour to relieve them. How despicable is that humanity, which can be contented to pity, where it might assuage!" St. — Eliza Parsons

When in doubt tell the truth. It will confound your enemies and astound your friends. — Mark Twain

It's bad enough in life to do without something YOU want; but confound it, what gets my goat is not being able to give somebody something you want THEM to have. — Truman Capote

We colonise them, Your Graces, we corrupt them, we exploit them, we bomb them, sack their cities, ignore their culture, and confound them with the infinite variety of our religious sects. We are hideous not only in their sight, Monsignors, but in their nostrils as well - the stink of the round-eye is abhorrent to them and we're too thick even to know it. Yet when we have done our worst, and more than our worst, my sons, we have barely scratched the surface of the Asian smile." Other — John Le Carre

why do you style yourself "your worth-
less and insignificant brother"? You recognize
your insignificance? . . . Recognize it before
God; perhaps, too, in the presence of beauty, intel-
ligence, nature, but not before men. Among men
you must be conscious of your dignity. Why, you
are not a rascal, you are an honest man, aren't you?
Well, respect yourself as an honest man and know
that an honest man is not something worthless.
Don't confound "being humble" with "recognizing
one's worthlessness." . . . — Anton Chekhov

'State' can be a word that is a noun or a verb or an adverb - it's kind of why I chose that title. It's not to confound the audience but to keep me from painting myself into a cul-de-sac in the early stages of making a record by having too high concept or having some really strict set of rules I have to adhere to. — Todd Rundgren

The commonest error made in relation to poetry is that it consists simply in verse-making. Many confound the casket of meter and rhyme with the jewel of thought which it encloses, and, perhaps, in some instances, after close investigation, they have found the casket empty and turned away with feelings of disappointment and disgust. — Orson F. Whitney

Oh! my friend, when you feel bursting on your lips the vow of eternal love, do not be afraid to yield, but do not confound wine with intoxication; do not think the cup divine because the draft is of celestial flavor; do not be astonished to find it broken and empty in the evening. — Alfred De Musset

You can and should use logic and reason all you want. But it would be a great mistake to ignore the stray bit of data that doesn't fit into your preconceived theories, that may even confound everything you thought you were sure of. — Barbara Ehrenreich

The ways of God are entirely different from our ways. To us it seems necessary to employ powerful means in order to produce great effects. This is not God's method; quite the contrary. He likes to choose the weakest instruments that He may confound the strong: "God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong - Infirma mundi elegit ut confundat fortia". — Columba Marmion

Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. just so a Party-spokesman might have labeled departure from the misery of the Fuhrer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery ... Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the "quisling" to the resistance of the patriot. — J.R.R. Tolkien

See, Mary, how a good, innocent life makes friends all around. Confound it! I could make a good lesson out of it if I were a parson; but, as it is, I can't get a tail to my sentences - only I'm sure you feel what I want to say. — Elizabeth Gaskell

The bottom of his garden joins the bottom of ours, and of course I had several times seen him, sitting among the scarlet-beans in his little arbour, or working at his little hotbeds. I used to think he stared rather, but I didn't take any particular notice of that, as we were newcomers, and he might be curious to see what we were like. But when he began to throw his cucumbers over our wall
"
"To throw his cucumbers over our wall!" repeated Nicholas in great astonishment.
"Yes, Nicholas, my dear," replied Mrs. Nickleby, in a very serious tone; "his cucumbers over our wall. And vegetable-marrows likewise."
"Confound his impudence!" said Nicholas, firing immediately. "What does he mean by that?"
"I don't think he means it impertinently at all," replied Mrs. Nickleby.
"What!" said Nicholas, "cucumbers and vegetable-marrows flying at the heads of the family as they walk in their own garden and not meant impertinently! — Charles Dickens

When it comes to identity we are all constructs. Who we think we are is the result of our upbringing, memories, skill set, knowledge, experiences and personal belief system. Of all the onion layers that make us who we are, our belief system is what powers our core. It's what creates the essence of a human being and makes it possible for each of us to exceed our limits, confound expectations and do the impossible. — David Amerland

