Harmlessly 7 Quotes & Sayings

For Pan! Grover rushed in from the right. He threw his sheep bone, which bounced harmlessly off the monster's forehead. — Rick Riordan

Until at last, they could pause and let the arrows fall harmlessly around them. — Susan Dennard

Can I ask you a question?"
"You already have."
He paused, considering. "Can I ask you two questions, then?"
"You already have."
Sam groaned and threw one of the small sofa pillows in my direction. It arced through the moonlit room, a blackened projectile, and thumped harmlessly by my head. "So you're a smart-ass, then. — Maggie Stiefvater

An ecovillage is a human scale, full-featured settlement which integrates human activities harmlessly into the natural environment, supports healthy development and can be continued into the indefinite future. — Robert Gilman

Though under great pressure to conform to a culture of brutality, a few guards refused to participate in the violence. In one incident, a captive was clubbed so savagely that he was certain he was going to be killed. In the middle of the assault, the attacking guard was called away, and a guard knows as Hirose was ordered to finish the beating. Out of sight of other guards, Hirose told the captive to cry out as if he were being struck, then pounded his club harmlessly against the floor. The two acted out their parts until it seemed enough "beating" had been done. The captive believed that Hirose may have saved his life. — Laura Hillenbrand

Thus, an inhibition center developed below what in humans is the temporal lobe, to turn off much of the functioning of the reptilian brain; and an activation center evolved in the pons to turn on the R-complex, but harmlessly, during sleep. — Carl Sagan

The creatures who act as though they belong to the world follow the peace-keeping law, and because they follow that law, they give the creatures around them a chance to grow toward whatever it's possible for them to become. That's how man came into being. The creatures around Australopithecus didn't imagine that the world belonged to them, so they let him live and grow. How does being civilized come into it? Does being civilized mean that you have to destroy the world?" "No." "Does being civilized make you incapable of giving the creatures around you a little space in which to live?" "No." "Does it make you incapable of living as harmlessly as sharks and tarantulas and rattlesnakes?" "No." "Does it make you incapable of following a law that even snails and earthworms manage to follow without any difficulty?" "No." "As I pointed out some time ago, human settlement isn't against the law, it's subject to the law - and the same is true of civilization. — Daniel Quinn

So it is useless to evade reality, because it only makes it more virulent in the end. But instead, look steadfastly into the slit, pin-pointed, malignant eyes of reality: as an old-hand trainer dominates his wild beasts. Take it by the scruff of the neck, and shake the evil intent out of it; till it rattles out harmlessly, like gall bladder stones, fossilized on the floor. — Caitlin Thomas

We threw ourselves at that wild river every day and most days it tossed us all harmlessly skyward like well-loved children. After a while that does something to you. — Jo Deurbrouck

Plant
it
It will sprout
But forget about the rustic festivities
For the explosive word falls harmlessly eternal through
the compact generations — Jean Cocteau

There is a lesson we learn early and harmlessly, or late and traumatically - that there are things we can break that our parents can't fix. — Robert Breault

Koudelka puzzled over this attempted readjustment of his point of view, then let it bounce harmlessly off his impermeable habits of thought. — Lois McMaster Bujold

In London there is a man who screams when the church bells ring. He lives all alone with his streaked cat in Gray's Inn, and people call him harmlessly mad. — H.P. Lovecraft

Short lives,

bouncing harmlessly as a cloth doll on grandma's lap.

Small helpless states,

pretentiousness garbed in the unintelligible,

makers of disposable art,

the zeal to make a scoop unstoppable,

pacified by fresh news,

of scrabbling sexy movements. — Brian D'Ambrosio

It is the ideology of cultural and religious indifference, which denies the transcendent origin of the moral values that form the basis of our civilisation, and therefore implies the irrelevance of religion. Multiculturalism is the choice not to have a culture, because choosing a culture implicitly means to choose a religion. It is the assertion that Christianity, or any religious faith, is irrelevant and can be easily and harmlessly disposed of, because a supposedly "secular set of values" is ready to take its place. — Giorgio Roversi

To be in any form, what is that?
(round and round we go, all of us, and ever come back thither,)
If nothing lay more develop'd the quahung in it's callous shell were enough.
Mine is no callous shell.
I have instant conductors all over me whether I pass or stop,
they seize every object and lead it harmlessly through me.
I merely stir, press, feel with my fingers, and I am happy, to touch my person to someone else's is about as much as I can stand. — Walt Whitman

Kate grasped her small handbag and pulled a small blue vial and threw it into the grinding mass. It shattered harmlessly, causing two creatures to pause with a look of confusion.
"What is that potion?" Simon asked.
Kate stared as the two undead things began to shuffle forward again. She glanced into her purse. "Damn it! That was my perfume. — Clay Griffith

