Dote Quotes & Sayings

She marking them begins a wailing note And sings extemporally a woeful ditty How love makes young men thrall and old men dote How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe, And still the choir of echoes answer so. — William Shakespeare

We are not masters of our own affections; our inclinations dailyalter: now we love pleasure, and anon we shall dote on business. Human frailty will have it so, and who can help it? — George Etherege

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast* with thee alone*:
But my five wits* nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man*,
Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain. — William Shakespeare

People, as curious primates, dote on concrete objects that can be seen and fondled. God dwells among the details, not in the realm of pure generality. We must tackle and grasp the larger, encompassing themes of our universe, but we make our best approach through small curiosities that rivet our attention - all those pretty pebbles on the shoreline of knowledge. For the ocean of truth washes over the pebbles with every wave, and they rattle and clink with the most wondrous din. — Stephen Jay Gould

As the most generous vine, if it is not pruned, runs out into many superfluous stems, and grows at last weak and fruitless; so dote the best man, if he be not cut short of his desires and pruned with afflictions. If it be painful to bleed, it is worse to wither. Let me be pruned, that I may grow, rather than be cut up to burn. — Joseph Hall

Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, /And think they grow immortal as they quote. — Edward Young

Wine and women make wise men dote and forsake God's law and do wrong.
However, the fault is not in the wine, and often not in the woman. The fault is in the one who misuses the wine or the woman or other of God's crations. Even if you get drunk on the wine and through this greed you lapse into lechery, the wine is not to blame but you are, in being unable or unwilling to discipline yourself. And even if you look at a woman and become caught up in her beauty and assent to sin [= adultery; extramarital sex], the woman is not to blame nor is the beauty given her by God to be disparaged: rather, you are to blame for not keeping your heart more clear of wicked thoughts ... If you feel yourself tempted by the sight of a woman, control your gaze better ... You are free to leave her. Nothing constrains you to commit lechery but your own lecherous heart. — Anonymous

I dote on myself. There is a lot of me and all so luscious. — Walt Whitman

What a rude Lump our World is that we are so apt to dote upon, — Thomas Burnet

I have taken a wife, I have sold my sovereignty for a dowry.
[Lat., Uxorem accepi, dote imperium vendidi.] — Plautus

Art is always at peril in universities, where there are so many people, young and old, who love art less than argument, and dote upon a text that provides the nutritious pemmican on which scholars love to chew. — Robertson Davies

Beautee eneuch to mak a world to dote. — James I Of Scotland

To be allowed to call her "Dora", to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition - I am sure it was the summit of mine. — Charles Dickens

I praise her (Fortune) while she lasts; if she shakes her quick wings, I resign what she has given, and take refuge in my own virtue, and seek honest undowered Poverty.
[Lat., Laudo manentem; si celeres quatit
Pennas, resigno quae dedit, et mea
Virtute me involvo, probamque
Pauperiem sine dote quaero.] — Horace

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for
you and dote upon the exchange. — William Shakespeare

Financial standing, a social position beyond what she has now, and a husband to dote upon her every wish. What more could she ask for?"
"Maybe youth. Vigor. Teeth."
"Lord Cameron has his own teeth." Margaret narrowed her eyes at the other candidate. "I'm not so certain about Munro. They seemed somewhat clacky at dinner, so I'm suspicious. — Karen Hawkins

Goddess-nurse of the young, give ear to my prayer, and grant that this woman may reject the love-embraces of youth and dote on grey-haired old men whose powers are dulled, but whose hearts still desire. — Homer

Thus, although life is by and large unthrilling, when we do find ourselves in the sort of situation upon which thrillers dote we cannot really experience it, because our imaginations are occupied by the familiar tropes of popular fiction. And the result of this is a kind of dull bafflement, and the sense that whatever it is cannot really be happening. We actually think that phrase: this can't be happening to me. — Michael Gruber

Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety. — T. S. Eliot

It's not worth getting upset about, Mrs. Dominic. Down in the city they don't know how the other half lives, and they can afford the luxury of doting on their animals as if they were children. Out here it's different. You'll never see man, woman or child in need of help go ignored out here, yet in the city those same people who dote on their pets will completely ignore a cry of help from a human being. — Colleen McCullough

