Disturb Quotes & Sayings

But I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the reader ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe. — Madeleine L'Engle

The follower aspires with all his strength to be what he admires. And then, remarkably enough, even though he lives amongst a 'Christian people,' he incurs the same peril as he did when it was dangerous to openly confess Christ. And because of the follower's life, it will become evident who the admirers are, for the admirers will become agitated with him. Even these words will disturb many - but then they must likewise belong to the admirers. — Soren Kierkegaard

Do I dare disturb the universe?
Yes, I do, I do. I think.
Jerry suddenly understood the poster
the solitary man on the beach standing upright and alone and unafraid, poised at the moment of making himself heard and known in the world, the universe. — Robert Cormier

7. But what kind of love is it, really? Don't fool yourself and call it sublimity. Admit that you have stood in front of a little pile of powdered ultramarine pigment in a glass cup at a museum and felt a stinging desire. But to do what? Liberate it? Purchase it? Ingest it? ... You might want to reach out and disturb the pile of pigment, for example, first staining your fingers with it, then staining the world. You might want to dilute it and swim in it, you might want to rouge your nipples with it, you might want to paint a virgin's robe with it. But still you wouldn't be accessing the blue of it. Not exactly. — Maggie Nelson

Also, I think having that comic gene kind of makes you look at things in a different way. If you take yourself so seriously, eventually you end up one of those people having a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on their lives. You see them drawing the curtains and they don't even realize that they've kind of drifted off somewhere. — Jamie Foxx

I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved I never would have cried ... I am a rock. — Paul Simon

My market value increases with every outside critisism. Therefore, the frequently raised contention that I am the most highly critisized mountaineer does not disturb me in the slightest. — Reinhold Messner

Avoid places that disturb your mind, and always remain where your virtues increase. — Atisa

Those who have had none of the cares of this life to harass and disturb them, have been obliged to have recourse to the hopes and fears of the next to vary the prospect before them. — William Hazlitt

This is why Paine was careful to downplay the distinction between the rich and the poor. He wanted his American readers to focus on distant kings, not local grandees. He wanted them to break with the Crown, not to disturb the class order. — Nancy Isenberg

It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them. — Epictetus

There he is, tall, tanned, Italian, sophisticated. So what do you do?"
I said, "Er, leap on him and snog him within an inch of his life? Taking care not to strangle myself on his false beard, or disturb his banana. — Louise Rennison

Let nothing disturb you, / Nothing dismay you; / All things are passing: / God never changes. — Teresa Of Avila

Wildlife is and should be useless in the same way art, music, poetry and even sports are useless. They are useless in the sense that they do nothing more than raise our spirits, make us laugh or cry, frighten, disturb and delight us. They connect us not just to what's weird, different, other, but to a world where we humans do not matter nearly as much as we like to think.
And that should be enough. — Richard Conniff

There it was again - the perverse refusal to acknowledge my hostility. She seemed to me like some magical lake in a fairy tale: nothing could disturb the mirror-calm of her surface. My snide comments and bitter jokes disappeared soundlessly into her depths, leaving not so much as a ripple. — Zoe Heller

Be like a mountain; do not let anything disturb your inner peace. — Debasish Mridha

We sleep bent into pretzel shapes, our limbs arranged around our pets because we'd rather make an appointment with the chiropractor than disturb their purring slumber. — Meg Lambourne

Why should we not shep naches from the accomplishments of our machines? This vicarious joy or success sounds somewhat odd, but it shouldn't be. We get excited when our sports team wins a game; why should it disturb or disappoint us when our creations turn out to be more accomplished than ourselves? — China Mieville

[O]ur thoughts and feelings are us. They are a part of ourselves. There is a temptation to look upon them, or at least some of them, as an enemy force which is trying to disturb the concentration and understanding of your mind. [...] When we have certain thoughts, we are those thoughts. We are both the guard and the visitor at the same time. We are both the mind and the observer of the mind. Therefore, chasing away or dwelling on any thought isn't the important thing. The important thing is to be aware of the thought. This observation is not an objectification of the mind: it does not establish distinction between subject and object. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Tanzie knew Nicky was thinking what she was thinking - that Mum had finally gone mad. But she had read somewhere that mad people were like sleepwalkers - it was best not to disturb them. So she nodded really slowly, like this was all making good sense. — Jojo Moyes

