Thought And Expression Quotes & Sayings

It was Pope Innocent III who placed in the hands of the church this terrible weapon of persecution, and who, by the awful severity of his own attitude towards liberty of conscience, of thought, and of expression, afforded to fanaticism and religious intolerance an example that was to be their merciless guide through centuries to come. — Rafael Sabatini

Words actually failed me. I felt as dumb as my lounge-less friend in the corner. "You injected me with vampire blood?" My words were said slowly, ensuring that I didn't get one wrong or accidentally call Francis a fucking asshat. "You're a vampire?"
Francis' expression managed to convey how stupid he thought that question was. "I live underground, and you've never seen me outside. I'm pale in complexion ands obviously hundreds of years old. What did you think I was? Agoraphobic? — Steve McHugh

Education without social action is a one-sided value because it has no true power potential. Social action without education is a weak expression of pure energy. Deeds uninformed by educated thought can take false directions. When we go into action and confront our adversaries, we must be as armed with knowledge as they. Our policies should have the strength of deep analysis beneath them to be able to challenge the clever sophistries of our opponents. — Martin Luther King Jr.

The creator wrestles with a hard, invisible substance, a substance far superior to him. Even the greatest victor emerges vanquished, because our deepest secret, the only one that deserves expression, always remains unexpressed. This secret never submits to art's material contours. We suffocate inside every word. Seeing a blossoming tree, a hero, a woman, the morning star, we cry, Ah! Nothing else is able to accommodate our joy. When, analyzing this Ah! we wish to turn it into thought and art in order to impart it to mankind and rescue it from our own dissolution, how it cheapens into brazen, mascaraed words full of air and fancy! — Nikos Kazantzakis

I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar - he seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders.
"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too."
"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders. — Charlotte Bronte

God is forbearing, gracious, and longsuffering, but he is also a God of holiness, wrath, and judgement.57 The wrath of God, unlike the love or holiness of God, should not be thought of as an intrinsic perfection of God; rather it is a function or expression of God's holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath, but there will always be love and holiness. Where God in his holiness confronts his image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, otherwise God is not the jealous and self-sufficient God he claims to be, and his holiness is impugned.58 — Peter J. Gentry

You can't pick and choose which types of freedom you want to defend. You must defend all of it or be against all of it. — Scott Howard Phillips

Personally, I am always more impressed by simplicity, clarity; it is the mark of a writer who knows his subject well and is secure enough not to 'lay it on' in the telling. Aim for complexity of thought, not expression. — Noah Lukeman

I'm over a thousand years old. I've seen it all. You, sweetcheeks, are nothing new." At what must have been an outraged expression on her face, he laughed again. "Come on. Surely you can't think you are the only female out there who's had a rough life, had her heart walked on, been kept in a dungeon for three centuries, blah, blah, pick your trauma, and are now stomping around with all this pent-up anger you spill like acid on everyone who gets to know you." He narrowed his gaze at her. "How close am I?"
Sin's mouth worked, but nothing came out. She finally snapped it shut to avoid looking like a fish gasping on the bank of a river.
"That's what I thought." He made a shooing gesture with his hand. "No, run along and go be caustic with someone who cares. Oh, wait, no one cares, do they? Because you won't let them
— Larissa Ione

Everyone wears blindfolds at a High Court trial," the manager replied, "except the judges, of course. Haven't you heard the expression justice is blind?"
"Yes," Klaus said, "but I always thought it meant that justice should be fair and unprejudiced."
"The verdict of the High Court was to take the expression literally," said the manager. "So everyone except the judges must cover their eyes before the trial can begin."
"Scalia," Sunny said. She meant something like, "It doesn't seem like the literal interpretation makes any sense," but her siblings did not think it was wise to translate. — Lemony Snicket

In the dominant Western religious system, the love of God is essentially the same as the belief in God, in God's existence, God's justice, God's love. The love of God is essentially a thought experience. In the Eastern religions and in mysticism, the love of God is an intense feeling experience of oneness, inseparably linked with the expression of this love in every act of living. — Erich Fromm

