Intolerably Quotes & Sayings

But now she loved winter. Winter was beautiful "up back" - almost intolerably beautiful. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were like cups of glamour - the purest vintage of winter's wine. Nights with their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite winter sunrises. Lovely ferns of ice all over the windows of the Blue Castle. Moonlight on birches in a silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings - torn, twisted, fantastic shadows. Great silences, austere and searching. Jewelled, barbaric hills. The sun suddenly breaking through grey clouds over long, white Mistawis. Ice-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cosy living-room, with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats, seemed cosier than ever. Every hour brought a new revalation and wonder. — L.M. Montgomery

The ever-present impulse is to push against restriction and, in so doing, to feel intolerably hemmed in. Thus in practice, every liberation increases the sense of oppression. Nor is the paradox merely in the mind: the laws enacted to secure the rights of every person and group, by creating protective boundaries, create new barriers. — Jacques Barzun

Society mediates between the extremes of, on the one hand, intolerably strict morality and, on the other, dangerously anarchic permissiveness through an unspoken agreement whereby we are given leave to bend the rules of the strictest morality, provided we do so quietly and discreetly. Hypocrisy is the grease that keeps society functioning in an agreeable way, by allowing for human fallibility and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable human needs for order and pleasure. When Buckley and Wambaugh said bluntly that it's all right to deceive subjects, they breached the contract whereby you never come right out and admit you have stretched the rules for your own benefit. You do it and shut up about it, and hope you don't get caught, because if you are caught no one - or no one who has any sense - will come forward and say he has done the same thing himself. — Janet Malcolm

Wamblecropt is the most exquisite word in the English language. Say it. Each syllable is intolerably beautiful. — Mark Forsyth

Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.
Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Because i have been a man of order, my efforts were directed towards the attainment of a real, not a deceptive, freedom...I have always considered despotism of any kind a symptom of weakness. Where it appears, it condemns itself; most intolerably where it appears behind the mask of advancing the cause of liberty. — Kissinger Henry

Could you imagine how horrible things would be if we always told others how we felt? Life would be intolerably bearable. — R. K. Milholland

I know that I go through life like a drunkard. I'm drunk on illusion. But no matter how drunk I am, there are things I can't help seeing, ferociously real things. I close my eyes, and I reel, I reel. I reel, I believe, I live in a fever and turmoil, I rise into ecstasy, but all the time there is the face of reality staring at me with ugly eyes. I know that if I open my eyes I will be intolerably hurt by the ugliness. — Anais Nin

What happens to the people who became writers because yakking and tweeting and bragging felt to them like intolerably shallow forms of social engagement? What happens to the people who want to communicate in depth, individual to individual, in the quiet and permanence of the printed word, and who were shaped by their love of writers who wrote when publication still assured some kind of quality control and literary reputations were more than a matter of self-promotional decibel levels? — Jonathan Franzen

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. — Jane Austen

Love! What a searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing it was - this possession of body, soul and mind! With something at its core as fine and remote and purely spiritual as the tiny blue spark in the heart of the unbreakable diamond. No dream had ever been like this. She was no longer solitary. She was one of a vast sisterhood - all the women who had ever loved in the world. — L.M. Montgomery

For other organisms, bumbling along from here to nowhere is well managed. For us, it is a messy business and often intolerably horrific. To end all this paradox and horror [...] we must cease reproducing. Nothing less will do. — Thomas Ligotti

Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his lifespot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the case, these spritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beconed him to leap down among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. — Herman Melville

It must be a very dour and pessimistic astronomer indeed who seriously doubts that there must be countless numbers of intelligent civilizations scattered throughout the universe on other planets which are orbiting around other stars. An attitude which asserts that man is the only intelligent life form in the universe is intolerably arrogant today ... anyone who holds such an opinion today is, fortunately for those who like to see some progress in human conceptions, something of an intellectual freak equivalent to a believer in the Flat Earth Theory. — Robert K. G. Temple

People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other. — Bertrand Russell

It is apparent at first glance that in The Double there is more creative talent and depth of thought than in Poor Folk. But meanwhile the consensus of St. Petersburg readers is that this novel is intolerably long-winded and therefore terribly boring ... — Vissarion Belinsky

