Ostende Nobis Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes, as Eve was born from one of Adam's ribs, a woman was born during my sleep from a cramped position of my thigh. Formed from the pleasure I was on the point of enjoying, she, I imagined, was the one offering it to me. My body, which felt in hers my own warmth, would try to find itself inside her, I would wake up. The rest of humanity seemed very remote compared to this woman I had left scarcely a few moments before; my cheek was still warm from her kiss, my body aching from the weight of hers. If, as sometimes happens, she had the features of a woman I had known in life, I would devote myself entirely to this end: to finding her again, like those who go off on a journey to see a longed-for city with their own eyes and imagine that one can enjoy in reality the charm of a dream. Little by little, the memory of her would fade, I had forgotten the girl of my dream. — Marcel Proust

I am glad you like what I said of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry (prison and mental hospital reformer). She is very unpopular with the clergy; examples of living, active virtue disturb our repose and give one to distressing comparisons; we long to burn her alive. — Sydney Smith

For this we must believe: that the mind is never seriously aroused to desire and ponder the life to come unless it be previously imbued with contempt for the present life. Indeed, there is no middle ground between these two: either the world must become worthless to us or hold us bound by intemperate love of it. — John Calvin

Liberation was in the very scale of the city: a goldfish bowl one could never grow to fit. — Sheridan Hay

Alive or dead, the truth won't rest. Rise up while you can. — Mira Grant

Everything that's created remains as it was before it was created. The artist fetches it down from the heavens as a finished thing. Eternity has no beginning. Poetry or a Joke: the act of creation lies between what's self-evident and what is permanent — Karl Kraus

Life is a cup of tea; the more heartily we drink the sooner we reach the dregs. — James M. Barrie

We live in a society that blames everybody else for what's wrong. — Max Cannon

Every Irishman, the saying goes, has a potato in his head. — Augustus Hare

Working for several years as a waitress, you learn really quickly a couple of default scripts, so you know exactly what the interaction is going to be when the person sits down at the table. — Ann Leckie