Excepting Quotes & Sayings

Arizona presents no specific reason for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

No old Men (excepting Dr. Wallis) love Mathematicks. — Isaac Newton

I do not know of any, excepting the unpardonable sin, that is greater than the sin of ingratitude. — Brigham Young

Ultimately, people write to be understood (excepting Gertrude Stein and Tristan Tzara, who were intentionally being difficult). — John Scalzi

I am convinced that fine art is the subtlest, the most seductive, the most effective instrument of moral propaganda in the world, excepting only the example of personal conduct; and I waive even this exception in favor of the art of the stage, because it works by exhibiting examples of personal conduct made intelligible and moving to crowds of unobservant, unreflecting people to whom real life means nothing. — George Bernard Shaw

Money. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. — Ambrose Bierce

The great educational value of the war against Christendom lies in the absolute truthlessness of the priest. Such purity is rare enough. The 'man of God' is entirely incapable of honesty, and only arises at the point where truth is defaced beyond all legibility. Lies are his entire metabolism, the air he breathes, his bread and his wine. He cannot comment upon the weather without a secret agenda of deceit. No word, gesture, or perception is slight enough to escape his extravagant reflex of falsification, and of the lies in circulation he will instinctively seize on the grossest, the most obscene and oppressive travesty. Any proposition passing the lips of a priest is necessarily totally false, excepting only insidiouses whose message is momentarily misunderstood. It is impossible to deny him without discovering some buried fragment or reality. — Nick Land

We really seldom do anybody much good excepting as we share the deepest experiences of our souls... We need to struggle for more richness of soul." ("Letters By a Modern Mystic," January 26, 1930) — Frank C. Laubach

You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books. — Voltaire

When every event was a miracle, when there was no order or system or law, there was no occasion for studying any subject, or being interested in anything excepting a religion which took care of the soul. As man doubted the primitive conceptions about religion, and no longer accepted the literal, miraculous teachings of ancient books, he set himself to understand nature. — Clarence Darrow

I dream
for an absentee and oft maligned
device - the accident-maker,
the soul-taker, my camera;
its factory guaranteed
third eye, without which I am duly dim
and memory denied. No pictures
for my contrived Arbus to declare,
excepting some stitch of Sexton
manages these sentences
of despair. — Kristen Henderson

No man can be subject to any laws, excepting those which have received the assent of himself or his representatives and which are promulgated beforehand and applied legally. — Marquis De Lafayette

It is not enough for us to perform the works of virtue, exercising obedience, excepting poverty or disgrace or practicing humility or detachment in some other way; rather we should strive ceaselessly until we attain the essence and ground of virtue. And we can tell if we have attained this or not by asking whether we find ourselves inclined to virtue above all else and perform the works of virtue without prior preparation of the will, practicing virtue without the ulterior motive even of a great and good cause, so that the virtuous act in fact happen spontaneously on account of love of virtue and without asking 'what for?' Then and only then do we have the perfect possession of virtue. — Meister Eckhart

I have always maintained that excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work. - Charles Darwin — Daniel Coyle

Excepting the infinite spirit, everything else is changing. There is the whirl of change. — Swami Vivekananda

Afflictions cannot sanctify, excepting as they are used by Him to this end. Our prayers and efforts cannot make us ready for heaven, apart from the hand of Jesus, who fashioneth our hearts aright. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Imagine all human beings swept off the face of the earth, excepting one man. Imagine this man in some vast city, New York or London. Imagine him on the third or fourth day of his solitude sitting in a house and hearing a ring at the door-bell! — Thomas Bailey Aldrich

We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet; and amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog has made an alliance with us. — Max DePree

The traveler may feel assured, he will meet with no difficulties or dangers, excepting in rare cases, nearly so bad as he beforehand anticipates. In a moral point of view, the effect ought to be, to teach him good-humored patience, freedom from selfishness, the habit of acting for himself, and of making the best of every occurrence. — Charles Darwin

A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing. — Arnold Bax

The variety of colour in objects cannot be discerned at a great distance, excepting in those parts which are directly lighted up by the solar rays. — Leonardo Da Vinci