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us - and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject. - How beautiful are the retired flowers! how would they lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, "admire me I am a violet! dote upon me I am a primrose!" — John Keats

Madge did the honors. "Are you ... keeping company with Doc Piney?"
Jesse answered carefully. "We are not dating, but we are seeing a lot of each other." Factually true. Revealing nothing.
The three women sat silently for a long moment, sharing glances with each other.
"You know he has a sad history," Walter Lou said finally.
"Of course she knows," Madge said immediately.
"Everybody knows. The question is are you planning on breaking that man's heart again?"
The suggestion was not at all what Jesse expected.
She stuttered out an answer.
"I ... I don't ... I don't think Piney knows me well enough to get his heart broken," she managed finally.
"Oh, Lord, girl," Madge said. "He's a Baxley. A more lovelorn line of men never graced the earth."
"That's the truth of that," Walter Lou agreed. "Those men dote on their women something fierce. — Pamela Morsi

(One character on another
Don't you know that I passionately dote on every chin on his face? — Dorothy L. Sayers

I dote on his very absence. — William Shakespeare

Relying on physical remedies alone was often seen as downright ungodly: in England, Puritan minister John Sym advised "caution" that people "dote not upon, nor trust, or ascribe too much to physical means; but that we carefully look and pray to God for a blessing by the warrantable use of them." To do otherwise - to rely on a physic or powder alone - would be to put the material above the spiritual. That was why a strictly mechanical approach to medicine was considered dangerously atheistic. — Russell Shorto

You always worry and you always fear what's next. But you eventually just push forward knowing you can't really do much about getting rid of the anxiety. You see people get pets after their kids leave the house because they're so used to having something around to dote on and worry about. — Drew Magary

Are terrorists going to be deterred
are terrorists going to be scared if we react violently? No. They love it. That's what they dote on. They dote on violence. They dote on having more reasons to commit more terrorism. — Howard Zinn

And yet I love this false, this worthless man,
With all the passion that a woman can;
Dote on his imperfections, though I spy
Nothing to love; I love, and know not why.
— Ephelia

Humility grounds a person in the realization that life is not always fair, yet it can be manageable. Genuinely humble people are psychologically secure because they do not require others to dote on them, nor do they try to position themselves for favored treatment. Even as they lay down the wish to play God, they also choose not toe allow another human to assume the position of a god over them. — Les Carter

Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan
Repeating us by rote:
For him her Old World moulds aside she threw
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. — James Russell Lowell

Fourteen-year-old, why must you giggle and dote,
Fourteen-year-old, why are you such a goat?
I'm fourteen years old, that is the reason,
I giggle and dote in season. — Stevie Smith

Some people dote on contemplating disasters. — William Gibson

She dreams of him that has forgot her love;
You dote on her that cares not for your love.
'Tis pity love should be so contrary;
And thinking of it makes me cry 'alas! — William Shakespeare

Having a daughter and a grandson, I certainly could relate to the fact that this child, who you simply dote on, being taken away from you at an early age, and every single kind of emotion you would have to go through. — Judi Dench

La Leche League and the What to Expect books are even explicit about this fear: the pacifier, they warn, cannot substitute for a mother. This is the rare piece of parenting wisdom that manages to be both condescending and confusing. Condescending because it seems unlikely that parents who were considering using a pacifier - parents diligent enough to look it up in a book - were also considering abandoning their child altogether. Confusing because, well - what? How would a pacifier substitute for a mother - how exactly? Are there pacifiers on the market that cuddle and feed and rock and dote on a child? Is a mother nothing more than a nipple? — Nicholas Day

We're making tin gods out of those poor buffoons in Hollywood; I dote on movies and appreciate the scanty art therein but I consider the profession about the most debased and debasing I know. — Robert E. Howard

Love the sea? I dote upon it
from the beach. — Douglas William Jerrold

The cigar made its traverse from one side of Harry King to the other. He was known to dote on his daughters, who he felt had rather suffered from having a father who needed to take two baths just to get dirty. — Terry Pratchett

O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
... Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
- Shakespeare's Sonnet 148 — William Shakespeare