Preferring Quotes & Sayings

She is remarkably dry,' he said to Stephen who, preferring to die in the open, had crept up on deck, — Patrick O'Brian

We feel, perhaps unconsciously, that learning from Masters and submitting to their authority is somehow an indictment of our own natural ability, Even if we have teachers in our lives, we tend not to pay full attention to their advice, often preferring to do things our own way. In fact, we come to believe that being critical of Masters or teachers is somehow a sign of our intelligence, and that being a submissive pupil is a sign of weakness. — Robert Greene

Willing or preferring is the same with respect to good and evil, that judging is with respect to truth or falsehood. — Anthony Collins

Yes, I share your concern: how to program well -though a teachable topic- is hardly taught. The situation is similar to that in mathematics, where the explicit curriculum is confined to mathematical results; how to do mathematics is something the student must absorb by osmosis, so to speak. One reason for preferring symbol-manipulating, calculating arguments is that their design is much better teachable than the design of verbal/pictorial arguments. Large-scale introduction of courses on such calculational methodology, however, would encounter unsurmoutable political problems. — Edsger Dijkstra

He did not like perfumed women. He was, after all, a man of hints, of mere suggestions of aromas, something that reaches the nose, then slips away at once, returning and disappearing with each light breeze. He kept his distance from smells that forced themselves on him, proclaiming their presence. He was intrigued by scents that made him search after them, preferring the concealed and the veiled to the pronounced and prominent. — Anat Talshir

I'm not really the scented envelope kid of girl, preferring instead to send yellow Jiffy-lite mailers packed with whatever song is on my mind. — Sarah Vowell

Lionel was filled with awful remorse. He asked where had Thomas been last seen, and the boy told him he was headed for the church. Lionel nodded and went home to fetch his shotgun. Throughout the crisis he had done no violence, preferring to preach the sanity of pacifism to the flock. This was different. This was a requirement of the father to the son. He prayed over the shotgun while Darla wailed with the children in the living room. He got in his truck and drove to the church. -- From "The South Fork Penance — L. Joseph Shosty

I moved a pillow aside ... preferring the joyful company of the delusional to the miserable company of the sane. — Shalom Auslander

Now having Brynhildic fantasies about her was nothing
I have all sorts of extraordinary fantasies which I don't take seriously
but bringing my fantasies into the real world frightened me very much. It's not that they were bad in themselves, but they were Unreal and therefore culpable; to try to make Real what was Unreal was to mistake the very nature of things; it was a sin not against conscience (which remained genuinely indifferent during the whole affair) but against Reality, and of the two the latter is far more blasphemous. It's the crime of creating one's own Reality, of "preferring oneself" as a good friend of mine says. — Joanna Russ

After the oil crisis of 1973, many European countries tightened restrictions on immigrants. By then, millions of Muslims had decided to settle in Europe, preferring the social segregation and racial discrimination they found in the West to political and economic turmoil at home. — Pankaj Mishra

I have spent most of my life preferring books to people,' Irene said sharply. 'Just because I like a few specific people doesn't change anything. — Genevieve Cogman

As winter set in, she was no longer a victim of Sister Maria's frustrations, preferring to watch as others were marched out to the corridor and given their just rewards. The sound of another student struggling in the hallway was not particularly enjoyable, but the fact that it was someone else was, if not a true comfort, a relief. When — Markus Zusak

When the subject of kids first came up years ago, I'd joked that the only thing I could imagine worse than me as a mother was Clay as a father. I couldn't have been more wrong. Clay was an amazing parents. The guy who couldn't spare a few minutes to hear a mutt's side of the story could listen to his kids talk all day. The guy who couldn't sit still through a brief council meeting could spend hours building Lego castles with his kids. The guy who solved problems with his fists never even raised his voice to his children. And if sometimes Clay was a little too indulgent, a little too slow to discipline, preferring to leave that to me, I was okay with it. He supported and enforced my decisions and we presented a unified front to our children, and that was all that mattered. — Kelley Armstrong

One common cause of this mistake of preferring to imagine and admire a great ideal instead of beginning to do little deeds is our impatience with little baby steps, our lack of humility. — Peter Kreeft

Liberty is not an Idea belonging to Volition, or preferring; but to the Person having the Power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the Mind shall chuse or direct. — John Locke

