Quell Quotes & Sayings

Public opinion, - a tyrant, sitting in the dark, wrapt up in mystification and vague terrors of obscurity; deriving power no one knows from whom ... - but irresistible in its power to quell thought, to repress action, to silence conviction ... — Harriet Martineau

To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk, - to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a "too easy chair" to take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his. — Charlotte Bronte

Our present stress on growth and productivity is, I believe, intimately related to the decline in rootedness. Faced with loneliness and vulnerability that come with deprivation of a securely encompassing community, we have sought to quell the vulnerability through our possessions. — Paul L Wachtel

In tracking down and eliminating terrorists , we need to change our metaphor from a "war on terror" exactly what, pray tell, is that? to the mind-set of Interpol tracking down master criminals through intense global cooperation among nations, or the FBI stalking the Mafia , or local police determined to quell street gangs without leveling the entire neighborhood in the process. — Bill Moyers

I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal dream. — Thomas Francis Meagher

The first problem I had with conducting was coming out on stage and turning my back on the audience. It was an utterly foreign sensation. I always felt as if my rear end were hanging out. That particular portion of my anatomy suddenly seemed enormous, living a life of its own, engaged in its own relationship with the public behind my back. For the first couple of years I conducted, I sat on a chair in front of the orchestra, to help quell that particular discomfort. — Leon Fleisher

Walk me, foreign valley
Hear us wail, know our call,
Kill me, the troubled nomad, war torn and hungry
Quell the sun and all its tyranny.
Break the day, so to say and slay,
the snow and all we know,
Let come the horror we've been counting on.
Be it the fault together, of our catalyst and our progeny. — Rosca Marx

Although you may spend your life killing, you will not exhaust all your foes. But if you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain. — Nagarjuna

Come to us and quackle and quank.
Relieve us of our stirrings
With your fangs so sharp and bright
Take this blood that's always purring.
Through our hollow bones it flows
To each feather and downy fluff.
Quell the terrible, horrid urge that so often prinkles us,
Still our dreams, make slow our thoughts
Let tranquillity flood our veins.
Come to us and drink your fill
So we might end our pains.
- The Owls at St. Aegolius calling to the bats — Kathryn Lasky

Young as I was, I still wondered what kind of man this was who, with one leg bandaged, could quell a room full of rough men with a look or a word. — Robin Hobb

He was quite possibly the most desirable man she had ever had the good fortune to lay her eyes upon and she had to meet him like this. Life was not fair. A groan of frustration left her lips as her body began to heat once more, blood pumping furiously through her. Oh no, she thought, this cannot be happening yet again. Gritting her teeth she tried to quell her reaction. — C.P. Mandara

And Quell asked, 'Ah, but what is nature?'
Socrates answered, sparks showering, 'God surprising himself with odd miracles of flesh. — Ray Bradbury

I keep such music in my brain
No din this side of death can quell;
Glory exulting over pain,
And beauty, garlanded in hell. — Siegfried Sassoon

When there is an influenza threat, drop everything and focus on risks from influenza pandemics. When SARS spreads, focus on unknown respiratory diseases. This approach helps to quell public concern, but it's a hugely inefficient way to deal with future risks. — Nathan Wolfe

When I wake, I have a brief, delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta. Happiness, of course, is a complete absurdity at this point, since at the rate things are going, I'll be dead in a day. And that's the best-case scenario, if I'm able to eliminate the rest of the field, including myself, and get Peeta crowned as the winner of the Quarter Quell. Still, the sensation's so unexpected and sweet I cling to it, if only for a few moments. Before the gritty sand, the hot sun, and my itching skin demand a return to reality. — Suzanne Collins

What passion cannot music raise and quell! — John Dryden

Love: a hybrid emotion made up of various other emotions collaged by some weak individual's mind to try to quell a particular horror that's not been wiped out by more standardized symbols like Christ, etc. Nietzsche, right? Whatever. — Dennis Cooper

These are the lessons young people who are locked up learn instead: to close off their emotions, shut down their intellect, quell their individuality, avoid forming connections, and view all interactions through the prism of Power. — Nell Bernstein

No travel ban or quarantine will seal a country completely. Even if travel could be reduced by eighty per cent-itself a feat-models predict that new transmissions would be delayed only a few weeks. Worse, it would only drive an increase in the number of cases at the source. Health-care workers who have fallen ill would not be able to get out for treatment, and the international health personnel needed to quell the outbreak would no longer be able to go in. — Atul Gawande

