Extorted Quotes & Sayings

Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the time was; but when he at last extorted from the blushing Major (who never told fibs, however they might be to his advantage) what was the real hour of the morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which we will not repeat here, but by which he gave Dobbin to understand that he would jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the Major might go and be hanged, that he would not travel with Dobbin, and that it was most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out of his sleep in that way; on which the discomfited Major was obliged to retreat, leaving Jos to resume his interrupted slumbers. — William Makepeace Thackeray

He'd never seen it in person before (the main quarry); it was larger than he'd expected. When he'd first taken an interest, some decades before, following hints of something ancient and significant buried there, he could still make out remnants of the hill that had loaned the town it's name. Now that was gone - not just erased but inverted, to become a great pit. He found tho notable for the demonstration of force it represented. Civilizations rose and fell; what caused them to be remembered was not their contribution to knowledge or culture, not even the size of their empires, but rather how much force they extorted upon the landscape. This was what survived them. — Max Barry

Even someone as lowly as an assistant U.S. attorney has to undergo a background check, and you're asked a series of very invasive questions, and you're expected to tell the truth and they're under penalty of perjury. And you're asked those questions so you can't be blackmailed or extorted. — Trey Gowdy

No sooner said than done - so acts your man of worth. — Franz Kafka

All the beautiful orders of architecture and creations of the pencil, all the conceptions of the beautiful in nature and art and humanity, are inventions extorted, as it were, from the mind to extend and increase the pleasures of sense. — Elihu Burritt

To be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, exhausted, hoaxed and robbed; then, upon the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, hunted down, pulled about, beaten, disarmed, bound, imprisoned, shot, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

I cannot think a civilization worth having that does not encourage and enable its subjects to spend something, not extorted by governments but freely given to keep wretchedness at least from the streets they walk through day by day. — Freya Stark

I even worry about reflective flea collars. Oh, sure, drivers can see them glow in the dark, but so can the fleas. — Jane Wagner

As president, Reagan worked very well with Democrats to do big things. It is true that he worked to reduce the size of government and cut federal taxes and he eliminated many regulations, but he also raised taxes when necessary. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

What love and spirit give cannot be extorted. The state has always been made a hell by man's wanting to make it his heaven. The state is nothing but the coarse husk around the seed of life, the wall around the human fruits and flowers. Yet what good is a wall when the soil of our garden is parched? ... O inspiration, you will bring us the springtime of peoples again. The state cannot command your presence, but if it does not obstruct you, you will come. — Friedrich Holderlin

Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others. — Ayn Rand

All the profits that Papa made by the sweat of his brow from his mill she extorted from him and spent the lot on expensive dressmakers who made her luxurious dresses. But she was too mean to wear them: she saved them up at the back of her wardrobe, and most of the time she wore an old mouse-coloured housecoat round the house. Only a couple of times a year she got herself up like the Tsar's carriage to go to synagogue or to some charity ball, so the whole town could see her and burst with envy. Yet she shouted at us that we were ruining Papa. Fania, — Amos Oz

The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. — John Dryden

The villain's censure is extorted praise. — Alexander Pope

Civilizations rose and fell; what caused them to be remembered was not their contribution to knowledge or culture, not even the size of their empires, but rather how much force they extorted upon the landscape. — Max Barry

If I am mistaken in my opinion that the human soul is immortal, I willingly err; nor would I have this pleasant error extorted from me; and if, as some minute philosophers suppose, death should deprive me of my being, I need not fear the raillery of those pretended philosophers when they are no more. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force. — Adam Smith

The body's habituation to walking as normal stems from the good olddays. It was the bourgeois form of locomotion: physicaldemythologization, free of the spell of hieratic pacing, rooflesswandering, breathless flight. Human dignity insisted on the right towalk, a rhythm not extorted from the body by command or terror. Thewalk, the stroll, were private ways of passing time, the heritage ofthe feudal promenade in the nineteenth century. — Theodor Adorno

There's a reason the Chinese government is very concerned about Ai Weiwei. It's because he has all of these ingredients in his life that allow him to attract enormous attention across a very broad spectrum of the population. — Evan Osnos

The tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We — Malcolm Gladwell

Fuck you, Mr. Beatty! — Caris O'Malley