High Handed Quotes & Sayings

The light over the whole hill was pure, pale, of an exaggerated clarity, as if all the good days of his youth had been distilled down into this one day, and the whole coltish ascendant time when he was 18, 19, 20, had been handed back to him briefly, intact and precious. That was the time when there had been more hours in the day, and every hour precious enough so that it could be fooled away. By the time a man got into the high 30s, the hours became more frantic and less precious, more needed and more carefully hoarded and more fully used, but less loved and less enjoyed. -Beyond the Glass Mountain (short story) — Wallace Stegner

being then just dinner-time, we went, first into the great kitchen, where every prisoner's dinner was in course of being set out separately (to be handed to him in his cell), with the regularity and precision of clock-work. I said aside, to Traddles, that I wondered whether it occurred to anybody, that there was a striking contrast between these plentiful repasts of choice quality, and the dinners, not to say of paupers, but of soldiers, sailors, labourers, the great bulk of the honest, working community; of whom not one man in five hundred ever dined half so well. But I learned that the 'system' required high living; and, in short, to dispose of the system, once for all, I found that on that head and on all others, 'the system' put an end to all doubts, and disposed of all anomalies. Nobody appeared to have the least idea that there was any other system, but THE system, to be considered. — Charles Dickens

[T]he rule of law does more than ensure freedom from high-handed action by rulers. It ensures justice between man and man however humble the one and however powerful the other. A man with five dollars in the bank can call to account the corporation with five billion dollars in assets-and the two will be heard as equals before the law. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Very few people know loyalty anymore." "Do you?" I asked, needing for my own piece of mind to know. "Did I maybe start flirting with Shelly when I was still dating Meg in high school? Yeah, I did. I was sixteen and stupid as fuck. But I grew up. I watched countless families get torn apart by infidelity. I have had to comfort dozens of crying women in my office when I handed them the pictures they paid me to take. And I've gotten to witness the awful thing that happens when they stop crying." "What's that?" "They make up their minds to never let themselves get hurt like that again. See, cheating doesn't just screw up that one relationship, it tends to screw up every single one later because the person gets bitter or scared or distrusting. It's a sad fucking thing to see. And it's not something I am ever willing to do to a woman." He paused and I let those words sink in. — Jessica Gadziala

We do not ask to be born; and we do not ask to die. But born we are and die we must. We come into existence and we pass out of existence. And in neither case does high-handed fate await our ratification of its decree. — Corliss Lamont

When other girls had tea parties on the playground, I brought out my secondhand Ouija board and attempted to raise the dead. While my classmates gave book reports on The Wind In The Willows or Charlotte's Web, I did mine on tattered, paperback copies of Stephen King novels that I'd borrowed from my grandmother. Instead of Sweet Valley High, I read books about zombies and vampires. Eventually, my third grade teacher called my mother in to discuss her growing concerns over my behavior, and my mom nodded blithely, but failed to see what the problem was. When Mrs. Johnson handed her my recent book report on Pet Sematary,, my mom wrinkled her forehead with concern and disapproval. "Oh, I see,"she said disappointingly, as she turned to me. "You spelled 'cemetery' wrong." Then I explained that Stephen King had spelled it that way on purpose, and she nodded, saying, "Ah. Well, good enough for me. — Jenny Lawson

Like any great art, the culture of hip-hop has changed with the times. With the state of technology, music is more accessible and freely exchanged. For hip-hop to grow while keeping a sense of integrity, the essence of the culture has to be handed down and respected like any high form of art. — One9

The government in business may waste time and money without rendering service. In the end the public pays in taxes. The corporation cannot waste or it will fall. It cannot make unfair rulings or give high-handed, expensive service, for there are not enough people willing to accept inferior service to make a volume of business that will pay dividends. — Henry Ford

When I was a kid, I used to live in New York City. There was a guy named Michael Alig. He used to throw parties. And a couple of times, I even worked for him and his crew, and handed out fliers, and had my super-high shoes on, and wearing silver Saran Wrap around my head or something. It's a world I was really comfortable in: a world full of individuals. I think what I like about that world - besides my own personal interests - is the individualism, the investment in the self. — Jared Leto

Turning Lillian to face him, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I'll procure the necessary items, and work out the proportions," he said. His expression was sober, but his dark eyes were warm as they gazed into hers. "In the meanwhile, I will leave the situation in your capable hands."
Tenderly Lillian traced the edge of his shirt collar, letting her fingertip touch the tanned skin of his throat. "You'd better hurry. If St. Vincent wakes to find himself at my mercy, he'll probably expire on the spot."
They exchanged a brief grin and Westcliff left the room. "Arrogant, high-handed creature," Lillian remarked, her smile lingering as she watched the earl's departure. "God, I adore him. — Lisa Kleypas

The closest thing Nick had seen to a high-powered lawyer in Melnik was eighty-five-year-old George Wesley, who handed out legal advice from his wheelchair in the assisted-living wing of Melnik Manor. — Mary Nealy

You should rather suppose that those are involved in worthwhile duties who wish to have daily as their closest friends Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus. None of these will be too busy to see you, none of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself, none of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home to all mortals by night and by day. — Seneca.