Around midnight he'd decided there was but a single course of action: He must remove her ovaries to quell the madness. — Peter Geye

I love you. He stabbed a thumb at his chest as he glared at her.
Of course he did. Lucien had never hidden the fact.
But the love of a friend, while comforting, was not enough anymore.
It did not soothe the restless discomfort that pushed against her chest or quell the
loneliness that seemed to grow within her each passing day. — Kristen Callihan

No tempest or conflagration, however great, is harder to quell than mob carried away by the novelty of power. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Gore said foreigners are not worried about 'what the terrorist networks are going to do, but about what we're going to do.' Good. They should be worried. They hate us? We hate them. Americans don't want to make Islamic fanatics love us. We want to make them die. There's nothing like horrendous physical pain to quell anger. Japanese Kamikazes pilots hated us once, too. A couple of well-aimed nuclear weapons got their attention. Now they are gentle little lambs. — Ann Coulter

It's an issue that we need to have a national discussion about, the militarization of local police forces, and then when they are used to quell peaceful demonstration. Then we have a problem, and especially around this entire case of the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer. — William Lacy Clay Jr.

In justice to desponding men, it is as well to remember that the brighter endurance of women at these epochs - invaluable, sweet, angelic, as it is - owes more of its origin to a narrower vision that shuts out many of the leaden-eyed despairs in the van, than to a hopefulness intense enough to quell them. — Thomas Hardy

As the liquid paper's fumes quell his brain activity, Jack finds himself staring at
her again and what he thinks is this: Wow. — Joe Meno

Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor. — Karl Marx

As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their "sweetheart deals," to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. Corporate Globalization-or shall we call it by its name?-Imperialism-needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. — Arundhati Roy

What passions cannot music raise or quell? — John Dryden

Patriarchy, hierarchy, and capitalism create, encourage, maintain, and perpetuate addiction and dependency. Patriarchy and hierarchy are based on domination and subordination, which result in fear. This fear is expressed by the dominators through control and violence, and in subordinated people through passivity and repression of anger. The external conflict of hierarchy between dominants and subordinates becomes internalized in individuals, creating personal inner chaos, anxiety and duality. To quell the inner conflict people resort to addictive substances and behavior. — Charlotte Davis Kasl

Come forth, old man,
thy daughter's side
Is now the fitting place for thee:
When time has quell'd the oak's bold pride,
The youthful tendril yet may hide,
The ruins of the parent tree. — Walter Scott

While some select sobering situations may be unlaughable, there are few circumstances that humor, subtle or candid, can't improve. Afterall, remembering not to take ourselves or others too seriously can put a lot of things into perspective. Laughter is healing. Laughter creates bonds and forges enduring friendships. A healthy sense of humor can quell almost any overwhelming anxiety, and can quench the fires of fury and fear unlike anything else when appropriate. Even more so when not.
Connie Kerbs — Connie Kerbs

When Peeta holds out his arms, I walk straight into them. It's the first time since they announced the Quarter Quell that he's offered me any sort of affection. He's been more like a very demanding trainer, always pushing, always insisting Haymitch and I run faster, eat more, know our enemy better. Lovers? Forget about that. He abandoned any pretense of even being my friend. I wrap my arms tightly around his neck before he can order me to do push-ups or something. Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go.
And why should I? — Suzanne Collins

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination ... Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know. — Wislawa Szymborska

The freer an economy is, the more this human diversity of knowledge will be manifested. By contrast, political power originates in top-down processes-governments, monopolies, regulators, and elite institutions-all attempting to quell human diversity and impose order. Thus power always seeks centralization. — George Gilder

Take it easy, Teague,'said another. But Peter would not take it easy: he hesitated, trying to quell the wild indignation; but he failed; it possessed him, and with a furious shriek he hurled himself upon his country's oppressors. — Patrick O'Brian

So the only way I could stave off any of these assaults was to become a gang banger, and to excel, so I could quell the behavior. If I excelled, then I could call the shots. So I became a community leader from inside. — Malik Yusef

We earn the respect of our peers by laboring to quell our critics' justified disapproval. We earn self-respectability by schooling the wisdom to ignore unfair condemnation. We learn goodness by witnessing other person's lives and by performing unsolicited acts of kindnesses. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. We avoid it or quell it by filtering it through our protective barriers of domestication and control. The normal way never leads home. — John O'Donohue

