Isthmus Quotes & Sayings

Time,- that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities. — Charles Caleb Colton

One Soviet general, looking at a map of the territory Russia had acquired on the Karelian Isthmus, is said to have remarked: "We have won just about enough ground to bury our dead — William R. Trotter

He had not colored the leaves in yet, and the trunk and its branches looked for the moment less like a tree and more like a great brown river, the Nile, the Amazon, the Benedetto and Flynn river of blood, and there at its isthmus was this one child, so that it seemed that all of these people, from Poland, from Italy, from Ireland and the Bronx and Brooklyn, had come together for no other reason than to someday produce Robert Benedetto, in an event as meant, as important as that one in Bethlehem that he had learned about in catechism class at St. Stannie's. — Anna Quindlen

I think laughter is the best medicine. If you can't laugh at yourself, then you can't laugh at life and the silliness of it all. — David Hasselhoff

Two of the hardest decisions in life: the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage to accept whatever you encounter. — Paulo Coelho

Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities! — Abraham Cowley

It's the big new bridge," said Serge. "Takes you right across Lake What-the-Fuck." "Is that another real name?" "No," said Serge. "That's what I call it. It's really named Lake Surprise. But surprise is usually something good that provides delight, like winning the lottery or reaching in the back of the fridge and finding an unexpected jar of olives. But this lake got its name because it pissed people off." "How'd it do that?" "Another funny story. When Henry Flagler started the Overseas Railroad down the Keys, he looked for the route with the most land, because bridges over water cost more. So he sent out surveyors, and they began laying tracks south from the mainland of Florida, across some little islands and an isthmus to Key Largo. And I can't believe they built that far before realizing that right in the middle of a big chunk of land was this giant lake, and now they have to build an extra bridge that wasn't in the budget. — Tim Dorsey

It must be dawn, and the last breath went out of this body on the table - how long before? Irretrievably gone from this world, as dead as though she had lived a thousand years ago. Men have cut the isthmus of Panama and joined the two oceans; they have bored tunnels that run below rivers; built aluminum planes that fly from Frisco to Manila; sent music over the air and photographs over wires; but never, when the heartbeat of their own kind has once stopped, never when the spark of life has fled, have they been able to reanimate the mortal clay with that commonest yet most mysterious of all processes; the vital force. And this man thinks he can - this man alone, out of all the world's teeming billions! ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

The Central American isthmus is a region of great contrasts, but also of heartening unison. Millions of men and women share dreams of freedom and progress. — Oscar Arias

Does it ever occur to you not to sleep with women?"
"No," Riley said. — Jennifer Crusie

You can weaponize nice ... Being nice can make you be a little underestimated. — Erin McKean

Since truth is often stranger than fiction, fiction needs to be pretty weird. — Erik Meyer

I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed. — Elia Kazan

Since 1849 I have studied incessantly, under all its aspects, a question which was already in my mind since 1832. I confess that my scheme is still a mere dream, and I do not shut my eyes to the fact that so long as I alone believe it to be possible, it is virtually impossible ... The scheme in question is the cutting of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez. This has been thought of from the earliest historical times, and for that very reason is looked upon as impracticable. Geographical dictionaries inform us indeed that the project would have been executed long ago but for insurmountable obstacles. [On his inspiration for the Suez Canal.] — Ferdinand De Lesseps

South America had been an island continent, far bigger and far more diverse than Australia, for tens of millions of years before the Isthmus of Panama rose just a couple of million years ago. The resulting flood of North American mammals across the new land bridge corresponds in time with the decimation of the native South American fauna. In fact, most large mammals generally considered distinctly South American ... are all recent migrants from North America. — Stephen Jay Gould

There are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or inlet, yet unexplored by him. — Henry David Thoreau

I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being. — Thomas Jefferson

I do karate because it makes the rest of life easy. That is to say, karate training, if done properly, is tough: it's hard work, with little reward because your sensei never compliments you. — Scott Langley

When young, we trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute. — Charles Caleb Colton

Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short. — Charles Caleb Colton

Sometimes you've just got to let them scream, right? — Paul Park

When I review Xerxes' achievements, I praise him, not for having yoked the Hellespont, but for having crossed it. But I can see that Nero will neither sail through the Isthmus nor complete his digging. — Apollonius Of Tyana

In the interval from about February to May 1609, there was considerable material progress in and about Jamestown. Perhaps forty acres were cleared and prepared for planting in Indian corn, the new grain that fast became a staple commodity. A "deep well" was dug in the fort. The church was re-covered and twenty cabins built. A second trial was made at glass manufacture in the furnaces built late in 1608. A blockhouse was built at the isthmus which connected the Island to the mainland for better control of the Indians, and a new fort was erected on a tidal creek across the river from Jamestown. — Charles E. Hatch

From earliest times, water has always been acknowledged as a primary human good and an indispensable natural resource. Around the great rivers of the world, like the Mississippi, great cultures have developed, while over the course of the centuries the prosperity of countless societies has been linked to these waterways. Today, however, the great fluvial systems of every continent are exposed to serious threats, often as a result of man's activity and decisions. — Pope Benedict XVI

Myth is the isthmus which connects the peninsular world of thought with that vast continent we really belong to. It is not, like truth, abstract; nor is it, like direct experience, bound to the particular. — C.S. Lewis

I can read in red.
I can read in blue.
I can read in pickle color too. — Dr. Seuss

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state. — Alexander Pope

Tis but a short journey across the isthmus of Now. — Christian Nestell Bovee

If you ever get rich and famous, by definition you are special. You have done something special, and therefore you start to behave special. Then if the floor drops out, and you become down and out, you have a really new perspective. — Danny Bonaduce

What shall we call this undetermin'd state,
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless oceans,
That whence we came, and that to which we tend? — George Lillo

If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great. — Alexander Pope

I realized that I could have done more for him if I had been in his house. I would have pushed morphine--large doses. Morphine disconnects the head from the body, makes the isthmus of a neck vanish and diminishes the awareness of suffering. It is like a magic trick: the head on the pillow, at peace, while the chest toils away. — Abraham Verghese