[ ... ] from what I'd been able to ascertain online, the Swiss were a reassuringly practical people. They had a long, proud history of staying out of wars, preferring to devote themselves to more constructive endeavours like science, secure banking and building extremely accurate clocks. — Gavin Extence

Latin Americans hold on tight even to pain and suffering, preferring a certain present to an uncertain future. Some of this is only natural, entirely human. But for us, the fear is paralyzing; it generates not only anxiety but also paralysis. — Oscar Arias

There's a difference between preferring books to parties and preferring sixteen cats to seeing the light of day. — Lauren Morrill

And it was funny. The silence of him had a bizarre effect on her. Normally, she was the quiet one in situations, preferring to keep her own council and not share her thoughts on anything. But with John's mute presence, she felt curiously compelled to talk.
"I'm stuffed," she said, lying back against the pillows. As he cocked a brow and lifted the last Danish, she shook her head.
"God ... no. I couldn't manage another thing."
And it was only then that he began to eat.
"You waited for me ?" she said, frowning. When he ducked her gaze and shrugged, she cursed softly.
" You didn't have to."
Another shrug. As she watched him, she murmured, "You have beautiful table manners."
His blush was the color of Valentine's Day and she had to tell her heart to calm the fuck down as it started to beat fast. — J.R. Ward

A "free spirit" - this cool expression does good in every condition, it almost warms. One no longer lives, in the fetters of love and hatred, without Yea, without Nay, voluntarily near, voluntarily distant, preferring to escape, to turn aside, to flutter forth, to fly up and away; one is fastidious like everyone who has once seen an immense variety beneath him, - and one has become the opposite of those who trouble themselves about things which do not concern them. In fact, it is nothing but things which now concern the free spirit, - and how many things! - which no longer trouble him! — Friedrich Nietzsche

I tend to place kids in a class with dogs, preferring the quiet, the smart, and the well trained. — Sue Grafton

At first glance, this seems an improbable scenario due to both the Martians' and Emily Dickinson's dispositions. Dickinson was a recluse who didn't meet anybody, preferring to hide upstairs when neighbors came to call and to float notes down on them.14 Various theories have been advanced for her self-imposed hermitude, including Bright's Disease, an unhappy love affair, eye trouble, and bad skin. T. L. Mensa suggests the simpler theory that all the rest of the Amherstonians were morons.15 None of these explanations would have made it likely that she would like Martians any better than Amherstates, and there is the added difficulty that, having died in 1886, she would also have been badly decomposed. — Connie Willis

Preferring a search for objective reality over revelation is another way of satisfying religious hunger. — Edward O. Wilson

I have what I call an iron prescription that helps me keep sane when I naturally drift toward preferring one ideology over another and that is: I say that I'm not entitled to have an opinion on this subject unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who support it. I think only when I've reached that state am I qualified to speak. This business of not drifting into extreme ideology is a very, very important thing in life — Charlie Munger

John Howard, willing to apologise to home owners for rising interest rates, would not say sorry to Aborigines. He refused to condone what he referred to as 'a black armband version' of history, preferring a jingoistic nationalism. — Richard Flanagan

. One of the most idiotic jeers against animal lovers is the one about their preferring critters to people. As a matter of observation, it will be found that people who 'care' - about rain forests or animals, miscarriages of justice or dictatorships - are, though frequently irritating, very often the same people. Whereas those who love hamburgers and riskless hunting and mink coats are not in the front ranks of Amnesty International. — Windsor Mann

It is a great deal to fight while despising war, to accept losing everything while still preferring happiness, to face destruction while cherishing the idea of a higher civilization. — Albert Camus

Base wealth preferring to eternal praise. — Homer

The gods preferring their libations diluted with rainwater and mixed with freshly cut grass. — Thomm Quackenbush

A terrified person can never see reality, preferring to hide in their fantasies. — Paulo Coelho

[In the Royal Society, there] has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness: bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits, or Scholars. — Thomas Sprat

It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot. — Joseph Brodsky

Types really don't matter. I have been accused of preferring blondes. But I have known some mighty attractive redheads, brunettes, and yes, women with grey hair. Age, height, weight haven't anything to do with glamour. — Clark Gable