We live in oppressive times. We have, as a nation, become our own thought police; but instead of calling the process by which we limit our expression of dissent and wonder 'censorship,' we call it 'concern for commercial viability. — David Mamet

Her face had the usual fulness of expression which is developed by a life of solitude. Where the eyes of a multitude continuously beat like waves upon a countenance they seem to wear away its mobile power ; but in the still water of privacy every feeling and sentiment unfolds in visible luxuriance, to be interpreted as readily as a printed word by an intruder. In years she was no more than nineteen or twenty, but the necessity of taking thought at a too early period of life had forced the provisional curves of her childhood's face to a premature finality. — Thomas Hardy

The most important thing in love is the sense for one another, and the highest thing the faith in one another. Devotion is the expression of that faith, and pleasure can revive and enhance that sense, even if not create it, as is commonly thought. Therefore, sensuality can delude bad persons for a short time into thinking they could love each other. — Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Too commonly sex does not have the dignity of a sacramental event because sex is thought to be the means of the search for self rather than the expression and communication of one who has already found himself, and is free from resort to sex in the frantic pursuit of his own identity. — William Stringfellow

fingers into a beak and flapped it open and shut: talk, talk. "You never know. If you pick him up, he'll just call his lawyer. You might lose your only chance to talk to him." "No, it's better we pick him up. After that, you can sweet-talk him, Duff. That's what you're good at." "You sure?" "We can't have people saying we didn't push hard enough on this guy." The comment was off key, and a doubtful expression crossed Duffy's face. We had always made it a rule not to give a shit how things looked or what people thought. A prosecutor's judgment is supposed to be insulated from politics. "You know what I mean, Paul. This is the first credible — William Landay

All that we do outwardly is but the expression and completion of our inward thought. To work effectively, we must think clearly; to act nobly, we must think nobly. — William Ellery Channing

He had no idea where the stereotype of dumb giggly blondes came from. Ever since he'd met Annabeth at the Grand Canyon last winter,when she'd marched toward him with that Give me Percy Jackson or I'll kill you expression, Leo had thought of blondes as much too smart and much too dangerous. — Rick Riordan

He was an atheist and it had been years since he read a book, despite the fact that he had amassed a more than decent library of works in his specialty, as well as volumes of philosophy and Mexican history and a novel or two. Sometimes he thought it was precisely because he was an atheist that he didn't read anymore. Not reading, it might be said, was the highest expression of atheism or at least of atheism as he conceived of it. If you don't believe in God, how do you believe in a fucking book? he asked himself. — Roberto Bolano

I've often thought of the forest as a living cathedral, but this might diminish what it truly is. If I have understood Koyukon teachings, the forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness, nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself. Nature is not merely created by God; nature is God. Whoever moves within the forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with his entire body, breathe sacredness and contain it within himself, drink the sacred water as a living communion, bury his feet in sacredness, touch the living branch and feel the sacredness, open his eyes and witness the burning beauty of sacredness — Richard Nelson

His lips brushed my cheek, and I found it hard to concentrate."I lied earlier."
"About what."
His hands slid to my lower back."When I said you looked great? I wasn't completely honest."
That was not what I expected. I turned my head the slightest and then bit back a gasp. Our mouths were centimeters apart and I thought about Brit's certainty that he would kiss me tonight. I forced my tongue to work."You don't think I look great?"
"No,"he said, his expression serious as one hand followed the line of my spine, resting below the edges of my hair. He lowered his head so that his temple pressed against mine.
"You look beautiful tonight."
My breath caught."Thank you. — J. Lynn

She glanced up at him, and in that moment he pulled his wet shirt over his head. She forced her mind blank. Blank as a new sheet of paper, blank as a starless sky. He came to the fire and crouched before it. He rubbed the water from his bare arms and flicked it in the flames. She stared at the goose and sliced his drumstick carefully and thought of the blankest expression on the blankest face she could possibly imagine. It was a chilly evening; she thought about that. The goose would be delicious, they must eat as much of it as possible, they must not waste it; she thought about that. — Kristin Cashore