I don't find life unbearably grave. I find it almost intolerably frivolous. — Sebastian Faulks

Talent does things tolerably well; genius does then intolerably better — Elbert Hubbard

Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock about the age of twenty - the world of the elderly - thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and Byron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep's jaw with the yellow teeth in it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable - "I am what I am, and intend to be it," for which there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for himself. The Plumers will try to prevent him from making it. Wells and Shaw and the serious sixpenny weeklies will sit on its head. — Virginia Woolf

If Mr. [V.S.] Naipaul takes no pleasure in the happy delineation of the varieties of human nature, then he must be intolerably stupid. — Rosanne Cash

Oh Gertrud,' I cried, intolerably stirred by the bare mention of that
bed, 'this is a bleak and mischievous world, isn't it? Do you think we
shall ever be warm and comfortable and happy again? — Elizabeth Von Arnim

But to Vasili, for a moment that would be imprinted on his memory forever, that sharp-edged outline held a completely different, and wholly impossible, scene. It was as if a window had suddenly been opened onto another universe.
The vision lasted for less that a second, before his involuntary blink reflex cut it off. He was looking into a field not of stars, but of suns, as if into the crowded heart of a galaxy, or the core of a globular cluster. In that moment, Vasili Orlov lost forever the skies of Earth. From now on they would seem intolerably empty; even mighty Orion and glorious Scorpio would be scarcely noticeable patterns of feeble sparks, not worthy of a second glance. — Arthur C. Clarke

It must be admitted, however, that life in More's Utopia, as in most others, would be intolerably dull. — Bertrand Russell

She made a decision and forced out the words. "I'm sorry."
"For what?" he asked coolly, not even looking at her. "You dance as beautifully as anyone would expect."
"For being intolerably rude," she persisted. "If that is how you see it."
He glanced down and raised a brow. "Is not that how you see it?"
Amy kept a hold on her temper. "Perhaps. But chiefly, I was being honest."
"So was I."
"When?" she asked, confused.
"When I called you a bitch." He smiled and executed a particularly dizzy turn. — Jo Beverley

I don't know why, but any thought of the future upsets me intolerably. So I had to turn and look back at certain aspects of the past, and only then did I recover my calm. I thought of our friendship and was overcome by guilt at having allowed so much bitterness to invade my wretched heart. I recalled the joys and sorrows we had shared. Both are so dear to me that I began to sob like a woman when I remembered them. — George Sand

I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. — Charles Darwin

There was something wrong about thse people. But perhaps, just as it is true of my love, they could not go on living except in the way they do. If it is true that man, once born into the world, must somehow live out his life, perhaps the appearance that people make in order to go through with it, even if it is as ugly as their appearance, should not be despised. To be alive. To be alive. An intolerably immense undertaking before which one can only gasp in apprehension. — Osamu Dazai

Karl Heinzen, who retaliated with a memorable portrait of the angry little man. He found Marx 'intolerably dirty', a 'cross between a cat and an ape'; with 'dishevelled coal-black hair and dirty yellow complexion'. It was, he said, impossible to say whether his clothes and skin were naturally mud-coloured or just filthy. He had small, fierce, malicious eyes, 'spitting out spurts of wicked fire'; he had a habit of saying: 'I will annihilate you. — Paul Johnson

The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry. — Charles Darwin

Finally, he gave up trying to quiet her and lit a cigarette, the last resort of a man who finds himself in an intolerably stupid position. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A person, be it a man or a woman, who has not been exposed to the great wonders of literature, must be intolerably stupid. — Jane Austen

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future?
But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion. — Blaise Pascal

Those who suffer intolerably learn to hide their afflictions, both necessary and unnecessary, because the world does not run on pain time but on happy time, whether or not that happiness is honestly felt or a mask for the blackest despondency. — Thomas Ligotti

If death were the exception and not the rule, and we were not so swiftly to follow, these separations would be intolerably sad. We know no more of our next change of life than we knew of this before we were born into it; but that which we call death is merely change, who can doubt? — Celia Thaxter