Even today, some opt for the comforts of mystification, preferring to believe that the wonders of the ancient world were built by Atlanteans, gods, or space travelers, instead of by thousands toiling in the sun. Such thinking robs our forerunners of their due, and us of their experience. Because then one can believe whatever one likes about the past - without having to confront the bones, potsherds, and inscriptions which tell us that people all over the world, time and again, have made similar advances and mistakes. — Ronald Wright

In this world, all qualities spring from preferring the wellbeing of others to our own, whereas frustrations, confusion, and pain result from selfish attitudes. By adopting an altruistic outlook and by treating others in the way they deserve, our own happiness is assured as a byproduct. We should realize that self-centeredness is the source of all suffering, and that thinking of others is the source of all happiness. — Dalai Lama XIV

The truth is messy. It's raw and uncomfortable. You can't blame people for preferring lies. — Holly Black

I have always been paranoid about waking people up. When I was younger and would come home late, I would take about twenty minutes to get from the driveway into my bed. I tiptoed up the walk, slid my house key in the door very slowly, took my shoes off outside, and crept upstairs to the bathroom like a burglar. Often I wouldn't even flush until morning, preferring to let my business simmer overnight rather than wake somebody up with the sound of it zooming through walls on its way out of the house. — Neil Pasricha

When man subverted order he did a great deal more than merely fall away from the rationality of his nature, diminish his own humanity, which is all that he does in Aristostle's ethics, nor he did merely compromise his destiny by an error, as it happens in the Plathonic myths; he brought disorder into the divine order, and presents the unhappy spectacle of a being in revolt against Being. [...] Every time a man sins he renews this act of revolt and prefers himself to God; in thus preferring himself, he separates himself from God; and in separating himself, he deprives himself of the sole end in which he can find beatitude and by that very fact condemns himself to misery. — Etienne Gilson

Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids. — Colin Powell

The First Amendment ... does not say that in every respect there shall be a separation of Church and State ... Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other - hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly ... The state may not establish a 'religion of secularism' in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe. — William O. Douglas

From my experience with wild apples, I can understand that there may be reason for a savage's preferring many kinds of food which the civilized man rejects. The former has the palate of an outdoor man. It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a wild fruit. — Henry David Thoreau

But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom. — Alexis De Tocqueville

When an animal is looking for something that increases its chances of survival and reproduction (e.g. food, partners or social status), the brain produces sensations of alertness and excitement, which drive the animal to make even greater efforts because they are so very agreeable. In a famous experiment scientists connected electrodes to the brains of several rats, enabling the animals to create sensations of excitement simply by pressing a pedal. When the rats were given a choice between tasty food and pressing the pedal, they preferred the pedal (much like kids preferring to play video games rather than come down to dinner). The rats pressed the pedal again and again, until they collapsed from hunger and exhaustion — Yuval Noah Harari

Pride, on the other hand, is the mother of all sins, and the original sin of lucifer ... An instrument strung, but preferring to play itself because it thinks it knows the tune better than the Musician — C.S. Lewis

America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused - preferring greatness to power and justice to glory. — George W. Bush

It is remarkable how fast and how effectively you can construct a nationality with a flag , a few speeches, and a national anthem; to this day I avoid the label "Lebanese," preferring the less restrictive "Levantine" designation. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

As far as types preferring other types, people of the same type can understand each others' perspective very well, but also drive each other crazy because they see their flaws magnified. — Emily Yoffe

Had not the outrageous flair of Sybilla, and since George was a natural horseman it seemed almost inevitable that they should more often than not end up side by side, at some distance from the others. William never came, preferring to work at his painting, which was his profession as well as his vocation. He was gifted to the degree that his works were admired by academicians and collected by connoisseurs. Only Eustace affected to find it displeasing that his only son preferred to retire alone to the studio arranged for him in the conservatory and make use of the morning light, rather than parade on horseback for the fashionable world to admire. When they did not ride, they drove in the carriage, went shopping, paid calls upon their more intimate friends, or visited art galleries and exhibitions. — Anne Perry

On scientific grounds this big bang assumption is much less the palatable of the two. For it is an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms ... On philosophical grounds too I cannot see any good reason for preferring the big bang idea. Indeed it seems to me in the philosophical sense to be a distinctly unsatisfactory notion, since it puts the basic assumption out of sight where it can never be challenged by a direct appeal to observation. — Fred Hoyle