I remember once in high school the umpire called me out at third base when I was sure I was safe. I got so mad I took out my glass eye, handed it to him and said, Try this. I got such a laugh you wouldnt believe. — Peter Falk

The judgment, handed down by Judge Ian Chin of the Sarawak High Court, demonstrated astonishing independence from the Malaysian government. Chin knew the price of that independence. After a much-maligned judgment against a politician belonging to the ruling Barisan National government in 1998, he had been verbally threatened by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, and then enrolled in a five-day boot camp with other judges for "re-educational" purposes. While there, the primacy of the government's interests was hammered into the judicial civil servants.3 Crushing the independence of the courts was done systematically under Mahathir. In 1988, the autocratic Premier had arbitrarily dismissed the country's top judge, Lord President Salleh Abas, thereby keeping the remaining judges on a short lead.4 Even today, in 2014, Malaysia's judges still have difficulty ruling independently when government interests are at stake. — Lukas Straumann

Continental directors, as opposed to British and American, tend to be somewhat high-handed in their approach. — Donald Pleasence

At the Temple of the Seven-Handed Sek a hasty convocation of priests and ritual heart-transplant artisans agreed that the hundred-span-high statue of Sek was altogether too holy to be made into a magic picture, but a payment of two rhinu left them astoundedly agreeing that perhaps He wasn't as holy as all that.
A prolonged session at the Whore Pits produced a number of colourful and instrutive pictures, a number of which Rincewind concealed about his person for detailed perusal in private. As the fumes cleared from his brain he began to speculate seriously as to how the iconograph worked. — Terry Pratchett

The theologians,
the apologists, and their kin the metaphysicians, the high-handed
statesmen, and others, no longer interest me. All that has been spoilt for
me by the grind of stern reality! — Thomas Hardy

The tyrant-father of Heaven, the one who created, hated and drove out the first woman, yoked men with a horrible curse, far worse than any imagined to have been handed down to Eve. Men were told they were masters of this world, of their mates, of the beasts and fish, of the land and sea and sky. How ridiculous! That's like telling a little boy he's in charge of the house when his da is gone. It's silly!
And like that little boy, men have tried to live up to the unreasonable demands of their mute, wayward, celestial father. They have enslaved and dominated, conquered and killed, all in the name of shepherding, of protecting, of ruling the world. They spend their lives trying to do what they think is right, what their father on high would want of them. The bastard. — R.S. Belcher

Bureaucratic solutions to problems of practice will always fail because effective teaching is not routine, students are not passive, and questions of practice are not simple, predictable, or standardized. Consequently, instructional decisions cannot be formulated on high then packaged and handed down to teachers. — Linda Darling-Hammond

You want to know why I don't have many friends here? At least not ones that count, according to your fucking standards handed down from on high, princess? Because I figured it out. What the difference is between friends and casual acquaintances. Between lovers and fuck buddies. — Amy Jo Cousins

It's high time that Christians made up their minds to do something ... What are we going to show in the way of resistance-as compared to the Communists, for instance-when all this terror is over? We will be standing empty-handed. We will have no answer when we are asked: What did you do about it? — Hans Scholl

The high-handed bureaucratic excesses of the IRS are a national disgrace ... riding roughshod over the taxpayers and making a joke out of our rule of laws. — Paul Laxalt

There are so many artists that are dyslexic or learning disabled, it's just phenomenal. There's also an unbelievably high proportion of artists who are left-handed, and a high correlation between left-handedness and learning disabilities. — Chuck Close

Why incentivize laziness? High-school students shouldn't be discouraged from grappling, sometimes unsuccessfully, with challenging books, pictures, and songs. A really, really good work of art doesn't bow down to you; you step up to it, and it rewards you. In the end, kids faced with what Chaucer actually wrote may still dislike him, and I'm fine with that; they will have earned that opinion rather than had it handed to them. For heaven's sake, it's easy for kids to see themselves and their peers in a rap song. When they can start to see themselves in a 14th-century poem, then they're actually learning something. — Jeff Sypeck