When all are undressed, one is somehow not ashamed, but when one's the only one undressed and everybody is looking, it's degrading,' he kept repeating to himself, again and again. 'It's like a dream, I've sometimes dreamed of being in such degrading positions.' It was a misery to him to take off his socks. They were very dirty, and so were his underclothes, and now everyone could see it. And what was worse, he disliked his feet. All his life he had thought both his big toes hideous. He particularly loathed the coarse, flat, crooked nail on the right one, and now they would all see it. Feeling intolerably ashamed made him, at once and intentionally, rougher. He pulled off his shirt, himself. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I note however that this diary writing does not count as writing, since I have just re-read my year's diary and am much struck by the rapid haphazard gallop at which it swings along, sometimes indeed jerking almost intolerably over the cobbles. — Virginia Woolf

The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round. True, they are a merry-go-round of ill-gaited and wind-broken horses, painted first in pastel colors, then in dull grays and browns, but perplexing and intolerably dizzy the thing is, as never were the merry-go-rounds of childhood or adolescence; as never, surely, were the certain-coursed, dynamic roller-coasters of youth. For most men and women these thirty years are taken up with a gradual withdrawal from life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Continually measuring women's wants by men's achievements seems out of date, ignominious, and intolerably boring ... Now that we have secured possession of the tools of citizenship, we intend to use them not to copy men's models but to produce our own. — Eleanor Rathbone

The capacity of the brain to forsee the future has much to do with the fear of death.
For when the body is worn out and the brain is tired, the whole organism welcomes death. But it is difficult to understand how death can be welcome when you are young and strong, so that you come to regard it as a dread and terrible event. For the brain, in its immaterial way, looks into the future and conceives it a good to go on and on and on forever - not realizing that its own material would at last find the process intolerably tiresome. Not taking this into account, the brain fails to see that, being itself material and subject to change, its desires will change, and a time will come when death will be good. On a bright morning, after a good night's rest, you do not want to go to sleep. But after a hard day's work the sensation of dropping into unconsciousness is extraordinarily pleasant. — Alan W. Watts

I can be intolerably jealous and I think that's what's driven me. My ambition knows no end. — Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? — Herman Melville

In many ways, it's more fun to be part of movements than churches. We can express our own individuality, pick our favorite leaders, and be swept off our feet at conferences. We can be anonymous. Although encouraged by like-minded believers, we are not bound up with them so that we should feel compelled to bear their burdens or suffer their rebukes. Yet this movement mentality keeps us restless and makes ordinary life in and submission to an actual church seem intolerably confining. And terribly ordinary. — Michael S. Horton

To large numbers of American citizens life in certain parts of the country becomes intolerably hazardous. They may be seized on any pretext, however flimsy, and put to death with horrible tortures. No government pretending to be civilized can go on condoning such atrocities. Either it must make every possible effort to put them down or it must suffer the scorn and contempt of Christendom. — H.L. Mencken

The egoist ... destroys the universal importance accorded to moral law by showing that life independent of it is possible. Secondly, and even more intolerably to the pious, he manages to do so with shameless enjoyment. — John Carroll

People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other. — Wendell Berry

The lamplight was warm and the apartment still and snug. At home in bed, in my private abyss of longing, the scenes I dreamed of always began like this. I could lose myself forever in that singular little face, in the pessimism of her beautiful mouth. When I imagined these phrases cast in her voice, they were almost intolerably sweet; now, sitting right beside her, it was unthinkable that I should voice them myself. — Donna Tartt

In a moment he would call Tana and they would pour into themselves a gay and delicate poison which would restore them momentarily to the pleasurable excitement of childhood, when every face in a crowd had carried its suggestion of splendid and significant transactions taking place somewhere to some magnificent and illimitable purpose...Life was no more than this summer afternoon; a faint wind stirring the lace collar of Gloria's dress, the slow baking drowsiness of the veranda...Intolerably unmoved they all seemed, removed from any romantic imminency of action. Even Gloria's beauty needed wild emotions, needed poignancy, needed death... — F Scott Fitzgerald