What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. — Oscar Wilde

At This Moment Of Time

Some who are uncertain compel me. They fear
The Ace of Spades. They fear
Loves offered suddenly, turning from the mantelpiece,
Sweet with decision. And they distrust
The fireworks by the lakeside, first the spuft,
Then the colored lights, rising.
Tentative, hesitant, doubtful, they consume
Greedily Caesar at the prow returning,
Locked in the stone of his act and office.
While the brass band brightly bursts over the water
They stand in the crowd lining the shore
Aware of the water beneath Him. They know it. Their eyes
Are haunted by water

Disturb me, compel me. It is not true
That "no man is happy," but that is not
The sense which guides you. If we are
Unfinished (we are, unless hope is a bad dream),
You are exact. You tug my sleeve
Before I speak, with a shadow's friendship,
And I remember that we who move
Are moved by clouds that darken midnight — Delmore Schwartz

Past ages come to us in new ways. For instance, they bore or disturb us. The dead say things we would or could not say in ways that appall , bless, and startle us. Reading them is part of diversity. The easiest voices to ignore are those of the dead; nevertheless, they often on the ones we need most. — John Mark Reynolds

When I was young I believed people should be told everything and that, as a pastor, I had a duty to share all my knowledge. Over the years I came to see that was a mistake. A person may know only what they are capable of assimilating. I have been thinking about this for half my life, and especially since I have been in Israel, but there are few people I can confide in. Really only you. You see, it is a terrible thing to disturb someone's equilibrium. If a person has become accustomed to thinking in a particular way, even a slight digression from that can prove painful. Not everybody is open to new ideas, to making their understanding more precise and supplementing it, to change. I have to admit that I am changing. Today my views on many matters have diverged from those generally accepted in the Catholic world, and I am not the only person in that situation. "You see, the birth of the One whom — Lyudmila Ulitskaya

In all discussions of Hell we should keep steadily before our eyes the possible damnation, not of our enemies nor our friends (since both these disturb the reason) but of ourselves. — C.S. Lewis

Beautiful women seldom want to act. They are afraid of emotion and they do not try to extract anything from a character that they are portraying, because in expressing emotion they may encourage crow's feet and laughing wrinkles. They avoid anything that will disturb their placidity of countenance, for placidity of countenance insures a smooth skin. — Laurette Taylor

OPTIMISTS' CLUB CREED Promise yourself ... To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness, prosperity to every person you meet. To make all your friends feel that there is something of value in them. To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. — Anthony Robbins

Quietly, continually, the rain fell and the inconsolable wind that died then was forever resurrected ruffled the still surfaces of puddles so lightly it failed to disturb the delicate dead skin that had covered them during the night so that instead of recovering the previous day's tired glitter they increasingly and remorselessly absorbed the light that swam slowly out of the east. — Laszlo Krasznahorkai

[Concerning postmodernism:] The aim of this experimental history is to disturb the ontological security of modern identity and hence to provoke the possibility of otherness through exposition of the cultural difference concealed by, and within, the order of modern rationalism. — Nicholas Gane

Cam's proposing to Avery!"
"He's done lost his damn mind."
"What!" holding on to my crutches, I smacked him on the chest. "He hasn't lost his mind. He's found it."
Jase laughed. "I'm kidding. And I already knew."
"What?" I shrieked and slapped his chest again. "What do you mean you already knew?"
"Ouch." He rubbed the spot. "Does it disturb you that I'm kind of getting turned on right now?"
I shook my head. "Seriously?"
"Maybe?" he murmured, dipping his head and causing the ends sticking out from under the skullcap to sway. "I'm pretty erect right now to be honest."
"Oh my God ... — J. Lynn

The householder must always please his wife with money, clothes, love and faith and never do anything to disturb her. That man who has succeeded in getting the love of a chaste wife has succeeded in his religion and has all the virtues. — Swami Vivekananda

One way to prevent yourself from going through a considerable amount of useless pain is to see the truth of the following and then to act upon your discovery accordingly: judging others doesn't change how much they disturb you; it serves only to distract you from seeing just how little it actually takes to set you off. — Guy Finley

I follow his stare at the speckles of stars. Suddenly I wonder, "Aren't you guys supposed to, like, sparkle or something?" And immediately wish I hadn't. Frederik stands up so quickly that he doesn't disturb the sand. He grabs the front of my shirt and growls--his eyes are black as the night sky along the horizon, and red veins fray against the white of his eyes. His sharp canines are exposed. "I.Don't.Sparkle." He lets go of me and becomes regular bored Frederik again, no fangs, no bloodshot eyes. Just a dude sitting on the beach at night. — Zoraida Cordova

You think, eventually, that nothing can disturb you and that your nerves are impregnable. Yet, looking down at that familiar face, I realized that death is something to which we never become calloused. — Eliot Ness

Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood.... — Edward Gibbon

The aim of art is a constant, and a continuous job to reveal visually the attitude of our mentality. And the less we disturb the influence of our mentality the more I believe we come close to the truth. — Josef Albers

Dear Night! this world's defeat; The stop to busy fools; care's check and curb; The day of spirits; my soul's calm retreat Which none disturb! Christ's progress, and His prayer-time; The hours to which high Heaven cloth chime. — Henry Vaughan

I like to wear a "Do Not Disturb" sign around my neck so that little kids can't tell me knock-knock jokes. "Hey, how ya doin'? Knock-knock." "Read the sign, punk!" — Mitch Hedberg

A crowd is not necessarily company, but neither need it necessarily prevent thought or disturb peace of mind. — John Lubbock

I know the story by heart. The book is just a "do not disturb" sign, to make sure no one talks to me. — Laura Bradley Rede

Let not the wise disturb the mind of the unwise in their selfish work. Let him, working with devotion, show them the joy of good work. — Anonymous

Just as only one discordant note has the power to disturb an entire symphony, the accordance between a body and its soul can be a broken by only one discordant event. To ensure and maintain an optimal fit, one must deliberately and continuously choreograph the equilibrium of the body, mind, and soul. — Ina Catrinescu

The sciences have two extremities which meet. The first is the ignorance in which men find themselves at birth. The second is that attained by great souls. They have surveyed whatever man can know, find that they know all, meet in that same ignorance whence they started. It is a clever ignorance, which knows itself. Those among them who, having emerged from the first ignorance, have been unable to achieve the other & have some smattering of this self-satisfied knowledge, pose as experts. The latter do not disturb people, are no more mistaken in their judgments on everything than others. The masses, the skilled, make up the retinue of a nation. The others, who respect it, are equally respected by it. — Comte De Lautreamont

The kind of poetry that interests me is intellectual and moral and political and sexual and sensual - all of that fermenting together. It can speak to people who have themselves felt like monsters and say: you are not alone, this is not monstrous. It can disturb and enrapture. — Adrienne Rich

You see how I live: shadows and silence, leaving things as I find them because I have no reason to disturb them. But there are things that I have known, even though I never wished to know them and cannot give them a name. — Thomas Ligotti

As the surface of the seashore rocks were pitted by by the waves and gathered limpets that further disguised what lay beneath, so time made truth of what appeared to be. The days that passed, in becoming weeks, still did not disturb the surface an assumption had created. The weather of a beautiful summer continued with neither sign nor hint that credence had been misplaced. The single sandal found among the rocks became a sodden image of death; and as the keening on the pier at Kilauran traditionally marked distres brought by the sea, so did silence at Lahardane. — William Trevor

Nowadays people write English as if a rat were caught in the typewriter and they were trying to hit the keys which wouldn't disturb it. — Lillian Hellman

I know your job's to channel the bleeding divine, and when have I ever stood in your way? Aren't I the bloke puts "Do Not Disturb, Eschatology Being Revelationed" on your door? EH? But you're supposed to keep me in the loop, and turn up when I need you, and do me the sheer minimum modicum of salutage and whatnot, right? — China Mieville

No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident. — Anthony De Mello

Tears disturb and confuse men, but women know the relief they can bring. I didn't cry because I couldn't deal with my life, but because I could. — Megan Hart

Do not let any record company disturb your creative flow. You are not writing for the record company. You're writing for the public. — Grandmaster Flash

Please could I say one word?" was the question three times repeated before a rough head boobed out from the grotto of books in which Mac usually sat. "Did anyone speak?" he asked, blinking in teh flood of sunshine that entered with Rose. "Only three times, thank you. Don't disturb yourself, I beg; for I merely want to say a word," answered Rose. — Louisa May Alcott

If religion, instead of being the manifestation of a spiritual ideal, gives prominence to scriptures and external rites, then does it disturb the peace more than anything else. — Rabindranath Tagore

Make sure it is God's trumpet you are blowing-
if it is only yours it won't wake the dead,
it will simply disturb the neighbours. — W. Ian Thomas

There is nothing - no circumstance, no trouble, no testing - that can ever touch me until, first of all it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose, which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky, as I lift up my eyes to him and accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my own heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret - for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is - That is the rest of victory.1 — Elizabeth George

When I'm concentrating, I can be fixed in place for hours. In fact, there was a joke in my office that everybody would come and chat outside my door because they knew - no matter how loud they talked - if I was concentrating, it would not disturb me at all. — Sonia Sotomayor