To express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of Kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of light tone against a somber background; to express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. — Vincent Van Gogh

An FBI agent, huh?" Trish's expression turned sly. "Is he foxy?"
"That whole story, about the strange coincidence, and my glorious Speech of Many Insults, and the fact that I'm going to be stuck running into this dude forever, and that's your first question? 'Is he foxy?'" Sidney shook her head. "Trishelle..on behalf of womankind, I was expecting a more enlightened discourse."
Trish simply waited.
"Totally foxy," Sidney said. "When he walked up to my table, my first thought was Criminy. Unfortunately, then he spoke."
Trish threw her arm around Sidney. "Somewhere out there, waiting for you, is the total package. A Criminy guy who's just looking for his Ms. Right to settle down with. — Julie James

He looked over at her, at the fierce expression on her face. Her hair spilled around her shoulders in little curls, tickling his arm. And he felt a sense of unimaginable wonder. He'd thought to keep her safe, and yet here she was, insisting that she would protect him. He couldn't wrap his mind around what this could mean. — Courtney Milan

The more clearly we are able to express ourselves, the less room there is for ambiguity. The more elaborate and the more precise our vocabulary, the greater the scope for thought and expression. Language is about subtlety and nuance. It is power and it is potent. We can woo with words and we can wound. Despots fear the words of the articulate opponent. Successful revolutions are achieved with words as much as with weapons. — John Humphrys

Where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? - Love's Labor Lost. The eyes appears to be more immediately connected with the soul than any other organ. A woman reflects every emotion, almost every thought from her two wonderful, priceless eyes, and no feature of her face is more a telltale of her nature. "Show me," says the old Chinese proverb, "a man's eyes, and I will tell you what he might have been. Show me his mouth, and I will tell you what he has been." The same is true of women. Up to thirty or thirty-five a woman may be actress enough to make her eyes tell one tale, while her life would reveal another; but little by little the true state of a woman's soul stands forth in the expression, the frankness, the furtiveness, the candor, or the boldness — Harriet Hubbard Ayer

Its culture: the fruit of its life, the product of its own efforts in thought and art. This culture is not international. It is the expression of the national genius, of the blood. The culture is international in its brilliance but national in origin. Someone made a fine comparison: bread and wheat may be internationally consumed, but they always bear the imprint of the soil from which they came. — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Despite her near delirium, she noticed Jared's eyes flicking constantly to the rearview mirror, disappointment and anger warring in his expression. She sometimes thought that he shed a large part of his innocence that night, a child confronting his parent's awful shortcomings. — Nicholas Sparks

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable. — Alfred North Whitehead

Abby stared at me, her fingers going all grabby like she wanted to snatch the phone and save me. No girl had ever wanted to save me before. I glanced away, because her worried expression made me want to laugh, but when I wasn't looking at her, the thought of it made me want to kiss her. — Ophelia London

But, indeed, the science of logic and the whole framework of philosophical thought men have kept since the days of Plato and Aristotle, has no more essential permanence as a final expression of the human mind, than the Scottish Longer Catechism. — George Herbert

This, she thought, was what love and desperation made you do: say things that were better left unsaid, give yourself away in a million little gestures, a thousand little changes of expression. — Cathy Williams

The only difference between image and idea is thus that in the one case, the expression of the object is confused, and in the other, it is clear. The confusion comes from this: every movement envelops in itself the infinity of the movements of the universe; and the brain receives an infinity of modifications to which only a confused thought can correspond, enveloping the infinity of clear ideas that would correspond to each detail. Clear ideas are therefore contained in the confused ideas. They are unconscious; they are perceived without being apperceived. Only their sum total is apperceived; this appears simple to us because of our ignorance of its components. — Jean-Paul Sartre

I thought that you said that your name was reserved only for family." A small smile broke through his stoic expression.
"The way I see it, even if you don't come around and realize that you can't resist my striking looks and enticing charm, and that you desperately want to spend the rest of your life in my arms - "
"Which will never happen ... "
" - you'll eventually end up with my silly little brother. Who, just to warn you, despite being a great guy, is nowhere near as handsome and charming as I. — Ada Adams