Lament
For J
Among the small graves a soft shaft of sunlight gently rains
On a memory; etches, as a glittering finger,
Golden corn field hair, ignites eyes sweet as the seas blue plains,
Traces lips pink as Marys carnation tears and lingers
Then is gone. Oh ancient sun above how shall I tell
Of the hearts deep yearnings that the years can never quell? — Alan James Roll

Katniss should have the most reasons to hate, having been sent into the arena not once, but twice. But despite everything she's been through, she's still capable of seeing the so-called "enemy" as individuals rather than as a monolithic entity. She remembers that Octavia snuck her a roll rather than see her hungry and that Flavius had to quit during the Quarter Quell because he couldn't stop crying. — Leah Wilson

arm more tightly, as much to quell her own fears as give support to Adele. When they finally reached the hall, Adele looked around swiftly and then she also shivered and drew her robe about her. It seemed — Barbara Taylor Bradford

His large hand closes across around my mouth to stop me from screaming, and he holds me easily in place. The logical part of my brain is expecting this and tries to quell the spike of adrenaline which rushes through my body, but the instinct to fight is stronger than I'd anticipated. Impulsively I struggle to break out of the bonds of his arms, and he tightens his grip on me instantly. — Felicity Brandon

So, you're dead asleep, and you get a call. Something terrible's happened, and I'm dead. What do you do?"
It took him a moment to quell the terror, to ignore the small, dark place inside him that feared getting that call every day. "Before or after I fall prostrate with grief?"
"Before, during, and after. Do you peruse your wardrobe and select a coordinating outfit - down to the footwear? Do you deal with your hair so it's perfectly groomed?"
"With my considerable skills and innate instincts that would take no time at all."
"Keep it up and I'll dump red sauce all over your fashionable smarty-pants."
"That statement is one of the countless reasons why, under the circumstances you described, I'd be lucky to remember to dress at all. — J.D. Robb

There was a prison uprising at Alcatraz, and I drove the Marines over there in a landing craft to quell the riot. I am the only serviceman I know with an American Theatre ribbon. — Bud Grant

I trust to take of truest Thisby's sight. But stay; - O spite! But mark, - poor knight, What dreadful dole is here! Eyes, do you see? How can it be? O dainty duck! O dear! Thy mantle good, What! stained with blood? Approach, ye furies fell! O fates! come, come; Cut thread and thrum; Quail, rush, conclude, and quell! — William Shakespeare

But in school I remember hearing that for the second Quarter Quell, the Capitol demanded that twice the number of tributes be provided for the arena. The teachers didn't go into much more detail, which is surprising, because that was the year District 12's very own Haymitch Abernathy won the crown. — Suzanne Collins

I lay sweating, shaking, doing my best to quell the overwhelming need
to extinguish the dark flame inside me.
A flame that burns brighter, hotter, stronger each day.
A fire so insatiable it'll consume everything in its path. — Alyson Noel

And still, still, there is more to describe-
we paint because drawing breath is an agony
and exhaling an ecstasy
and somewhere in the space in-between
we think we once found a truth;
and the eternal part of us desires
to share this truth at all costs
only it's never quite how we pictured it,
and it's never quite received the way we want
and the paint drips with our own blood
the handles of our brushes are our own bones
our own tears become the words to our most beautiful love songs
and we know we'll never get it right before we die-

getting up every morning and facing our own limited truth
is a courage so divine
most men quell and women stay enslaved in silence. — Marie Anzalone

I can't even help it. There's just this thread of anticipation that I can't seem to quell. So when the school day ends and nothing extraordinary has happened, it's a tiny heartbreak. It's like eleven o'clock on the night of your birthday, when you realize no one's throwing you a surprise party after all. — Becky Albertalli

I'd learned that the same internal voice that told me I wasn't good enough had a habit of judging other women, too. They fed into each other, so it was best to quell such thoughts before they gathered strength. — Kjerstin Gruys

We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K. — Eddie George

There has also been the problem of the disquieting rumblings from my gut. I had a fearful prescience that something truly foul and hellish wishes to escape my fundament. I fight it as I would fight the very devil (who lives in the flat above) and so far I have managed to quell and contain my riotous innards. — Heide Goody

She lives her life like a flame; a dance of purposeful chaos. ... Her enchanting light can guide you and quell your fears ... She's hot; warming those who respect her and burning those who don't ... She is a flame with an unforgettable glow ... A weak man will try to dim her luminance ... but her soul mate will take pleasure in fanning the blaze. — Steve Maraboli

We were ordered out to quell an uprising of the Indians, and were out for several days, had numerous skirmishes during which six of the soldiers were killed and several severely wounded. — Calamity Jane

The train that circles Internment couldn't carry him far enough. My brother, the peripatetic, the sage, was too restless to stay in one place, but one place is all we're given. The only one who could quell this restlessness was Alice, always Alice, who swears she was born already in love with him. — Lauren DeStefano

To dislocate the functioning of a city without destroying it can be more effective than a riot because it can be longer-lasting, costly to the society but not wantonly destructive, moreover, it is more difficult for Government to quell it by superior force. — Martin Luther King Jr.