We respect your learning, Dr Einstein; but there is one thing you do not seem to have learned: that God is a spirit and cannot be found through the telescope or microscope, no more than human thought or emotion can be found by analyzing the brain. As everyone knows, religion is based on Faith, not knowledge. Every thinking person, perhaps, is assailed at times with religious doubt. My own faith has wavered many a time. But I never told anyone of my spiritual aberrations for two reasons: (1) I feared that I might, by mere suggestion, disturb and damage the life and hopes of some fellow being; (2) because I agree with the writer who said, 'There is a mean streak in anyone who will destroy another's faith.' . . . I hope, Dr Einstein, that you were misquoted and that you will yet say something more pleasing to the vast number of the American people who delight to do you honor. — Richard Dawkins

The novelist has brought us to that state, in which, as in all purely mental states, every emotion is multiplied tenfold, into which his book comes to disturb us as might a dream, but a dream more lucid, and of a more lasting impression than those which comes to us in sleep; — Marcel Proust

I tend to integrate poet and scholar is by ironizing the scholarship. My hope is to disturb that space between the two so they can coexist in a kind of mutual uncertainty. — Gregory Pardlo

Recognize and respect Earth's beautiful systems of balance, between the presence of animals on land, the fish in the sea, birds in the air, mankind, water, air, and land. Most importantly there must always be awareness of the actions by people that can disturb this precious balance. — Margaret Mead

No matter what changes take place in the world, or in me, nothing ever seems to disturb the face of spring. — E.B. White

The more you think about your own self, the more self-centred you are, the more trouble even small problems can create in your mind. The stronger your sense of 'I', the narrower the scope of your thinking becomes; then even small obstacles become unbearable. On the other hand, if you concern yourself mainly with others, the broader your thinking becomes, and life's inevitable difficulties disturb you less. — Dalai Lama

We are all born rude. No infant has ever appeared yet with the grace to understand how inconsiderate it is to disturb others in the middle of the night. — Judith Martin

I wanted everything for him. I wanted to see him achieve every dream, embrace every desire. I wanted to protect him from anyone who would cause him harm or a moments pain, tear them apart with my bare hands. Never let him out of my sight, even as I wanted him to stretch out his wings as far as they could go and soar. And at the bottom, top and middle of it all, I just wanted to stand there, just that way forever. Not disturb him. Just look at him and love him. Do nothing but simply love him for everything he is, a creation too perfect to be anything but God's gift to the rest of us. — Joey W. Hill

Those who think are excessively few; and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world. — Voltaire

Humility does not disturb or disquiet or agitate, however great it may be; it comes with peace, delight, and calm ... The pain of genuine humility doesn't agitate or afflict the soul; rather, this humility expands it and enables it to serve God more. — Teresa Of Avila

Your sense of who you are determines what you perceive as you needs and what matters to you in life - and whatever matters to you will have the power to upset and disturb you. — Eckhart Tolle

Art does not exist only to entertain
but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for the truth. — Barbra Streisand

No man can humiliate me or disturb me. I won't let him. — Bernard Baruch

The Christian ... way of daily living must be distinct from the world. While some will think you "peculiar," do not let this disturb you, for just as many others will secretly admire you for your stand. It is possible you will be persecuted by jokes and be misunderstood ... but if you accept this with patience and in the spirit of love, God can use this very thing to help you win some of your friends [to Christ]. — Billy Graham

Because I am an officer and a gentleman they have given me my notebooks, pen, ink and paper. So I write and wait. I am committed to no cause, I love no living person. The fact that I have no future except what you can count in hours doesn't seem to disturb me unduly. After all, the future whether here or there is equally unknown. So for the waiting days I have only the past to play about with. I can juggle with a series of possibly inaccurate memories, my own interpretation, for what is worth, of events. There is no place for speculation or hope, or even dreams. Strangely enough I think I like it like that. — Jennifer Johnston

I think the future of psychotherapy and psychology is in the school system. We need to teach every child how to rarely seriously disturb himself or herself and how to overcome disturbance when it occurs. — Albert Ellis

Hens embarrass me; owls disturb me; if I am with an eagle I always pretend that I am not with an eagle; and so on down to swallows at twilight who scare the hell out of me. But pigeons have absolutely no effect on me. — James Thurber

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small. — Eckhart Tolle

Sir, this is a unique dog. He does not live by tooth or fang. He respects the right of cats to be cats although he doesn't admire them. He turns his steps rather than disturb an earnest caterpillar. His greatest fear is that someone will point out a rabbit and suggest that he chase it. This is a dog of peace and tranquility. — John Steinbeck