I worry the Christian community has accepted an insidious shift from laboring for others to prioritizing our own rights. We've perpetuated a group identity as misunderstood and persecuted, defending our positions and preferring to be right over being good news. We've bought the lie that connecting with people on their terms is somehow compromising, that our refusal to proclaim our moral ground from word one is a slippery slope. It has become more vital to protect our own station than advocate for a world that needs Jesus, who came to us, wrapped in our skin, speaking our language. If we were not too beneath Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners, then how dare we take a superior position over any other human being? How lovely is a faith community that goes forth as loving sisters and brothers rather than angry defenders and separatists. — Jen Hatmaker

According to Buddhism, each person is a Buddha who has forgotten their original nature. If we in the pampered West, having grown up with so many advantages, could not claim our own health and our agency, preferring to see ourselves as helpless victims, then who would do it? Who would take responsibility for the world? — Daniel Pinchbeck

Preferring to store her money in the stomachs of the needy rather than hide it in a purse. — St. Jerome

Unfortunately they failed to appreciate the best part of you, preferring to lose themselves in the labyrinth of your grosser illusions. Didn't I show our well-behaved audience an angelized version of you? And you saw their reaction. They were bored and just sat in their seats like a bunch of stiffs. Of course, what can you expect? They wanted the death stuff, the pain stuff. All that flashy junk. They wanted cartwheels of agonized passion; somersaults into fires of doom; nosedives, if you will, into the frenzied pageant of vulnerable flesh. They wanted a tangible thrill.
("Drink To Me Only With Labyrinthine Eyes") — Thomas Ligotti

But the true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals; claiming nothing for themselves but what they freely concede to every one else; regarding command of any kind as an exceptional necessity, and in all cases a temporary one; and preferring, whenever possible, the society of those with whom leading and following can be alternate and reciprocal. — John Stuart Mill

It appears the Kochs are among the most defensive billionaires, preferring the comfy confines of their callous and intellectually dishonest world view. — Robert Greenwald

Rather than risk starting their own businesses, most people seek safer environments, preferring job security to freedom and a steady paycheck to greater wealth. Their fear of failing is greater than the joy of freedom. — Robert Kiyosaki

Pride is all about selfishness. Valuing and preferring ourselves, our agendas, our perspectives over anything or anyone else. Pride is easily o ended ("How dare he say that!"). Pride is easily irritated (" at's not what I said!"). Pride is easily embittered ("I am never speaking to her again!"). Pride has no problem breaking up relationship based on misunderstanding. — Robert Hotchkin

Preferring the comforting messages of certain attributes of God, our lives have become a trifling with His holiness. We desperately need to regain this view of the highness and the holiness of God. His holiness is the ultimate clarity. — James MacDonald

Human beings, when confronted with the strange and inexplicable, have an immediate instinct to get back to the accustomed and the normal. We do not hug our miracles close; we put them hastily away, preferring the commonplace to live with it. It is as if some compulsive hand wipes clean the wall on which the handwriting appeared. — Fulton Oursler

Even if there were no actual evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories. — Richard Dawkins

Factions among yourselves; preferring such
To offices and honors, as ne'er read
The elements of saving policy;
But deeply skilled in all the principles
That usher to destruction. — Philip Massinger

Go your way. Forget Prometheus, And all the woe that he is doom'd to bear; By his own choice this vile estate preferring To ignorant bliss and unfelt slavery. — Hartley Coleridge

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion ... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them ... he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form. — John Stuart Mill

For the first time, in Golconda, she had practiced Larry's choice of withdrawing if the people were not of quality. Of preferring solitude to the effort of pretending he was interested in them. — Anais Nin

Dear God, master of the universe, compassionate and merciful: we who are steeped in sin, kneel in supplication before your throne and beseech you to recall from this world Saadat Hasan Manto, son of Ghulam Hasan Manto, who was a man of great piety. Take him away, Lord, for he runs away from fragrance and chases after filth. He hates the bright sun, preferring dark labyrinths. He has nothing but contempt for modesty but is fascinated by the naked and the shameless. He hates sweetness, but will give his life to taste bitter fruit. He will not so much as look at housewives but is in seventh heaven in the company of whores. He will not go near running waters, but loves to wade through filth. Where others weep, he laughs; and where others laugh, he weeps. Faces blackened by evil, he loves to wash with tender care to make visible their real features. He never thinks about you but follows Satan everywhere, the same fallen angel who once disobeyed you. — Saadat Hasan Manto