Motto: true to myself, false to others (excepting one person). — Paul Ree

It were well if there were fewer heroes; for I scarcely ever heard of any, excepting Hercules, but did more mischief than good. These overgrown mortals commonly use their will with their right hand; and their reason with their left. — Jeremy Collier

First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more-no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it. — Michael Palin

She is the most charming person in the world. That's all. I refuse to amplify. Excepting- she's perfect. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Outside our consciousness there lies the cold and alien world of actual things. Between the two stretches the narrow borderland of the senses. No communication between the two worlds is possible excepting across the narrow strip. For a proper understanding of ourselves and of the world, it is of the highest importance that this borderland should be thoroughly explored. — Heinrich Hertz

The number of his wives is uncertain. Abulfeda, who writes with more caution than other of the Arabian historians, limits it to fifteen, though some make it as much as twenty-five. At the time of his death he had nine, each in her separate dwelling, and all in the vicinity of the mosque at Medina. The plea alleged for his indulging in a greater number of wives than he permitted to his followers, was a desire to beget a race of prophets for his people. If such indeed were his desire, it was disappointed. Of all his children, Fatima the wife of Ali alone survived him, and she died within a short time after his death. Of her descendants, none excepting her eldest son Hassan ever sat on the throne of the Caliphs. — Washington Irving

He blamed every fucker available excepting, of course, the one who was actually to blame, the one sitting in his saddle and getting colder, hungrier, and more lost with every unpleasant moment. 'Shit!' he roared at nothing. — Joe Abercrombie

To crush out fanaticism and revere the infinite, such is the law. Let us not confine ourselves to falling prostrate beneath the tree of creation and contemplating its vast ramifications full of stars. We have a duty to perform, to cultivate the human soul, to defend mystery against miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and to reject the absurd; to admit nothing that is inexplicable excepting what is necessary, to purify faith and obliterate superstition from the face of religion, to remove the vermin from the garden of God. — Victor Hugo

Revenge was violence and therefore forbidden by the Teacher - excepting violence against unbelievers, of course, which this probably would be. — Dave Duncan

The Difference Engine can in reality (as has been already partly explained) do nothing but add; and any other processes, not excepting those of simple subtraction, multiplication and division, can be performed by it only just to that extent in which it is possible, by judicious mathematical arrangement and artifices, to reduce them to a series of additions. — Ada Lovelace

Women never have a half-hour in all their lives (excepting before or after anybody is up in the house) that they can call their own, without fear of offending or of hurting someone. Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have 'no time in the day to themselves.' 1852 — Florence Nightingale

And I profess still, that whatsoever the church of England (the church, I say, not every doctor) shall forbid me to say in matterof faith, I shall abstain from saying it, excepting this point, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins. As for other doctrines, I think it unlawful, if the church define them, for any member of the church to contradict them. — Thomas Hobbes

Love with its paraphernalia of sexuality, jealousy, nostalgia and exaltation was easier to reognize than friendship, which seemed to have (excepting athletic equipment) no paraphernalia at all. — John Cheever

I never give my real self. I have a hundred sides, and I turn first one way and then the other. I am playing a deep game. I have a number of strong cards up my sleeve. I have never been myself, excepting to two friends. — Mary MacLane

I dreamed night after night that everyone in the world was dead excepting myself, and that upon me rested the responsibility of making a wagon wheel. — Jane Addams

Ah, the camel of Cairo! ... He went quietly and comfortably through the narrowest lanes and the densest crowds by the mere force of his personality. He was the most impressive living thing we saw in Egypt, not excepting two Pashas and a Bey. He was engaged with large philosophies, one could see that ... — Sara Jeannette Duncan

Indians walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than the birds and squirrels, and their brush and bark huts last hardly longer than those of wood rats, while their more enduring monuments, excepting those wrought on the forests by the fires they made to improve their hunting grounds, vanish in a few centuries. — John Muir

