Straightness Quotes & Sayings

You never knew which split second might be the zigzag bolt dividing all that went before from the everything that comes next. — Barbara Kingsolver

All really imaginative literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul. Man may behold what ugliness he likes if he is sure that he will not worship it; but there are some so weak that they will worship a thing only because it is ugly. — G.K. Chesterton

And when Deirdre Bair went to interview Beckett for the biography the first thing he said was, 'So you've come to demonstrate that it was all, after all, autobiographical. — Tim Parks

That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides, thus casting coloured shadows on thy radiance
such is thy maya.
Thou settest a barrier in thine own being and then callest thy severed self in myriad notes. This thy self-separation has taken body in me.
The poignant song is echoed through all the sky in many-coloured tears and smiles, alarms and hopes; waves rise up and sink again, dreams break and form. In me is thy own defeat of self.
This screen that thou hast raised is painted with innumerable figures with the brush of the night and the day. Behind it thy seat is woven in wondrous mysteries of curves, casting away all barren lines of straightness.
The great pageant of thee and me has overspread the sky. With the tune of thee and me all the air is vibrant, and all ages pass with the hiding and seeking of thee and me. — Rabindranath Tagore

I turned right onto the A410 which went north with suspiciously Roman straightness toward Aymestrey, which is less a village than a diorama of the last six hundred years of English vernacular architecture stretched along either side of the road. — Ben Aaronovitch

Death is not free. Its price is life. — Nina George

It just feels good to play again. That's what keeps me going. I've focused harder because of it. — Reggie Evans

She was gauche in movement and in a sense, ugly of face, but with how small a twist might she not suddenly have become beautiful. Her sullen mouth was full and rich - her eyes smouldered.
A yellow scarf hung loosely around her neck. Her shapeless dress was a flaming red.
For all the straightness of her back she walked with a slouch.
"Come here," said Lord Groan as she was about to pass him and the doctor.
"Yes father," she said huskily.
"Where have you been for the last fortnight, Fuchsia?"
"Oh, here and there, father," she said, staring at her shoes. She tossed her long hair and it flapped down her back like a pirate's flag. She stood in about as awkward a manner as could be conceived. Utterly unfeminine - no man could have invented it. — Mervyn Peake

Montaigne said long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness, I should follow it for having found by experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track." The doctrine of interest rightly understood is not then new, but among the Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance; it has become popular there; you may trace it at the bottom of all their actions, you will remark it in all they say. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Walking and overcoming by faith is not easy. For one thing, the dimension of time constantly constrains our perspective. Likewise, the world steadily tempts us. No wonder we are given instructive words from Jesus about the narrowness and the straightness of the only path available to return home: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). And then he said, "No man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Jesus laid down strict conditions. — Neal A. Maxwell

The geometrician teaches me how to work out the size of my estates rather than how to work out how much a man needs in order to have enough ... You geometers can calculate the area of circles, can reduce any given shape to a square, can state the distances separating starts. Nothing's outside your scope when it comes to measurement. Well, if you're such an expert, measure a man's soul; tell me how large or how small that is. You can define a straight line; what use is that to you if you've no idea what straightness means in life? — Seneca The Younger

Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight lines. — Herbert Spencer

Play invites participation. — Brian Goodwin

True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullness seems empty,
yet it is fully present.
True straightness seems crooked.
True wisdom seems foolish.
True art seems artless. — Lao-Tzu

That is, I fancy, the true doctrine on the subject of Tales of Terror and such things, which unless a man of letters do well and truly believe, without doubt he will end by blowing his brains out or by writing badly. Man, the central pillar of the world must be upright and straight; around him all the trees and beasts and elements and devils may crook and curl like smoke if they choose. All really imaginative literature is only the contrast between the weird curves of Nature and the straightness of the soul. — G.K. Chesterton

Our centers spread the floor, shoot the three and block shots. We can play pick and pop. — Steve Nash

All you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of "virtue" is that straightness of back. — John Ruskin

Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You're caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn't go running with Curt today because you don't want to sweat out this straightness. You're always battling to make your hair do what it wasn't meant to do. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Never make heads straight on the shoulders, but turn them aside to the right or to the left, even though they look down, or upward, or straight ahead, because it is necessary for them to look lively and awake and not asleep. And do not depict the front or rear half of the whole person so that too much straightness is displaced, one half above or below the other half; and if you should wish to use stiff figures, do so only in portraying old people. — Leonardo Da Vinci

It's really fun to be in a film that's pure entertainment, that people want to go and see. I think, in the current climate, the state of things, people want escapism. — Sienna Miller

Consider the core of the mind to be a wagon, with will-power to be carried about in it. Push it to a place where there can be failure, and there will be failure. Push it to a place where there can be success, and there will be success. But whether there is success or failure, if one entrusts himself to the straightness of this wagon of the core of the mind, he will attain right-mindedness in either case. Severing oneself from desire and being like a rock or tree, nothing will ever be achieved. Not departing from desire, but realizing a desireless right-mindedness - this is the Way. — Takuan Soho

It's the digitals. Leith has that word he uses for the shift from analogs to digitals. That word he uses about eleven times an hour. — David Foster Wallace

They exert the full force of their will in striking the image of straightness, which they pull off surprisingly well considering that their genitals are in the mouths of other men. — Drew Nellins Smith

She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass. — Johann Kaspar Lavater

Giving is a miracle that can transform the heaviest of hearts. Two people, who moments before lived in separate worlds of private concerns, suddenly meet each other over a simple act of sharing. The world expands, a moment of goodness is created, and something new comes into being where before there was nothing ... But true giving is not an economic exchange; it is a generative act. It does not subtract from what we have; it multiples the effect we can have in the world. — Kent Nerburn

Fir : it contains a great deal of air and fire with very little moisture and the earthy, so that, as its natural properties are of the lighter class, it is not heavy. Hence, its consistence being naturally stiff, it does not easily bend under the load, and keeps its straightness when used in the framework. But it contains so much heat that it generates and encourages decay, which spoils it; and it also kindles fire quickly because of the air in its body, which is so open that it takes in fire and so gives out a great flame. — Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries. — Richard M. Nixon

The difference between the true and the false is only a prejudice of ours. — Italo Calvino

I am reassured to know that the straightness of my grain is not a precondition of usefulness to God. And I am humbled to see that out of the twistedness of my wounds, he designs for me a special place of service. — Robert D. Lupton

Let the straight flower bespeak its purpose in straightness - to seek the light.
Let the crooked flower bespeak its purpose in crookedness - to seek the light.
Let the crookedness and straightness bespeak the light. — Allen Ginsberg

The sneaky heftiness of the book being the aggregate cumulative effect of hundreds of thousands of individually insubstantial little markings, letters and numbers, commas and periods and colons and dashes, each symbol pressed upon the page by the printing machine with a slightly greater-than-expected force and darkness and permanence. — Charles Yu

One writes what one can, or has to, write. — Neel Mukherjee

I don't like to act because my life is a pantomime anyway. — Karl Lagerfeld