When filled with God's love, we can do and see and understand things that we could not otherwise do or see or understand. Filled with His love, we can endure pain, quell fear, forgive freely, avoid contention, renew strength, and bless and help others in ways surprising even to us. — John H. Groberg

Seeking more information, I walked through the market listening to the gossip and discovered that our new general, the man sent to quell the unrest in the east, was the second son of a provincial tax collector whose only claims to recognition were that he had commanded some legions in Britain in the heady, early days of the invasion, that his brother had once stood for consul, and that he had been a governor in some African province, where the locals had thrown turnips at him.
Despairing, I returned to the house, and that despair deepened later when Horgias came home with the news that our new paragon of martial virtue had until recently been hiding in Greece, in disgrace for having fallen asleep during one of Nero's recitals in the theatre. — M.C. Scott

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.

Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?

Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.

Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair ! — Charlotte Bronte

I do not think you would be so quick to approve if it was your son," he said. The Major frowned as he tried to quell the immediate recognition that the young man was right. He fumbled for a reply that would be true but also helpful. "I do not mean to offend you," added Abdul Wahid.
"Not at all," said the Major. "You are not wrong - at least, in the abstract. I would be unhappy to think of my son becoming entangled in such a way and any people, including myself, may be guilty of a certain smug feeling that it would never happen in our families."
"I thought so," said Abdul Wahid with a grimace.
"Now, don't you get offended, either," said the Major. "What I'm trying to say is that I think that is how everyone feels in the abstract. But then life hands you something concrete - something concrete like little George - and abstracts have to go out the window. — Helen Simonson

You can't quell depression by making love. But we tried. But we tried, oh, we did. — Yrsa Daley-Ward

When I was writing the book, I thought "Who wants to hear another story about some actor who lost his way?" But my story is a little unique in that I realized when I was 14 years old that I was different. I think a lot of gay people use drugs and alcohol to quell that fear and shame - especially people of my age. — Leslie Jordan

It seemed a ruse that fear of death should be the sole motivation for living and, yet, to quell this fear made the prospect of living itself seem all the more absurd; to extend this further, the notion of living one's life for the purposes of pondering the absurdity of living was an even greater absurdity in and of itself, which thus, by reductio ad absurdum, rendered the fear of death a necessary function of life and any lack thereof, a trifling matter rooted in self-inflicted incoherence. — Ashim Shanker

What did you do?' I whisper to Aithinne. Aithinne pushes to her feet, dusting off her clothes.'I redirected its blast away from us so it used its weapon on itself. ' She scans the destruction.'Easy.' 'Ah, yes,' I murmur, trying to quell the emotions that rush through me at seeing my childhood home destroyed. 'Simple's sibling, Easy. I don't even want to imagine the levels of chaos that would prompt visits from their cousins Straightforward and Uncomplicated. — Elizabeth May

Awful first drafts are fine - Agree with this.
If you don't finish something, you'll never get in the game. Just quell the voice in your head that says "Are you kidding? No one is going to want to read this drivel" and keep on going. You're going to revise and revise and then revise again anyway. — Jamie Freveletti

What passion cannot music raise or quell — John Dryden

One thing that's always helped quell my writerly anxieties is seeking out interviews with writers I admire. — Molly Antopol

If to "aestheticize" is to glide across brutality and cruelty, treat them merely as dramatic occasions for the artist rather than structures of power to be revealed and dismantled - much hangs on the words "merely" and "rather than." Opportunism isn't the same as committed attention. But we can also define the "aesthetic" not as a privileged and sequestered rendering of human suffering, but as news of an awareness, a resistance, that totalizing systems want to quell: art reaching into us for what's still passionate, still unintimidated, still unquenched. — Adrienne Rich