When Sarsine saw Kestrel, her eyes narrowed to mere cracks and Kestrel became very conscious that Sarsine was a tall woman. "For someone with a reputation for being so smart," Sarsine said, "you act like you haven't a thought in your head. Did it never occur to you that I'd worry when you disappeared from the city with no word?"
"I didn't exactly mean to leave."
"Oh, so it just happened."
"Yes."
"The gods made you do it."
Kestrel laughed. "Maybe they did." Then, earnestly, she said, "I'm sorry, Sarsine."
Sarsine folded her arms. "Then make it up to me."
"How?"
Sarsine's expression softened. Now there was an inquisitive gleam in her eye. "Start with the night you left. End with this very moment. And tell me everything."
So Kestrel did. — Marie Rutkoski

The individual soul touches upon the world soul like a well reaches for the water table. That which sustains the universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for expression, is the same thing. The finite within the infinite, the infinite within the finite. — Yann Martel

An anxious expression spread over his face as he thought to himself that the time was coming when he would have to give up this comfort, and then that comfort, until God knew what would be the end of it all. In this way he was an imaginative man, and when these fits of foreboding overcame him he genuinely forgot that only a succession of highly improbable catastrophes could reduce him to the penury he so feared. — Jean Rhys

I squeezed her hand and said nothing. I knew little about Keats or his poetry, but I thought it possible that in his hopeless situation he would not have wanted to write precisely because he loved her so much. Lately I'd had the idea that Clarissa's interest in these hypothetical letters had something to do with our own situation, and with her conviction that love that did not find its expression in a letter was not perfect. In the months after we'd met, and before we'd bought the apartment, she had written me some beauties, passionately abstract in the ways our love was different from and superior to any that had ever existed. Perhaps that's the essence of a love letter, to celebrate the unique. I had tried to match her, but all that sincerity would permit me were the facts, and they seemed miraculous enough to me: a beautiful woman loved and wanted to be loved by a large, clumsy, balding fellow who could hardly believe his luck. — Ian McEwan

That doesn't sound too smart, I thought. If we come in from every direction, we'll be shooting each other. Usually our ambushes are planned in an L-shape to avoid that. I looked at the chief. The chief looked at me. Suddenly, his serious expression gave way to a shit-ass grin. With that, the rest of the platoon bum-rushed me. I hit the floor a second later. They cuffed me to a chair, and then began my kangaroo court. — Chris Kyle

How rarely did other
people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost
trembling thought? — Ray Bradbury

Being is thoughtless-beyond and beneath all categories of thought. Expression is the realization of creative thought. Being is still; expression, moving. But then if I do not strive, who will? — Zhuangzi

Shakespeare was not a scholar in the sense we regard the term to-day, yet no man ever lived or probably ever will live that equalled or will equal him in the expression of thought. He simply read the book of nature and interpreted it from the standpoint of his own magnificent genius. — Joseph Devlin

Izzy," said Jace, as they neared the pond, and she jumped up and spun around. Her smile was dazzling.
"Jace!" She flew at him and hugged him. Now that was the way sisters were supposed to act, Clary thought. Not all stiff and weird and peculiar, but happy and loving. Watching Jace hug Isabelle, she tried to school her features into a happy and loving expression.
"Are you all right?" Simon asked, with some concern. "Your eyes are crossing."
"I'm fine." Clary abandoned the attempt.
"Are you sure? You looked sort of ... contorted. — Cassandra Clare

No wonder that tantra is so popular today in the West: it offers the ultimate "spiritual logic of late capitalism" uniting spirituality and earthly pleasures, transcendence and material benefits, divine experience and unlimited shopping. It propagates the permanent transgression of all rules, the violation of all taboos, instant gratification as the path to enlightenment; it overcomes old-fashioned "binary" thought, the dualism of mind and body, in claiming that the body at its most material (the site of sex and lust) is the royal path to spiritual awakening. Bliss comes from "saying yes" to all bodily needs, not from denying them: spiritual perfection comes from the insight that we already are divine and perfect, not that we have to achieve this through effort and discipline. The body is not something to be cultivated or crafted into an expression of spiritual truths, rather it is immediately the "temple for expressing divinity. — Slavoj Zizek