Eventually you will find yourself preferring to say, 'Prayer happened, and I was there" more than "I prayed today". All you know is that you are being led, being guided, being loved, being used, being prayed through
and you are no longer in the drivers seat. — John Predmore

Part came from Lane, and part from D.H. Lawrence;
Gide, though I didn't know it then, gave part.
They taught me to express my deep abhorrence
If I caught anyone preferring Art
To Life and Love and being Pure-in-heart.
I lived with crooks but seldom was molested;
The Pure-in-heart can never be arrested. — W. H. Auden

Mindfulness meditation is the embrace of any and all mind states in awareness, without preferring one to another. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot have his flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you will, he stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past apprehension of truth; and his alert acceptance of it, from whatever quarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to society, his Christianity, his world may at any time be superseded and decease. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A vast skylight is cut into the ceiling, so she can fall asleep studying the stars. She doesn't know their real names, preferring mysteries to facts, — Menna Van Praag

Hatred of the creator can turn to hatred of creation or to exclusive and defiant
love of what exists. But in both cases it ends in murder and loses the right to be called rebellion. One can
be nihilist in two ways, in both by having an intemperate recourse to absolutes. Apparently there are rebels who
want to die and those who want to cause death. But they are identical, consumed with desire for the true life,
frustrated by their desire for existence and therefore preferring generalized injustice to mutilated justice. At this
pitch of indignation, reason becomes madness. If it is true that the instinctive rebellion of the human heart advances
gradually through the centuries toward its most complete realization, it has also grown, as we have seen, in blind
audacity, to the inordinate extent of deciding to answer universal murder by metaphysical assassination. — Albert Camus

I admit at the beginning that 'popular religion,' 'demotic religion,' the pieties of the common folk, tends to sink to the lowest common denominator, be it in syncretizing saints with old, half-forgotten pagan godlings, or in preferring the nasal whine and the revivalist shoutin' to solid sense and learning, regarding intellect as positively inimical to the workings of the Holy Ghost. But it is in American religious life, especially Protestant American religious life, that things bottom out completely. — Markham Shaw Pyle

Deep attention, the cognitive style traditionally associated with the humanities, is characterized by concentrating on a single object for long periods (say, a novel by Dickens), ignoring outside stimuli while so engaged, preferring a single information stream, and having a high tolerance for long focus times. Hyper attention is characterized by switching focus rapidly among different tasks, preferring multiple information streams, seeking a high level of stimulation, and having a low tolerance for boredom. — N. Katherine Hayles

It's true that Doug and Anna live in their own universe, complete with its own language. Like Tuna McAlpine, the Crabtrees eschew the term "conventional" farming, preferring "chemically dependent." Doug can tell you exactly why. "We've been practicing agriculture foe approximately twelve thousand years and using poisons in great quantities for just sixty of them," he reasons, " so to label that 'convention' is a huge insult to eleven thousand nine hundred and forty years of agriculture. — Liz Carlisle

... Full of old cockatoos who used to be rich and aren't any longer, but they cling to yesterday tooth and nail, preferring to live on bread and sardines rather than sell what little they have left of their faded glory. — Maria Duenas

A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance. — Alanis Morissette

How fickle it is, memory - preferring some days to others, granting first a blue sky, offering next the sound of laughter, swelling our remembrances until a largeness seeps into the grain of things and memory itself becomes billowed and flapping. — Sonja Livingston

Reflection enables us to step back, to see our perspective on a situation as perhaps distorted or blind, at the very least to see if there is argument for preferring our ways, or whether it is just subjective. — Simon Blackburn

The doctor was a frequent visitor at Miss Trumball's establishment, preferring it to the Lanchester house, whose girls had a saturnine disposition in his opinion, as if imported from Maine or other gloom-loving provinces. — Colson Whitehead

A number of governments, such as India and the Philippines, routinely opposed certain initiatives, preferring to elevate either solidarity among developing countries (and their collective desire to fend off criticism as unacceptable intervention) or the principle of state sovereignty over the protection of human beings. — Thomas G. Weiss

When you want full color perception, you must give up preferring some colors and hating others, for you can only hate one aspect of a color, not a whole color, it seems, hate being blind, like 'love. — William Tapley Bennett Jr.