Thus all consent to that maxim of Crassus, that a prince cannot have treasure enough, since he must maintain his armies out of it; that a king, even though he would, can do nothing unjustly; that all property is in him, not excepting the very persons of his subjects; and that no man has any other property but that which the king, out of his goodness, thinks fit to leave him. And they think it is the prince's interest that there be as little of this left as may be, as if it were his advantage that his people should have neither riches nor liberty, since these things make them less easy and willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government. Whereas necessity and poverty blunts them, makes them patient, beats them down, and breaks that height of spirit that might otherwise dispose them to rebel. — Thomas More

An imaginative book renders us much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than afterward, when we arrive atthe precise sense of the author. I think nothing is of any value in books, excepting the transcendental and extraordinary. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

He then offered one of the most infamous pronouncements that has ever been made about the Grand Canyon: Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality. It seems intended by nature that the Colorado River, along the greater portion of its lonely and majestic way, shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed. . . . Excepting when the melting snows send their annual torrents through the avenues to the Colorado, conveying with them sound and motion, these dismal abysses, and the arid table-lands that enclose them, are left as they have been for ages, in unbroken solitude and silence. That — Kevin Fedarko

There were, in Clochemerle, a number of lady 'invalids', their conversation one long jeremiad concerning their health, who had worn out their husbands and outlived them by fifteen or twenty years. Since, all their lives, they had spent themselves only drop by drop, their extreme old age was still charged with vital fluid, flowing very meagrely yet sufficient to keep them on their feet and living, so to speak, vegetatively, behind mask-like countenances of wood or old ivory. They breathed in slow motion, everything about them was almost dead excepting those feeble pulsations of the heart which kept just enough pale blood flowing beneath their wrinkled skins. — Gabriel Chevallier

The God in whose hands are all our days and ways, did cast into my hand one day a book of Martin Luthers; it was his Comment on Galatians ... I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written out of my heart ... I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians, excepting the Holy Bible, before all the books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience. — John Bunyan

For every species on land, excepting only the weasel, there is a corresponding species in the water, — Louis Ginzberg

SHALL this be a short or a long chapter? - This is a question in which you, gentle reader, have no vote, however much you may be interested in the consequences; just as probably you may (like myself) have nothing to do with the imposing a new tax, excepting the trifling circumstance of being obliged to pay it. More — Walter Scott

Well I can tell you that for me generally speaking that I think things that I deal with are all to do with not accepting things, not excepting life on life's terms. My life becomes a lot easier when I'm willing to just accept. I don't have to like circumstances as they are, but I have to accept them and that's where I always seem to get thrown, when I try to will my way instead of accept things the way they are. — Matt Dillon

I've got to get out of this place," he said as he eased back. "That's God's shining truth. I can only breathe in cop for so long without choking."
"Hey."
He tapped his finger on her chin. "Excepting one. — J.D. Robb

There's lots of people-this town wouldn't hold them;
Who don't know much excepting what's told them. — Will Carleton

Poverty is a soft pedal upon the branches of human activity, not excepting the spiritual. — H.L. Mencken

I see I have made myself a slave to Philosophy, but if I get free of Mr. Linus's business I will resolutely bid adew to it eternally, excepting for what I do for my private satisfaction or leave to come out after me. For I see a man must either resolve to put out nothing new or to become a slave to defend it. — Isaac Newton

I look upon prayer-meetings as the most profitable exercises (excepting the public preaching) in which Christians can engage. They have a direct tendency to kill a worldly, trifling spirit, and to draw down a Divine blessing upon all our concerns, compose differences, and enkindle (at least maintain) the flames of Divine love amongst brethren. — John Newton

She played a great deal better than either of the Miss Musgroves; but having no voice, no knowledge of the harp, and no fond parents to sit by and fancy themselves delighted, her performance was little thought of, only out of civility, or to refresh the others, as she was well aware. She knew that when she played she was giving pleasure only to herself; but this was no new sensation: excepting one short period of her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the loss of her dear mother, know the happiness of being listened to, or encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste. In music she had been always used to feel alone in the world; and Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove's fond partiality for their own daughters' performance, and total indifference to any other person's, gave her much more pleasure for their sakes, than mortification for her own. — Jane Austen