Listening to the Gospel on Palm Sunday, it struck me that many people criticise Pontius Pilate for his role in the affair while letting the multitude go scot free. Pilate did what little he could to dissuade them from the extremely unpleasant course of action on which they were set, but the multitude kept shouting for a crucifixion. Pilate could not have done more without provoking a riot. The crucifixion when it happened was a victory for direct democracy against the effete, liberal paternalism of Pilate.
If I am right, and the crucifixion be seen as an early victory for the principle of direct democracy, then it must follow ... that good men should struggle to confound and frustrate the multitude whenever possible. — Auberon Waugh

But God does use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. It doesn't matter who we are really - just who He is. - Miz Opal — Martha Finley

Pray to God for gladness. Be glad as children, as the birds of heaven. And let not the sin of men confound you in your doings. Fear not that it will wear away your work and hinder its being accomplished. Do not say, 'Sin is mighty, wickedness is mighty, evil environment is mighty, and we are lonely and helpless, and evil environment is wearing us away and hindering our good work from being done.' Fly from that dejection, children! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Oh confound that gray-and-scarlet suit!" Sophie said. "I refuse to believe that I was the one that got caught with it! — Diana Wynne Jones

The Numerati too, are grappling with towering complexity. They're looking for patterns in data that describe something almost hopelessly complex: human life and behavior. The audacity of their mission is almost maddening. They're going to figure out who we're likely to vote for, who we want to work with, perhaps even who we're best suited to love, all from the statistical patterns of data? It's the height of presumption, and it leads to humbling disappointments. Like the trees growing in the forests of Minnesota, we confound those who try to categorize us, and we do it most of the time without even trying. Life is complex. — Stephen Baker

I saw the 'Popstars' programme and to me it looked more like 'Opportunity Knocks' than the kind of cutting-edge postmoderism that The Guardian would like to have us believe it was. I think what it's more about is the public and the music industry's bloodlust. It's just like someone itching to say 'Oh, confound it all, let's bring back hanging, that was good entertainment'. — Luke Haines

Your body is not a tragedy. It is the only one you get, no matter how much it may challenge, confound, frustrate, or thrill you, and fighting your body isn't worth the hurt and the divide. — Lesley Kinzel

In my opinion miracles will never confound a realist. It is not miracles that bring a realist to faith. A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact. And even if he does admit it, he will admit it as a fact of nature that was previously unknown to him. In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith. Once the realist comes to believe, then, precisely because of his realism, he must also allow for miracles. The Apostle Thomas declared that he would not believe until he saw, and when he saw, he said: "My Lord and My God!" Was it the miracle that made him believe? Most likely not, but he believed first and foremost because he wished to believe, and maybe already fully believed in his secret heart even as he was saying: "I will not believe until I see. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

But I have known many women
many women indeed, and it is in their nature to confound us, Othello. They are all by their natures lovely lunatics. — Christopher Moore

We cannot by a little verbal sophistry confound the qualities of different minds, nor force opposite excellences into a union by all the intolerance in the world ... If we have a taste for some one precise style or manner, we may keep it to ourselves and let others have theirs. If we are more catholic in our notions, and want variety of excellence and beauty, it is spread abroad for us to profusion in the variety of books and in the several growth of men's minds, fettered by no capricious or arbitrary rules. — William Hazlitt

We prayed earnestly that God would bless our land and would confound the machinations of the children of darkness. There had been so many moments in the past, during the dark days of apartheid's vicious awfulness, when we had preached, "This is God's world and God is in charge!" Sometimes, when evil seemed to be on the rampage and about to overwhelm goodness, one had held on to this article of faith by the skin of one's teeth. It was a kind of theological whistling in the dark and one was frequently tempted to whisper in God's ear, "For goodness' sake, why don't You make it more obvious that You are in charge? — Desmond Tutu

So it is that whenever Heaven invests a person with great responsibilities, it first tries his resolve, exhausts his muscles and bones, starves his body, leaves him destitute, and confound his every endeavor. In this way his patience and endurance are developed, and his weaknesses are overcome. We change and grow only when we make mistakes. We realize what to do only when we work through worry and confusion. And we gain people's trust and understanding only when our inner thoughts are revealed clearly in our faces and words. — Mencius