The right to freedom of expression is justified first of all as the right of an individual purely in his capacity as an individual. It derives from the widely accepted premise of Western thought that the proper end of man is the realization of his character and potentialities as a human being. — Thomas I. Emerson

Wesley's theology was, then, largely a theology of reaction. Most of his theological output had polemical overtones, and some works were devoted exclusively to that end. The direction and the intensity of the challenge determined the character and strength of his reply. When this is taken into account, there is no contradiction between his teaching on Baptism and on the Lord's Supper. The Protestant and Catholic strands in Wesley's thought are held together in both cases, but the expression of their relative importance depends on the situation which is being addressed. — John R. Parris

Poetry is only the highest eloquence of passion, the most vivid form of expression that can be given to our conception of anything, whether pleasurable or painful, mean or dignified, delightful or distressing. It is the perfect coincidence of the image and the words with the feeling we have, and of which we cannot get rid in any other way, that gives an instant "satisfaction to the thought." This is equally the origin of wit and fancy, of comedy and tragedy, of the sublime and pathetic. — William Hazlitt

If one were to live his life fully and completely were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream. — Oscar Wilde

The expression "following suit" is a curious one, because it has nothing to do with walking behind a matching set of clothing. If you follow suit, it means you do the same thing somebody else has just done. If all of your friends decided to jump off a bridge into the icy waters of an ocean or river, for instance, and you jumped in right after them, you would be following suit. You can see why following suit can be a dangerous thing to do, because you could end up drowning simply because somebody else thought of it first. — Lemony Snicket

The look on Deathbringer's face was so obvious - so real and sad - that Starflight had the weird experience of being able to see what his own expression must be every time he thought of Sunny. — Tui T. Sutherland

He drank a good deal at times. But the alcohol did not seem to affect him. His stony expression never changed. But sometimes a strange, flashing glance from his cold eyes would rest upon Anna, full of some burning fierceness that was like hatred, and he would force her to drink with him, force her to swallow a little glassful of fiery spirit at a single gulp.
'I ought to shoot you, really,' he said to her once, in a dead voice. 'Conscientiously, it would be the best thing for me to do.'
She saw from the grave concentration on his face that his conscience did actually require him to kill her. And this puzzled her because she could not understand why her death should be a conscientious necessity. The thought of being shot did not seem to cause her any concern. — Anna Kavan

I instantly thought the guy was cute, in that gaunt, never-sees-the-light-of-day, New York street urchin kind of way. And he never stood still for a second. From across the tracks I read his expression as I have everything on my side except destiny, only his expression clearly hadn't informed his head or heart yet. The guy looked over and caught me staring, and once his eyes met mine they never deviated. He took several cautious steps forward, stopping abruptly at the thick yellow line you weren't supposed to cross. His arms dangled like a puppet and he seemed to skim the ground when he walked, as if suspended over the edge of the world by a hundred invisible strings. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

He [Wilhelm Reich] believed that the individual's walk, stance, and breath patterns revealed a specific character type. Reich thought chronic muscular tension indicated repression and blocked the expression of affect. An example is the tight holding of the chest area as a sign of repressed feelings of need and longing. — Judith Lynne Hanna

Odd, don't you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back from the brink. And yet one women writes a letter, and my whole world falls to pieces.
You see, she is an ordinary woman. A good one, even. That's the point ... Nothing [a recognizably bad person does] can surprise or shock me, or worry me. But she denounced Julia and sent her to her death because she resented her, and because Julia is a Jew.
I thought in this simple contrast between the civilized and the barbaric, but I was wrong. It is the civilized who are the truly barbaric, and the [Nazi] Germans are merely the supreme expression of it. — Iain Pears

