Rhetoricocircumambulations Quotes & Sayings

Self-contemplation is a curse
That makes an old confusion worse. — Theodore Roethke

The Right of all members of society to form their own beliefs and communicate them freely to others must be regarded as an essential principle of a democratically organized society. — Thomas I. Emerson

Something you consider bad may bring out your child's talents; something you consider good may stifle them. — Francois-Rene De Chateaubriand

AGALAXY (A'GALAXY) n.s.[Gr.] Want of milk.Dict. — Samuel Johnson

You know that split second? The one where you decide if you're going to just smile and continue looking around, or chance an encounter with a stranger? It's a dangerous moment. It changes absolutely everything. — Andrea Randall

The first thing she noticed when the light popped on was that the wallpaper had rows and rows of tiny lilacs on it, like scratch-and-sniff paper, and the room actually smelled a little like lilacs. There was a four-poster bed against the wall, the torn, gauzy remnants of what had once been a canopy now hanging off the posts like maypoles. — Sarah Addison Allen

("An eye for an eye," Mac said at the squadron reunion. Until everyone was blind, Teddy wondered?) — Kate Atkinson

Things that feel super personal actually feel really universal. It's sort of the more you really identify something specific within yourself, the more people connect to it because ultimately we are all connected in some way. — Lena Dunham

They are just 100 per cent bear, whereas human beings feel we're not 100 per cent human, that we're always letting ourselves down. We're constantly striving towards something, to some fulfilment. — Stephen Fry

The map is not the territory (coined by Alfred Korzybski), and the name is not the thing named. — Gregory Bateson

Modern war is distinguished by the fact that all the participants are ostensibly unwilling. We are swept towards one another like colonies of heavily armed penguins on an ice floe. Every speech on the subject given by any involved party begins by deploring even the idea of war. A war here would not be legal or useful. It is not necessary or appropriate. It must be avoided. Immediately following this proud declamation comes a series of circumlocutions, circumventions and rhetoricocircumambulations which make it clear that we will go to war, but not really, because we don't want to and aren't allowed to, so what we're doing is in fact some kind of hyper-violent peace in which people will die. We are going to un-war. — Nick Harkaway

Someone is putting brandy in your bonbons, Grand Marnier in your breakfast jam, Kahlua in your ice cream, Scotch in your mustard and Wild Turkey in your cake. — Marian Burros