A lot of the musicians asked me if when I hit my high-Cs on the records I had a clarinet take the notes. Some [thought] I had invented some kind of gadget so I could play high register. They weren't satisfied until they handed me a trumpet that they had with them and had me swing it. Then they cheered. — Louis Armstrong

Instead, he gave her that cocky grin. "Shall we go see an advisor then and give him a concussion or two?" She laughed at his overexuberant tone. "Absolutely." She gestured with her thumb toward the surveillance camera that was mounted high on the wall over her head. "Provided the crew of lackwits allow us to leave that is." "I heard that," Hauk said over the intercom. "Didn't anyone ever tell you to be respectful of the man who holds the key to the lock on your cage?" She scoffed. "Qillaq, Hauk. I was taught to kick him in the groin or the teeth until he handed it over." Caillen — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It was a kind of one-upmanship, where nobody knows what's going on, and they'd put the other one down as if they did know. They all fake that they know, and if one student admits for a moment that something is confusing by asking a question, the others take a high-handed attitude, acting as if it's not confusing at all, telling him that he's wasting their time ... All the work they did, intelligent people, but they got themselves into this funny state of mind, this strange kind of self-propagating "education" which is meaningless, utterly meaningless. — Richard Feynman

I seem to be on a road, walking, greeting the hedgerows, the rose-hips, the apples and thorn. I seem to be on a road, walking, familiar with neighbors, high-handed with cattle, smelling the sea, and alone. Already, I know the names of things. I can kick a stone. — Annie Dillard

Hold at your neck the gom jabbar," she said. "The gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don't pull away or you'll feel that poison. — Frank Herbert

Regarding R. H. Blyth: Blyth is sometimes perilous, naturally, since he's a high-handed old poem himself, but he's also sublime - and who goes to poetry for safety anyway. — Reginald Horace Blyth

How had things gone so terribly wrong? She wasn't supposed to be returning to Murdoch House in defeat, and she most certainly was not supposed to be returning alone.

Lilly should be there. And Gideon. High-handed, muleheaded, wonderful Gideon. She'd never admitted it, not even to herself, but a part of her had expected him to come back to Murdoch House with her. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that no part of her had been able to imagine going back without him. — Alissa Johnson

Rockefeller was sensitive about adults who behaved in a high-handed fashion toward him. Having assumed so much responsibility at home, he now thought of himself as a mature person. — Ron Chernow

Are you going to continue to scold me?" "Is that what I'm doing?" "I think so." "You're lucky I'm just scolding you." "What do you mean?" "Well, if you were mine, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week after the stunt you pulled yesterday. You didn't eat, you got drunk, you put yourself at risk." He closes his eyes, dread etched briefly on his face, and he shudders. When he opens his eyes, he glares at me. "I hate to think what could have happened to you." I scowl back at him. What is his problem? What's it to him? If I was his ... Well, I'm not. Though maybe part of me would like to be. The thought pierces through the irritation I feel at his high-handed words. I flush at the waywardness of my subconscious - she's doing her happy dance in a bright red hula skirt at the thought of being his. — E.L. James

I wish I was just a left-handed hitter. It's really tough having to keep both sides sharp, and that's one reason why you don't see switch-hitters hit for that high of an average. You're always fighting one side or the other. — Lance Berkman

My high-school coach Tony Reginelli was kind of famous for 'Reggie-isms,' kind of like 'Yogi-isms.' He always said if you want to be a good quarterback, when sprinting left you want to be amphibious and throw left-handed. I told him, 'You mean ambidextrous, coach?' — Peyton Manning

Grandma Ruthie and her sister Jettie hadn't spoken a civil word in about fifteen years. Their last exchange was Ruthie's leaning over Jettie's coffin and whispering, "If you'd married and had children, there would be more people at your funeral." Of course, at the reading of Aunt Jettie's will, Grandma Ruthie was handed an enveloped containing a carefully folded high-resolution picture of a baboon's butt. That pretty much summed up their relationship. — Molly Harper

The country as a whole is far too complex and poor compared to Gujarat, which has been business-friendly and advanced in both governance and physical infrastructure (like roads, ports, etc.) over many decades now. On top of this, Modi's rather high-handed autocratic personal style (which is resented by many even within his own party) does not augur well for the intricate negotiations with diverse groups, state leaders and coalition partners he will necessarily have to work with at the all-India level. His polarising personality is not conducive to the tasks of compromise and consensus-building a leader inevitably faces in a highly fragmented polity like India's. — Anonymous

Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. — Alexander Hamilton

Did you think it was my intention to murder Whiskey Jack? Do you think I just cut down honourable men and loyal soldiers out of spite? ... They got in my way, damn you! Just as you're doing now! ...
The Tiste andii's faint smile nearly broke Kallor's heart. No, he understands. All to well. This will be his last battle, in Rake's name, and anyone's name.
Kallor drew out his sword. "Does it occur, to any of you, what these things do to me? No, of course not. the High King is cursed to fail, but never to fall. the High King is but ... What? Oh, the physical manifestiation of ambition. Walking proof of its inevitable price. Fine." he readied his two handed weapon.
"Fuck you, too". — Steven Erikson

He made it to the front door before he looked back at her. Then his eyes grew wide. "Oh! I almost forgot." He came back over to her and handed her a card.
"These are my numbers, e-mail addresses, business URL, physical address, and mailing address. You know ... if you need to get in touch with me."
Get in touch with him? But he left out his social security number, his date of birth, and his high school GPA. — Shelly Laurenston

We had a lengthy discussion of the difficulties I had had working on other biographies and the efforts made by Martha Gellhorn, Susan Sontag and others to prevent publication. Gellhorn's representative, Bill Buford, sent a threatening letter to my publisher. Michael, a journalist first, called Buford a "dirty dog." I never dreamed, then, that he, too, would, in the end, assume a rather high-handed attitude towards my manuscript, ordering me to make changes and deferring to the feelings of others. On this day, I said: "I don't respond well to those threats. I don't allow them to intimidate me." "We don't believe in authorised biographies," Michael concluded. "All authorised biographies are hereby condemned." I would remember these words later when Michael the Apostate appeared. — Carl Rollyson

In constructing the Coast Guard, Hamilton insisted on rigorous professionalism and irreproachable conduct. He knew that if revenue-cutter captains searched vessels in an overbearing fashion, this high-handed behavior might sap public support, so he urged firmness tempered with restraint. He reminded skippers to "always keep in mind that their countrymen are free men and as such are impatient of everything that bears the least mark of a domineering spirit. [You] will therefore refrain . . . from whatever has the semblance of haughtiness, rudeness, or insult." 34 So masterly was Hamilton's directive about boarding foreign vessels that it was still being applied during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Hamilton — Ron Chernow

The reason we feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial, and stupid. So the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation. I grapple with this because I'm a parent. And I think anybody who has children, you come to this realization, you know - what'll it be? Alienated, cynical intellectual? Or slack-jawed, half-wit consumer of the horseshit being handed down from on high? There is not much choice in there, you see. And we all want our children to be well adjusted; unfortunately, there's nothing to be well adjusted to! — Terence McKenna

It is contended that those who have been bred at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and Westminster, that the public sentiment within each of those schools is high-toned and manly; that, in their playgrounds, courage is universally admired, meanness despised, manly feelings and generous conduct are encouraged: that an unwritten code of honor deals to the spoiled child of rank, and to the child of upstart wealth an even-handed justice, purges their nonsense out of both, and does all that can be done to make them gentlemen. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

My Daddy was left-handed, and I was left-handed when I was little. In fact, I was left-handed all the way to high school. Then I switched over to right-handed cause I wanted to play shortstop. — Luke Appling

I'm left-handed, and it's not very easy to find reasonably priced, high-quality left-handed guitars. But out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite. I've only owned two of them. — Kurt Cobain

It is the sort of book that has to be rested on a table or a lectern; it is not easy to lift a volume one-handed, and only a basketball player would be able to hold it up and open with a single hand. With its pages spread, it is almost twenty inches wide, and the pages are a foot and half in length; stacked, the four volumes make a pile nearly ten inches high. Johnson's finished tome was stately in appearance - 'Vasta mole superbus' ('Proud in its great bulk'), as he beamingly described it in a letter to Thomas Warton.1 — Henry Hitchings

I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high - whether by presidents, prime ministers, or archbishops - is inherently suspect. The powerful, I came to see, reveal truth only to the extent that it suits them. — Andrew Bacevich

Your retaliation is unspeakable. For this alone, you must forgive me for my treatment of you."
"Still high-handed?"
"I literally risked my neck just now to say that in front of you. — Kresley Cole

He's very high-handed. Do you know that yesterday he had the audacity to ask me to practice adoring looks while peering into a mirror because he felt I was glaring at him too often? — Jen Turano

My manager said it would more effective against left-handed hitters. It seemed to me that was impossible to do without the high leg kick, which I started that day. — Juan Marichal