As a functional Aspergian adult, one thing troubles me deeply about those kids who end up behind the second door. Many descriptions of autism and Asperger's describe people like me as "not wanting contact with others" or "preferring to play alone." I can't speak for other kids, but I'd like to be very clear about my own feelings: I did not ever want to be alone. And all those child psychologists who said "John prefers to play by himself" were dead wrong. I played by myself because I was a failure at playing with others. I was alone as a result of my own limitations, and being alone was one of the bitterest disappointments of my young life. — John Elder Robison

I didn't write my speech until the night before, and even then I refused to write it out like I would say it, preferring to keep cribbed notes I could come back to if necessary. I wanted this to feel like a conversation because it was what I wanted to say that mattered, not how it looked on paper. — Corey Taylor

The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal. — Alexander Hamilton

Despite my love affair with skyscraper heels, luckily for my feet I rarely wear them - preferring, instead, the comfort and child-handling practicalities of a pair of trainers. — Sheherazade Goldsmith

Preferring steady progress, slow and imperfect, is a good philosophy for the defeated. — Fred Lowe Soper

Of how much real happiness we cheat our souls by preferring a trifle to God! We have a general intention of living religion; but we intend to begin tomorrow or next year. The present moment we prefer giving to the world. — Adoniram Judson

So, preferring death to capture, I accomplished the most astonishing deeds, and which, more then once, showed me that the too great care we take of our bodies is the only obstacle to the sucess of those projects which require rapid decision, and vigorous and determined execution.
In reality, when you have once devoted your life to your enterprises, you are no longer the equal of other men, or, rather, other men are no longer your equals, and whosoever has taken this resolution, feels his strength and resources doubled. — Alexandre Dumas

Many people shun an anointed atmosphere because they know that it will challenge them to change. Preferring to stay where the power of God is not moving, they are never challenged, convicted, or transformed. — T.D. Jakes

A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed.
Things could not go on in this manner. — Victor Hugo

My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty.
To you I am bound for life and education.
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you. You are the lord of my duty,
I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband,
And so much duty as my mother showed
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord. — William Shakespeare

In my experience, there are plenty of bad middle-class parents: those who put their own lives and careers before those of their children and make precious little time available for their offspring, preferring instead to hire in childcare and shower them with the latest and most expensive gadgets. — Martin Jacques

Preferring the nausea of the path to its fated and certain ending. — Patrick Bryant

But Miles had always approached life differently than he, always preferring to blend in with his surroundings rather than to shape them, always preferring to make do. He just didn't understand that there were some things in life a man simply should not accept. — Terry Brooks

My old black cat, he passed away this morning. He never knew what a heartache was. Woke up late and he danced till noon. If questioned why, answered just because. He never spoke much, preferring silence. Eight lost lives was all he had. — Ian Anderson

Not too much. I never got into killing things." "Preferring slow torture." "You — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

If there were a reason for preferring the Christian religion to natural religion, it would be because the former offers us, on the nature of God and man, enlightenment that the latter lacks. Now, this is not at all the case; for Christianity, instead of clarifying, gives rise to an infinite multitude of obscurities and difficulties. — Denis Diderot

But he would give the Spainish no satisfaction. When they offered him a drink, he smashed the glass and ate the shards, preferring his own English blood to their sweet wine. He died soon after. — Marc Aronson

Our forefather Adam ... used his freedom to turn toward what was worse and to direct his desire away from what had been permitted to what was forbidden. It was in his power 'to be united to the Lord and become one spirit with God ... ' (I Cor. 6:15). But Adam was deceived and chose to cut himself off voluntarily from God's happy end for him, preferring by his own free choice to be drawn down to the earth (cf. Gen. 2:17) than to become God by grace. — Maximus The Confessor

Preferring anything above Christ is the very essence of sin. It must be fought. — John Piper