We have to recognise, that the gin-palace, like many other evils, although as poisonous, is still a natural outgrowth of our social conditions. The tap-room in many cases is the poor man's only parlour. Many a man takes to beer, not from the love of beer, but from a natural craving for the light, warmth, company, and comfort which is thrown in along with the beer, and which he cannot get excepting by buying beer. Reformers will never get rid of the drink shop until they can outbid it in the subsidiary attractions which it offers to its customers. — William Booth

It is by far the most elegant worship, hardly excepting the Greek mythology. What with incense, pictures, statues, altars, shrines, relics, and the real presence, confession, absolution, - there is something sensible to grasp at. Besides, it leaves no possibility of doubt; for those who swallow their Deity, really and truly, in transubstantiation, can hardly find any thing else otherwise than easy of digestion. — Lord Byron

Universe to each must be
All that is, including me.
Environment in turn must be
All that is, excepting me. — R. Buckminster Fuller

Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress? — Samuel Johnson

I have learned more from Hayek than from any other living thinker, except perhaps Alfred Tarski - but not even excepting Russell. — Karl Popper

"Ay," said the Captain, reverentially; "it's a almighty element. There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so pitch dark," said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, "as you can't see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you was a driving, head on, to the world without end." — Charles Dickens

Jealousy shows weakness and we must be strong to except ourselves for who we truly are. — Sarah Van Waterschoot

Punk rock should mean freedom, liking and excepting anything that you like. Playing whatever you want. As sloppy as you want. As long as it's good and it has passion. — Kurt Cobain

I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us. What the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves and God. — Charles Dickens

As to the reserved and withdrawn areas, excluding and excepting only the national parks, it is manifest that justice, equality, and dignity for these States require that ultimately all should be ceded to the States wherein they lie. The theory that the Western States can not intelligently and wisely administer these areas, for example, the forest reserves, is based on the delinquencies and wastefulness of the States to the eastward which had their resources and their opportunity, and in some cases, as States, misused and abused their rights. This constitutes no reason as to why the same right which they enjoyed should be denied to the Western states. — Charles Edwin Winter

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. - Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress. — Henry David Thoreau

There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation. — Samuel Johnson

With its hundred billion nerve cells, with their hundred trillion interconnections, the human brain is the most complex phenomenon in the known universe - always, of course, excepting the interaction of some six billion such brains and their owners within the socio-technological culture of our planetary ecosystem! — Steven Rose

The tempest was terrible and separated me from my [other] vessels that night, putting every one of them in desperate straits, with nothing to look forward to but death. Each was certain the others had been destroyed. What man ever born, not excepting Job, who would not have died of despair, when in such weather seeking safety for my son, my brother, shipmates, and myself, we were forbidden [access to] the land and the harbors which I, by God's will and sweating blood, had won for Spain? — Christopher Columbus

I cannot here avoid giving my most decided sufferage in favour of the moral qualities of maniacs. I have no where met, excepting in romances, with fonder husbands, more affectionate parents, more impassioned ... than in the lunatic asylum, during their intervals of calmness and reason. — Philippe Pinel

Now the moon is high; and the great house, needing habitation more than ever, is like a body without life. Now it is even awful, stealing through it, to think of the live people who have slept in the solitary bedrooms, to say nothing of the dead. Now is the time for shadow, when every corner is a cavern and every downward step a pit, when the stained glass is reflected in pale and faded hues upon the floors, when anything and everything can be made of the heavy staircase beams excepting their own proper shapes, when the armour has dull lights upon it not easily to be distinguished from stealthy movement, and when barred helmets are frightfully suggestive of heads inside. But of all the shadows in Chesney Wold, the shadow in the long drawing-room upon my Lady's picture is the first to come, the last to be disturbed. At this hour and by this light it changes into threatening hands raised up and menacing the handsome face with every breath that stirs. — Charles Dickens

I would like to write you so simply, so simply, so simply. Without having anything ever catch the eye, excepting yours alone, ... so that above all the language remains self-evidently secret, as if it were being invented at every step, and as if it were burning immediately — Jacques Derrida