Beyond thought I reach a state. I refuse to divide it up into words - and what I cannot and do not want to express ends up being the most secret of my secrets. I know that I'm scared of the moments in which I don't use thought and that's a momentary state that is difficult to reach, and which, entirely secret, no longer uses words with which thoughts are produce. Is not using words to lose your identity? is it getting lost in the harmful essential shadows? — Clarice Lispector

She felt as if she had somehow failed him and herself by allowing his mother's behavior to upset her. She should be above it; she should shrug it off as the ranting of a village woman; she should not keep thinking of all the retorts she could have made instead of just standing mutely in that kitchen. But she was upset, and made even more so by Odenigbo's expression, as if he could not believe she was not quite as high-minded as he had thought. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone. — Carson McCullers

I've had some amazing people in my life. Look at my father - he came from a small fishing village of five hundred people and at six foot four with giant ears and a kind of very odd expression, thought he could be a movie star. So go figure, you know? — Kiefer Sutherland

But Hunter did sneeze, and what I'd thought was his concern for me had actually been a presneeze expression. — Jennifer Echols

One of the principal obstacles to the rapid diffusion of a new idea lies in the difficulty of finding suitable expression to convey its essential point to other minds. Words may have to be strained into a new sense, and scientific controversies constantly resolve themselves into differences about the meaning of words. On the other hand, a happy nomenclature has sometimes been more powerful than rigorous logic in allowing a new train of thought to be quickly and generally accepted. — Arthur Schuster

Thought without expression is dynamic and gathers volume by repression. Evolution when blocked and suppressed becomes revolution. — Nellie L. McClung

His voice nearly inaudible. He turned to look at me with a wistful expression. The golden eyes held mine, and I lost my train of thought. I stared at him until he looked away. You haven't asked me — Stephenie Meyer

Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth - don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency. — Aesop

Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way. — Dan Simmons

The bond between a book reader and a book writer has always been a symbiotic one, a means of intellectual and artistic cross-fertilization. The words of the writer act as a catalyst in the mind of the reader, inspiring new insights, associations, and perceptions, sometimes, even epiphanies. And the very existence of the attentive, critical reader provides the spur for the writer's work. It gives the author the confidence to explore new forms of expression, to blaze difficult and demanding paths of thought, to venture into uncharted and sometimes hazardous territory. — Nicholas Carr

Commonplace," said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. — Arthur Conan Doyle

Endeavour to be faithful, and if there is any beauty in your thought, your style will be beautiful; if there is any real emotion to express, the expression will be moving. — George Henry Lewes

During that very first conversation, about the araucaria, he called himself the Steppenwolf, and this too estranged and disturbed me a little. What an expression! However, custom did not only reconcile me to it, but soon I never thought of him by any other name; nor could I today hit on a better description of him. A wolf of the Steppes that had lost its way and strayed into the towns and the life of the herd, a more striking image could not be found for his shy loneliness, his savagery, his restlessness, his homesickness, his homelessness. — Hermann Hesse

Arthur found himself staring down at the knife embedded in his foot. There was a surreal split second before the blood started to well up and then up it came, dark and thick as syrup.
Arthur looked at Jake and saw that he was staring at the knife. His expression was one of surprise, and this was something that Arthur wondered about later too. Was Jake surprised because he had never considered the possibility that he might be a less than perfect shot? Did he have that much confidence in himself, that little self-doubt?
Or was he merely surprised at how easy it was to give in to an impulse, and carry through the thought which lay in your mind? Simply to do whatever you wanted to do, and damn the consequences. — Mary Lawson

How appealing is my ferocious expression? Appealing like a cool drink on a summer day, or like kittens on a postcard?"
She smiled. He'd delivered the question in his usual bass rumble and she was surprised to realize that she hadn't thought a voice that deep and masculine could actually say words like 'kittens' and 'lovely'. Just like she hadn't thought such a big, ferocious-looking man was capable of such playfulness. 21% — Rhyll Biest

And as for the vague something
was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?
that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver, and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare
to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature. — Charlotte Bronte

I verily believe that the kingdom of God advances more on spoken words than it does on essays written and read; on words, that is, in which the present feeling and thought of the teaching mind break into natural and forceful expression. — Richard Salter Storrs

