Foible Quotes & Sayings

We're a couple of travelers!" I called up to her. "I'm Briony, and this is Ella!"

"Grammy said I ought not to talk to strangers!" she called back.

"We're not strangers!" Ella shouted. "We're with the union!"

I cut her a look and mouthed, Union?, which was silly with this other girl out of earshot. Ella shrugged.

There was a pause before the girl called somewhat timidly given we were shouting, "What union?"

"We represent the Coalition of Self-Rescuing Princesses," Ella replied.

"But I'm not a princess!"

"That's fine!" I called, sighing as I prepared to lay on the charm with this ridiculous foible. "We of the Coalition of Self-Rescuing Princesses do not discriminate based on social caste, for we believe that every damsel in distress has the heart of a princess!"

"Are you feeling subjugated?" Ella continued. "Yearning to be free, wondering when your prince will come and what's taking him so damn long? — K.B. Shinn

Bestiality is not my thing But it seems to be a harmless foible or idiosyncrasy of some people. So, as long as the animal doesn't mind (and the animal rarely does), I don't mind, and I don't see why anyone else should. — Frank Kameny

The amount of excitement when you say hi will be paid back when you say bye! — S.E. Sever

The first step to empathy and compassion is realising the similarities between yourself and those that are suffering; the first step to forgiveness is realising that we're all human and we all share the same capacity for fallibility and foible; the first step to growth is to recognise the value of things that are outside your current mental frameworks so that you can grow into them. — Oli Anderson

Granny panties. White as a flag, but with no surrender. — Rhoda Janzen

It is a foible of our human nature that when we have an extremely unpleasant experience, it gives us a peculiar satisfaction if it is "the biggest" of its disagreeable kind that has happened since the world began. During a heat wave, for instance, we are very pleased if the papers announce that it is "the highest temperature reached since the year 1881," and we feel a little resentment towards the year 1881 for having gone us one better. Or if our ears are frozen till all the skin peels off, it fills us with a certain happiness to learn that "it was the hardest frost recorded since 1786." It is just the same with wars. The war in progress is either the most righteous or the bloodiest, or the most successful, or the longest, since such and such a time; any superlative whatever always affords us the proud satisfaction of having been through something extraordinary and record-breaking. — Karel Capek

Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat. — Laurence Sterne

Women in New York have to work much harder to compete with the supermodels for attention. — Jessica Cutler

I pray you, then, receive my little book in all charity, studying my words with me, forgiving mistake and foible for sake of the faith and passion that is in me, and seeking the grain of truth hidden there. — W.E.B. Du Bois

Dogs also have a higher flicker-fusion rate than humans do: seventy or even eighty cycles per second. This provides an indication why dogs have not taken up a particular foible of persons: our constant gawking at the television screen. Like film, the image on your (non-digital) TV is really a sequence of still shots sent quickly enough to fool our eyes into seeing a continuous stream. But it's not fast enough for dog vision. They see the individual frames and the dark space between them too, as though stroboscopically. — Alexandra Horowitz

I never had a brian till freak came along.. — Rodman Philbrick

"Some of the anxiety has been laid to rest. We don't see a spike in adult use. We don't think we see a spike in youth consumption although there are some things that are disconcerting." — John Hickenlooper

If you agree with an outside person's interpretation of you, that's a happy bit of affirmation. It means you're communicating externally what you believe to be true internally. If you disagree, it helps clarify how you understand yourself. And maybe makes you productively question how to improve your communication skills. — Heidi Julavits

The raillery which is consistent with good-breeding is a gentle animadversion of some foible, which, while it raises the laugh in the rest of the company, doth not put the person rallied out of countenance, or expose him to shame or contempt. On the contrary, the jest should be so delicate that the object of it should be capable of joining in the mirth it occasions. — Henry Fielding

Now if there is anything in this universe for which we do not have an "inkling," it is the ultimate goal of the Creator. Erroneous notions regarding this goal often stem from the misconception that all existence exists for man alone. The foible in this perception of the universe is the failure to realize that existence itself is good. The Five Books of Moses are bracketed by explicit statements of the worth of being. At the start we are told: "And God saw all that was made and behold it was very good" (Gen. 1:31) — Gerald Schroeder

Most men call fretting a minor fault, a foible, and not a vice. There is no vice except drunkenness which can so utterly destroy the peace, the happiness of a hoe. — Helen Hunt Jackson

Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible. — Sydney Smith

I have found that the people who shout their opinion the loudest are usually the ones most insecure in their position.
I don't think it is as much a human foible as it is a human curse that we cannot understand the beauty of a thing until it is gone.
It's not that there wasn't anything to say. It's that there was too much and words were poor substitutes for our feelings.
But Korczak's greatest legacy is not a public one, the massive stone mountain that he conquered, but the mountain he first conquered in himself-a mountain that he climbed alone-in this we can all empathize. (about the sculptor of Crazy Horse) — Richard Paul Evans

Call it a personal foible. Some people are scared of spiders. I'm scared of immolation. Also spiders. — Mark Lawrence

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition. — Charles Caleb Colton

This book would not have been made without the tireless mentoring and rare friendship of Christian Bok, Steven Collis and Nicole Markotic. — Jordan Scott

Only God may be adored, because only God is unlimited goodness, truth, and beauty, and thus only God deserves unlimited love. — Peter Kreeft

A forte always makes a foible. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The entirety of 'Bellocq's Ophelia' was a project, and I was interested in doing research and looking at photographs and writing about them, imagining this woman Ophelia and what her life was like and the kinds of things she thought about. — Natasha Trethewey

I've probably done the odd thing. I've probably done more than I would have done and some things you don't say no to. You don't say no to working with "The Simpsons" ... the greatest comedy show on television. You mustn't. Even though going to my bad judgment, I remember saying that all I can do is make this show slightly worse. — Ricky Gervais

The common foible of women who have been handsome is to forget that they are no longer so. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Language, never forget, is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. — Bill Bryson

A hundred times I was upon the point of killing myself; but still I loved life. This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics; for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to cling to one's existence? in brief, to caress the serpent which devours us, till he has eaten our very heart? — Voltaire

Zookeeper foible #1: Tendency to not equate fur and scale with fracture and scar. — Wendy Beck

In the end, the sum of my vices is all me. — Melina Marchetta

Of all the dogs I've known in my life, I've never seen a better driver. — David Wong

If arts and music, precious gifts in themselves, were akin to memory, literature was the self-knowing of the species; the human mind accumulated, a manifest of wisdom and knowledge, self-doubt and awareness, folly and foible, all transmitted through the generations. Books amplified the light of mind, reinforced the soul. — Mark Cantrell

I don't think it is as much a human foible as it is a human curse that we cannot understand the beauty of a thing until it is gone. — Richard Paul Evans