He had every prejudice and aspiration of every American Common Man. He believed in the desirability and therefore the sanctity of thick buckwheat cakes with adulterated maple syrup, in rubber trays for the ice cubes in his electric refrigerator, in the especial nobility of dogs, all dogs, in the oracles of S. Parkes Cadman, in being chummy with all waitresses at all junction lunch rooms, and in Henry Ford (when he became President, he exulted, maybe he could get Mr. Ford to come to supper at the White House), and the superiority of anyone who possessed a million dollars. He regarded spats, walking sticks, caviar, titles, tea-drinking, poetry not daily syndicated in newspapers and all foreigners, possibly excepting the British, as degenerate. — Sinclair Lewis

In the world which we know, among the different and primitive geniuses that preside over the evolution of the several species, there exists not one, excepting that of the dog, that ever gave a thought to the presence of man. — Maurice Maeterlinck

(I)t is highly questionable whether when 'Europe speaks with one voice', as we are so often told it is doing, anyone is really listening. Europe's reputation as a serious player in international affairs is unenviable. It is a feeble giant who desperate attempts to be taken seriously are largely risible. It has a weak currency and a sluggish inflexible economy, still much reliant on hidden protectionism. It has a shrinking, ageing, population and, with the exception of Britain, rather unimpressive armed forces and, not excepting Britain, muddled diplomacy. — Margaret Thatcher

Poem to Be Read at 3:00 A.M.
by Donald Justice

Excepting the diner
On the outskirts
The town of Ladora
at 3 A.M.
Was dark but
For my headlights
And up in
One second-story room
A single light
Where someone
Was sick or
Perhaps reading
As I drove past
At seventy
Not thinking
This poem
Is for whoever
Had the light on — Donald Justice

The preservation of the Jew was certainly not casual. He has endured through the power of a certain ideal, based on the recognition of a Higher Power in human affairs. Time after time in his history, moreover, he has been saved from disaster in a manner, which cannot be described excepting as 'providential.' The author has deliberately attempted to write this book in a secular spirit; he does not think that his readers can fail to see in it, on every page, a higher immanence — Cecil Roth

After thirty, a man wakes up sad every morning, excepting perhaps five or six, until the day of his death. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof. — Neil Gaiman

An enemy to whom you show kindness becomes your friend, excepting lust, the indulgence of which increases its enmity. — Saadi

No new beginnings.
Damn it, it shouldn't bother her!
But it did. She tried to turn away, but his hand flashed out and caught her by the chin.
"Let me go," she snapped.
"Nay." His grip was implacable on her jaw.
There was little point in fighting for control of her face; he could have hoisted her into the air with that one big hand on her jaw, if he'd wished.
He searched her gaze a long silent moment. "You truly doona ken it, do you? Excepting with you, Jessica. You, lass, are the exception to everything," he said softly.
As if he'd not just knocked the breath out of her with those words and left her feeling weak-kneed, he released her chin, turned away, and began pushing the cart again. — Karen Marie Moning

Excepting Will," Mrs. Bulloch amended. "Such an affront to put upon ye, Thomas! Yon man'll not enjoy heaven if he gets there." "He'll — D.E. Stevenson

Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely. We have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our cattle-shows and so-called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred origin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacrifices not to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal Plutus rather. — Henry David Thoreau

All ugliness passes, and beauty endures, excepting of the skin. — Edith Sitwell

Now here is exactly the point, I am afraid, where multitudes of English people fail, and are in imminent danger of being lost for ever. They know that there is no forgiveness of sin excepting in Christ Jesus. They can tell you that there is no Saviour for sinners, no Redeemer, no Mediator, excepting Him who was born of the Virgin Mary, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead, and buried. But here they stop, and get no further! They never come to the point of actually laying hold on Christ by faith, and becoming one with Christ and Christ in them. They can say, He is a Saviour, but not 'my Saviour,' - a Redeemer, but not 'my Redeemer,' - a Priest, but not 'my Priest,' - an Advocate, but not 'my Advocate:' and so they live and die unforgiven! No wonder that Martin Luther said, Many are lost because they cannot use possessive pronouns. — J.C. Ryle