During the next two days James Bond was permanently in this state without regaining consciousness. He watched the procession of his dreams go by without any effort to disturb their sequence, although many of them were terrifying and all were painful. He knew that he was in a bed and that he was lying on his back and could not move and in one of his twilight moments he thought there were people round him, but he made no effort to open his eyes and re-enter the world. He felt safer in the darkness and he hugged it to him. — Ian Fleming

No outside events can disturb your inner peace. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Suddenly I realized she was asleep. Exhausted by her flight she had fallen asleep against my shoulder as so many times, in taxis, in buses, on a park-seat. I sat still and let her be. There was nothing to disturb her in the dark church. The candles napped around the virgin, and there was nobody else there. The slowly growing pain in my upper arm where her weight lay was the greatest pleasure I had ever known. — Graham Greene

A free citizen in a free state, it seems to me, has an inalienable right to play with whomsoever he will, so long as he does not disturb the general peace. If any other citizen, offended by the spectacle, makes a pother, then that other citizen, and not the man exercising his inalienable right, should be put down by the police. — H.L. Mencken

Religion should not only comfort us when we are disturbed; it should also disturb us when we are comfortable. — Sidney Greenberg

Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

There is nothing in afflictions which ought to disturb our joy. — John Calvin

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives. — Saint Teresa Of Avila

Have some sort of a private place to work in. Put up a sign to keep from being interrupted. Mine says: "Please, do not knock, do not say hello or goodbye, do not ask what's for dinner, do not disturb me unless the police or firemen have to be called." — Judith Krantz

Unnoticed, the passage has occurred; as I brood, autumn dusk dewdrops fall on my pillow. The voices of insects and the deer by the fence, as one, disturb me to tears this autumn dusk. — Princess Shikishi

(I used to hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign on my office door, but people interpreted this as "His door is closed, but he wants me to know he's in there. I'll knock.") Be — Paul J. Silvia

It's just that very few poets disturb the peace to any degree. — Gerald Stern

Brittles stood at attention until Jack looked at him, then he bowed slightly. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but an Inspector Swindler from Scotland Yard wishes to speak with you. Are you home?"
"Of course, I'm home, man. I'm sitting right here. — Lorraine Heath

Now this might disturb you, but I find I'm OK by myself;
and I don't need you or your benevolence to make sense. — Morrissey

What is still more to our shame as civilized Christians, we debauch their morals already too prone to vice, and we introduce among them wants and perhaps disease which they never before knew and which serve only to disturb that happy tranquility which they and their forefathers enjoyed. If anyone denies the truth of this assertion, let him tell me what the natives of the whole extent of America have gained by the commerce they have had with Europeans. — James Cook

My job as the director is to make that as authentic as I can and not to disturb the revelry. — Scott Hicks

When we try to observe things that are very small, the act of observation itself will significantly disturb the state we are seeking to measure. — John D. Barrow

Do not let the past disturb you, just leave everything in the Sacred Heart and begin again with joy. — Mother Teresa

That [photographs] disturb readers is exactly as it should be: that's why photojournalism is often more powerful than written journalism. — Nora Ephron

The gospel Christ taught was spectacularly designed to unsettle and disturb, not lull into pleasant serenity. — Terryl L. Givens

Bellow

"Tell the range and all that's howling,
the flickers of life beyond the weeds,
the vulture's furrowed brow of flight,
the blasted sticky Canadian lawn thistle;
tell the clowned-out clouds and the rain,
and all that makes you go quiet again,
tell them that you didn't come here
to make a fuss, or break, or growl, or
scream; tell them-crazy sky and stars
between-tell them you didn't come
to disturb the night air and throw a fit,
then get down in the dark and do it. — Ada Limon

gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I — Bram Stoker

I buried him with mine own hands, in a place he showed me once when I was a squire at Storm's End. No one shall ever find him there to disturb his rest." He looked at Jaime defiantly. "I will defend King Tommen with all my strength, I swear it. I will give my life for his if need be. But I will never betray Renly, by word or deed. He was the king that should have been. He was the best of them. — George R R Martin

Forgive yourself, be calm and be kind;
nothing will disturb your inner peace of mind. — Debasish Mridha

The saying goes, 'The sage rests, truly rests and is at ease.' This manifests itself in calmness and detachment, so that worries and distress cannot affect him, nothing unpleasant can disturb him, his Virtue is complete and his spirit is not stirred up. — Zhuangzi