Dedicating some time to meditation is a meaningful expression of caring for yourself that can help you move through the mire of feeling unworthy of recovery. As your mind grows quieter and more spacious, you can begin to see self-defeating thought patterns for what they are, and open up to other, more positive options. — Sharon Salzberg

I know the difference between reality and fantasy. Those with sick fantasies who know and respect this difference are much less dangerous than those with no fantasies at all, but who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. — T.J. Dixon

Dr. Erland's expression had gone dark. He reached forward and pinched Cinder hard above her elbow. "Ow, hey!" "Hmph. For a moment I thought you must be another one of my hallucinations, as surely your plan couldn't be that stupid. — Marissa Meyer

The hardest lesson is Clare's solitude. Sometimes I come home and Clare seems kind of irritated; I've interrupted some train of thought, broken into the dreary silence of her day. Sometimes I see an expression on Clare's face that is like a closed door. She has gone inside the room of her mind and is sitting there knitting or something. I've discovered that Clare likes to be alone. But when I return from time traveling she is always relieved to see me. — Audrey Niffenegger

Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality. — Douglas Adams

Now, Miss Bentley," he said with mock seriousness. "I'll have you know that yes, you are correct, I will always be the master in a relationship. I will always be the master when it comes to sex. I am the man."
Harly was having a hard time trying to maintain her own contrite, meek expression; her quivering lips gave that away. "Yes, Sir."
"See, when I say strip, you strip. When I say come here, you come. When I say kiss me, you kiss me. When I say you're walking around in my presence in nothing but silk stockings and a garter belt and a red satin bra, you will do so."
"Not happening."
"Insubordination will not be tolerated."
"I'll tell my mother."
"I'm not scared of her."
"All right. I'll tell your mother."
"Okay, some insubordination will be tolerated."
"I thought so."
"And when I say get the bondage gear-"
She guffawed right in his face. — Angela Verdenius

In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions. — Nathaniel Branden

What about Isabelle?" Simon asked. "Where is she?"
The humor, such as it was, left Jace's expression. "She won't come out of her room," he said. "She thinks that what happened to Max was her fault. She won't even come to the funeral."
"Have you tried talking to her?"
"No," Jace said, "we've been punching her repeatedly in the face instead. Why, do you think that won't work?"
"Just thought I'd ask." Simon's tone was mild. — Cassandra Clare

I thought about the guy in the truck, the focus in his expression, and I felt like I already knew enough of the story to tell it to somebody else maybe better than either of its major players could. — John Darnielle

The snapshooter's pictures have an apparent disorder and imperfection, which is exactly their appeal and their style. The picture isn't straight. It isn't done well. It isn't composed. It isn't thought out. And out of this imbalance, and out of this not knowing, and out of this real innocence toward the medium comes an enormous vitality and expression of life. — Lisette Model

Genius is the accumulated wealth of our humanity
its most intense development concentrated at one point, and then with clearer expression and with mysterious power shot back to us across the galvanic lines of thought and feeling. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Holiness in Jewish thought refers to energy and not an expression of personhood. Never in rabbinical commentaries is the Spirit considered as an entity separate from God, even though at times it is used as synonymous with God and interchangeable with Shekinah (majesty of God present among men and in nature: immanence). — Vince McLaughlin

Here were the luxury and priviledge of the well-fed man scoffing at all hopes and progress for the rest. [He] owed nothing to a world that nurtured him kindly, liberally educated him for free, sent him to no wars, brought him to manhood without scary rituals or famine or fear of vengeful gods, embraced him with a handsome pension in his twenties and placed no limits on his freedom of expression. This was an easy nihilism that never doubted that all we had made was rotten, never thought to pose alternatives, never derived hope from friendship, love, free markets, industry, technology, trade, and all the arts and sciences. — Ian McEwan

The slogan offers a counterweight to the general dispersion of thought by holding it fast to a single, utterly succinct and unforgettable expression, one which usually inspires men to immediate action. It abolishes reflection: the slogan does not argue, it asserts and commands. — Johan Huizinga