Do you particularly like the man?" he muttered, at his own image; "why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow — Charles Dickens

Confound it, it's foolish, Tom — Mark Twain

And, don't you see, the terror of the position was not in being knocked on the head - though I had a very lively sense of that danger, too - but in this, that I had to deal with a being to whom I could not appeal in the name of anything high or low. I had, even like the niggers, to invoke him - himself - his own exalted and incredible degradation. There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth. Confound the man! he had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone, and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground of floated in the air. — Joseph Conrad

Her theme was happiness: what it was; what it was not; where we might find it, where not; and how, if found, it must be guarded. Never must we confound it with pleasure. Nor think sorrow its exact opposite. — Mary Lavin

When we belong to the Church we belong to something which is outside all of us; which is outside everything you talk about, outside the Cardinals and the Pope. They belong to it, but it does not belong to them. If we all fell dead suddenly, the Church would still somehow exist in God. Confound it all, don't you see that I am more sure of its existence than I am of my own existence? — G.K. Chesterton

The thing about cancer is that it can always exceed your worst expectations. There is something pornographic about cancer's ability to confound your imagination. Whatever new obscenity cancer comes up with to torment and torture you, it can always do worse tomorrow. — Tony Parsons

It is snowing again. Confound it, will the winter never be over? I crave to have the solid ground under my feet. You cannot understand that craving if you have never lived in a country where every step was unstable. It is very tiresome and tiring to walk and have the ground give way under you at every step. — John Steinbeck

What a dull universe it would be if everything in it conformed to our expectations, if it held nothing to surprise or baffle us or confound our common sense. A century ago no one foresaw the existence of black holes, an expanding universe, oceans on Jupiter's moons, or DNA. What could be more enriching than to know that we share a common origin with all living things, that we are kin to chimpanzees, redwoods and mollusks? And isn't it a source of wonder to realize that the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones were created in the bellies of supernovas? — Steven Pinker

What hope is there for individual reality or authenticity when the forces of violence and orthodoxy, the earthly powers of guns and bombs and manipulated public opinion make it impossible for us to be authentic and fulfilled human beings?
The only hope is in the creation of alternative values, alternative realities. The only hope is in daring to redream one's place in the world - a beautiful act of imagination, and a sustained act of self becoming. Which is to say that in some way or another we breach and confound the accepted frontiers of things. — Ben Okri

She demands nothing, what you do you do for yourselves. You work to earn sustenance. You fight to protect it or to gain more. You work to confound rivals. You fight from fear and hatred and spite and honour and loyalty and whatever other causes you might fashion. Yet, all that you do serves her ... no matter what you do. Not simply benign, Adaephon Delat, but amoral. We can thrive, or we can destroy ourselves, it matters — Steven Erikson

Confound not faith and feeling together. They are distinct. Faith is ours to exercise. Believe, believe. Let your faith take hold of the blessing, and it is yours by faith. Your feelings have nothing to do with this faith. — Ellen G. White

Long discourses, and philosophical readings, at best, amaze and confound, but do not instruct children. When I say, therefore, that they must be treated as rational creatures, I mean that you must make them sensible, by the mildness of your carriage, and in the composure even in the correction of them, that what you do is reasonable in you, and useful and necessary for them; and that it is not out of caprichio , passion or fancy, that you command or forbid them any thing. — John Locke

Woman, your heart is a mapless maze. Could I bottle confusion and drink it a thousand years, I could not confound myself so much as you do between waking and breakfast. You are grown so devious that serpents would applaud your passage, would the gods but give them hands. — Scott Lynch

To paraphrase Paul, God often uses the cheesy to confound the sophisticated. He regularly honors those who are confused about his leading as if they have nailed it. — Mark Galli

Faith is not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us; that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for our sins. Faith is one thing, the Saviour is another. Faith is one thing, and the cross is another. Let us not confound them, nor ascribe to a poor, imperfect act of man, that which belongs exclusively to the Son of the Living God. — Horatius Bonar