I feel a complete protection on my pilgrimage. God is my shield. There are no accidents in the Divine Plan nor does God leave us unattended. No one walks so safely as those who walk humbly and harmlessly with great love and great faith. — Peace Pilgrim

IF YOUR OPPONENT strikes with fire, counter with water, becoming completely fluid and free-flowing. Water, by its nature, never collides with or breaks against anything. On the contrary, it swallows up any attack harmlessly. — Morihei Ueshiba

The Librarian swung on. It was slow progress, because there were things he wasn't keen on meeting. Creatures evolved to fill every niche in the environment, and some of those in the dusty immensity of L-space were best avoided. They were much more unusual than ordinary unusual creatures.
Usually he could forewarn himself by keeping a careful eye on the kickstool crabs that grazed harmlessly on the dust. When they were spooked, it was time to hide. Several times he had to flatten himself against the shelves as a thesaurus thundered by. He waited patiently as a herd of Critters crawled past, grazing on the contents of the choicer books and leaving behind them piles of small literary criticism. And there were other things, things which he hurried away from and tried not to look hard at ...
And you had to avoid cliches at all costs. — Terry Pratchett

Another time I had gone out on patrol in the mist and had carefully warned the guard commander beforehand. But in coming back I stumbled against a bush, the startled sentry called out that the Fascists were coming, and I had the pleasure of hearing the guard commander order everyone to open rapid fire in my direction. Of course I lay down and the bullets went harmlessly over me. Nothing will convince a Spaniard, at least a young Spaniard, that fire-arms are dangerous. Once, rather later than this, I was photographing some machine-gunners with their gun, which was pointed directly towards me. 'Don't fire,' I said half-jokingly as I focused the camera. 'Oh no, we won't fire.' The next moment there was a frightful roar and a stream of bullets tore past my face so close that my cheek was stung by grains of cordite. It was unintentional, but the machine-gunners considered it a great joke. — George Orwell

I used to be really pretty," I whispered, sharing the secret. "See? I used - "
"There is no 'used' to be." He snatched the frame out of my hand, and my mouth dropped open as he tossed it. The photo whizzed through the air, bouncing off a cushion and landing harmlessly on the couch. "You're really fucking pretty now. — J. Lynn

The reproach that superficial people formulate against Manet, that whereas once he painted ugliness, now he paints vulgarity, falls harmlessly to the ground, when we recognize the fact that he paints the truth. — Stephane Mallarme

Culture was now largely a matter of how to keep people harmlessly distracted when they were not working. — Terry Eagleton

It is so hard to learn to put sadness in perspective so hard to understand that it is a feeling that comes in degrees, it can be a candle burning gently and harmlessly in your home, or it can be a full-fledged forest fire that destroy almost everything and is controlled by almost nothing. It can also be so much in-between — Elizabeth Wurtzel

You think such an attitude is admirable. Manly, heroic even. 'Lived harmlessly.' 'Kept to himself.' Hide away somewhere and your past will cease to exist. You won't have to account for it. You'll feel no obligation to explain your actions or justify them because you've gone away and you expect your victims to go away too. It's like leaving the scene of an accident . . . Or a marriage. Even a field of battle. — Ward Just

I'm an old man, now. I've been alone since my 17th birthday. I'd wanted to marry, have a bunch of kids, and maybe be a grandpa. The big family around the Thanksgiving table, laughing and pouring wine and cracking jokes and harmlessly teasing the missus - I wanted that. I wanted to do something good with my life - something right. I didn't want what happened to Danny, my best childhood friend, to be the only mark I'd ever make in this world. But I thought it best not to fancy such hopes and dreams: a family, love. I'd been cursed by my best friend, and I thought it right not to inflict that curse on anyone who'd be foolish enough to love me. — J. Tonzelli

I don't actually remember if I was able to get a firebolt off. I have a vague memory of seeing orange light splatter harmlessly against a spiked breastplate, but that might just have been sparks from all the metal rubbing against metal. Then there was a sound rather like a bag of wet laundry being hurled across a gravel driveway, and that was the first time I died. — Yahtzee Croshaw

Religion does not censure or exclude
Unnumbered pleasures, harmlessly pursued. — William Cowper

Regarding mutual tolerance: It is negative in one sense, but positive in another. It absolutely forbids us to be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of forms of existence other than our own; and it commands us to tolerate, respect, and indulge those whom we see harmlessly interested and happy in their own ways, however unintelligible these may be to us. Hands off. — William James