The purpose of writing is both to keep up with life and to run ahead of it. I am little comfort to myself, although I am the only comfort I have, excepting perhaps streets, clouds, the sun, the faces and voices of kids and the aged, and similar accidents of beauty, innocence, truth and loneliness. — William, Saroyan

You meet a new guy, analyze him, not good for marriage, not good for a relationship, not good for fucking, maybe excepting the very drunk mood, so, conclusion: this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. — Irina Bors

Real happiness comes from loving you're inner self and excepting the things you can't change. Flaws perfectly imperfect. — Shellie Palmer

I hate relativism . I hate relativism more than I hate anything else, excepting, maybe, fiberglass powerboats ... surely, surely , no one but a relativist would drive a fiberglass powerboat. — Jerry Fodor

When they want a working man for anything excepting work they want him for conspiracy. — Clarence Darrow

English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced. — Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The bottle of whiskey - the second one - was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine, who 'felt just as good on nothing at all. — F Scott Fitzgerald

There is nothing on earth that I would not give up, excepting of course, two things and two things only, truth and nonviolence. — Mahatma Gandhi

She did not hate Miss Garnder anymore. She didn't like her, but she felt sorry for her. Miss Garnder had nothing in all the world excepting a sureness about how right she was. — Betty Smith

But then in all his words if not deeds Jefferson was so beautifully human, so eminently vague, so entirely dishonest but not in any meretricious way. Rather it was a passionate form of self-delusion that rendered Jefferson as president and as man (not to mention as writer of tangled sentences and lunatic metaphors) confusing even to his admirers. Proclaiming the unalienable rights of man for everyone (excepting slaves, Indians, women and those entirely without property), Jefferson tried to seize the Floridas by force, dreamed of a conquest of Cuba, and after his illegal purchase of Louisiana sent a military governor to rule New Orleans against the will of its inhabitants. — Gore Vidal

I thought about that while he made his next calls, while I kept on with the newsletters. I thought about it during Sunday service at Word of Life, and during study hours in my room, with the Viking Erin and her squeaky pink highlighter. What it meant to really believe in something - for real. Belief. The big dictionary in the Promise library said it meant something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held conviction or opinion. But even that definition, as short and simple as it was, confused me. True or real: Those were definite words; opinion and conviction just weren't - opinions wavered and changed and fluctuated with the person, the situation. And most troubling of all was the word accepts. Something one accepts. I was much better at excepting everything than accepting anything, at least anything for certain, for definite. That much I knew. That much I believed. — Emily M. Danforth

The slave preaches the virtues of kindness and humility to his master, because as a slave he has need of them;but the master, better guided by nature and his passions, has no need to devote himself to anything excepting those things which serve or please him. Be as kind as you wish, if you enjoy such things - but dont demand any reward for having had this pleasure — Marquis De Sade

Nobody expects you to exhibit godlike strength, excepting maybe yourself. — Juliet Marillier

In my dear pine-clad mountains of the Harz There's a pitchlike smell, a smell I favor Most of all, excepting that of sulphur. But here among these Greeks there's not a trace Of anything like that. I'm curious To find out what they use below in their Hell To stoke the fires with, their kind of fuel. DRYAD. I guess you're smart enough in your own country, Abroad you're something less than apt; 8220 Stop thinking home thoughts, try, Sir, to adapt And show due honor to our sacred oak tree. MEPHISTO. What you have lost, that's what you think about, — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer and precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsbility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one's neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority. — Friedrich Hayek

Cages everywhere I went. I was no better off in Saxonia, excepting only for the threat of vigorous, royal incest. Perhaps this also means that a princess is only a particularly desirable kind of monstrous creature--a lure that must be kept in a box at all times. — J.M. McDermott

Now as of old the gods give men all good things, excepting only those that are baneful and injurious and useless. These, now as of old, are not gifts of the gods: men stumble into them themselves because of their own blindness and folly. — Democritus

An original something, dear maid, you would wish me to write; but how shall I begin? For I'm sure I have not original in me, Excepting Original Sin. — Thomas Campbell