The most important thing a person could learn from being around horses is how to control the expression of their emotions, even the non-verbal ones, and lose all unnatural fears. Fear only binds what should be free. That applies in all areas of thought, belief and actions. If you can't overcome it, then resist it. Be courageous. — Judith-Victoria Douglas

I thought of an old poker players' expression: If you look around the table and can't spot the sucker, the sucker is you. — Barry Eisler

To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught. The relation with the Other, or Conversation, is a non-allergic relation, an ethical relation; but inasmuch as it is welcomed this conversation is a teaching. Teaching is not reducible to maieutics; it comes from the exterior and brings me more than I contain. In its non-violent transitivity the very epiphany of the face is produced. — Emmanuel Levinas

That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted. — George Boole

What they used to call soul. What they used to call spirit. Indivisible, complete, that thing made of mind, distinct from body.
He thought he had one - a soul, a spirit, a nature, an essence. He thought his mind was proof of it.
If mood, facial expression, hunger pain, love of color, if everything human and happenstance came not from the soul, the core of self, but from synapses firing and electrical signals, from the stuff in the brain that could be manipulated and X-rayed, what could he say about himself with any degree of certainty? Was mind just body more refined?
He refused to believe that. — Joshua Ferris

Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise. — Wilkie Collins

What the world thought made little difference. Rembrandt had to
paint. Whether he painted well or badly didn't matter; painting was the
stuff that held him together as a man. The chief value of art, Vincent, lies
in the expression it gives to the artist. Rembrandt fulfilled what he knew
to be his life purpose; that justified him. Even if his work had been
worthless, he would have been a thousand times more successful than if
he had put down his desire and become the richest merchant in
Amsterdam. (Mendes Da Costa — Irving Stone

This book tells the story of that moment in time. It is a story of high adventure set during the age of exploration - when Francis Drake, Henry Hudson, and Captain John Smith were expanding the boundaries of the world, and Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Galileo, Descartes, Mercator, Vermeer, Harvey, and Bacon were revolutionizing human thought and expression. — Russell Shorto

I'm speaking to you man to man," he said, "not doctor to patient. How much longer can you continue denying yourself? You can't live without warmth." "Warmth?" I said, sending him a 'shut up' message. "Yes. Sexual expression. David, you don't even masturbate." We were silent for at least a minute. My intrigues huddled within me like guerilla warriors, hiding behind other thoughts. Finally, I thought of something to say: "If we're going to talk man to man and not doctor to patient, then I don't think you should charge me for this hour. — Scott Spencer

I thought, can you think of any really good reason not to do it? Except that, oh, I'm so shy, or oh, my private life, or oh, are they going to find out how boring I am? You know? And that was the only reason now, in a sense, not to do television. Because it certainly is a method of expression, which has to be accepted as these things come along. — Katharine Hepburn

Humankind is an instinctive creature that is capable of feelings and rational thoughts, which accounts for why such a rich diversity exists amongst human nature. A person's unique personality is simply a crystallization of particular aspects of human nature. Freedom of thought and expression ensures that no person replicates another person's exact persona. Every person is a creature of predicable needs and impulses, infused with the poetry of multifaceted feelings, and ruled by a scientifically calculated instrument capable of precision of thought. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Perhaps the most powerful and appealing aspect of another's words, however, is simply their convenience. Whether distilled in the briefest apophthegm, or spread out across some voluminous tome, the thought is ready-made, the heavy lifting done. It's there to be used like a weapon or tool, and as time wanders on, seemingly leaving us fewer and fewer new things to say, it becomes ever more useful. As technology moves forward, as well, it also becomes much easier. Indeed, in this "information age" where so much is available to so many so quickly that enlightenment nearly verges on light pollution, it can sometimes appear that expression has been reduced to nothing more than a mad race to unearth and claim references. As such, the citation is also there to be donned, like some article of fashion from which we may reap the praise of discriminating taste without ever exerting ourself in the actual toil of manufacture. — Jasper Siegel Seneschal