Quell rebellion before it spreads. — Vespasian

You cannot mend the chromosome, quell the earthquake, or stanch the flood. You cannot atone for the dead tyrants' murders and you alone cannot stop living tyrants. As Martin Buber saw it, the world of ordinary days "affords" us that precise association with god that redeems both us and our speck of world. God entrusts and allots to everyone an area to redeem: this creased and feeble life, "the world in which you live, just as it is, and not otherwise." "Insofar as he cultivates and enjoys them in holiness, he frees their souls ... he who prays and sings in holiness, eats and speaks in holiness ... through him the sparks which have fallen will be uplifted, and the worlds which have fallen will be delivered and renewed. — Annie Dillard

[It is easier] to quell emotion than to incur the consequences of venting it. — George Eliot

Bram stared into a pair of wide, dark eyes. Eyes that reflected a surprising glimmer of intelligence. This might be the rare female a man could reason with.
"Now, then," he said. "We can do this the easy way, or we can make things difficult."
With a soft snort, she turned her head. It was as if he'd ceased to exist.
Bram shifted his weight to his good leg, feeling the stab to his pride. He was a lieutenant colonel in the British army, and at over six feet tall, he was said to cut an imposing figure. Typically, a pointed glance from his quarter would quell the slightest hint of disobedience. He was not accustomed to being ignored.
"Listen sharp, now." He gave her ear a rough tweak and sank his voice to a low threat. "If you know what's good for you, you'll do as I say."
Though she spoke not a word, her reply was clear: You can kiss my great wolly arse.
Confounded sheep. — Tessa Dare

Let the winds blow! a fiercer gale
Is wild within me! what may quell
That sullen tempest? I must sail
Whither, O whither, who can tell! — Edmund Clarence Stedman

The student's job is to stay open-minded, to quell the knee-jerk defensiveness we all possess in the face of suggestions for improvement, and to maintain patience when faced with a process that is often slow, confusing, and frustrating. — Renee Fleming

Finnick?" I say, "Maybe some pants?"
He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for the first time. Then he whips off his hospital gown leaving him in just his underwear. "Why? Do you find this"
he strikes a ridiculously provocative pose
"distracting?"
I laugh. Boggs looks embarrassed and Finnick looks more like the guy I met at the Quarter Quell — Suzanne Collins

a Quarter Quell. They occur every twenty-five years, marking the anniversary of the districts' defeat with over-the-top celebrations and, for extra fun, some miserable twist for the tributes. I've — Suzanne Collins

Whenever it dipped under 80 degrees, it was cause for celebration - time to write home with the news, dig my jacket out of the closet, and try to quell the impulse to sing Christmas carols. — Bryanna Plog

I was like so many others passion-ately involved in trying to bring those truths to the world's attention. We did our very best to peacefully do that. The city, state, and federal governments did their very best to quell our efforts. They were used to using heavy-handed tactics to silence us. — Leonard Peltier

Passing the kitchen the second time, the vodka sang to him from the freezer its sweet song of forgetfulness. He longed to dart in there and free it from its prison, to twist the cap off with a practiced flick of his thumb and tip his head back, filling his mouth with the only thing that could quell the fear that roiled his stomach. Mullins clapped one hand on his shoulder, perhaps sensing something. The goddamn man was on him like a tick. — Fred Anderson

Food Throwers: Begun usually by estranged couples, once this victual flinging starts, everyone will do it ... Should your dinner party have become an out of control concussion match with opponents catapulting croutons and petits pois across the mahogany, don't fight it, go with it. And when you have the desire to quell the uprising approach the original perpetrator from behind. There, slowly crown her with the contents of the fresh fruit salad bowl. But be warned. Although this immobilizes and rivits everyone's attention it also gives them new ideas. — J.P. Donleavy

Popular men, They must create strange monsters, and then quell them, To make their arts seem something. — Ben Jonson

I tutored myself in the art of solemnity, kept my euphoria private, and adopted a serious demeanour in keeping with everyone else and the general ambience of the house. I continued my solitary daily walks about the estate, carefully choreographing scenes and conversations yet to happen. I returned to those places of our clandestine moments together, replaying them in my head, languishing in his treasured words . . . and sometimes adding more. I stood under frosty sunsets, my warm breath mingling with the cold evening air as I watched the silent flight of birds across the sky. And even in those twilit autumnal days I felt a light shine down upon my path. For though he was no longer at Deyning, no longer in England, the fact that he lived and breathed had already altered my vision; and nothing, not even a war, could quell my faith in the inevitability of his presence in my life. — Judith Kinghorn