Ulalume A Ballad Quotes & Sayings

What's that there Slivovitz like?" Helmholtz asked the bartender, squinting at a dusty bottle on the bottom row. He had just finished a sloe gin rickey. "I didn't even know we had it," said the bartender. He put the bottle on the bar, tilting it away from himself so he could read the label. "Prune brandy," he said. "Believe I'll try that next," said Helmholtz. — Kurt Vonnegut

When you are instructed by affliction, you can become a comforter to the afflicted. — Charles Spurgeon

From '41 to '51I was my folk's contrary son;I bit my father's hand right throughAnd broke my mother's heart in two. — John Masefield

I've come to the conclusion that athletes, when they say they miss the crowd, are not missing the sound of the crowd. What they're missing is the feeling inside that makes the crowd roar. It's not the roar of the crowd, it's the silence inside. — William Shatner

Career miracles happen when you're so in love with your life that pushing yourself is actually easier than stopping, when you "do without doing." Joyful activity adds real value to the world, and adding value is the heart and soul of a successful career. — Martha N. Beck

And I saw her as a sad thirtieth child of Valentine that fell, not as Lucifer rebelling against God, but because she too passionately wanted to be united with him! All things in excess become sin. — Lawrence Durrell

Every answer he [President John Adams] gives to his addressers unmasks more and more his principles and views. His language to the young men at Philadelphia is the most abominable and degrading that could fall from the lips of the first magistrate of an independent people, and particularly from a Revolutionary patriot. — James Madison

In my experience, most people have a narrow view of intelligence, tending to think of it mainly in terms of academic ability. This is why so many people who are smart in other ways end up thinking that they're not smart at all. There are myths surrounding creativity as well. — Ken Robinson

I went to comprehensive school in North London and left without any qualifications [diploma]. And I was doing bits of acting and improv in a drama club in the evenings. Then I discovered you didn't need qualifications to go to art school, you just needed a body of work. — Joe Wright

I felt compassion for the poor people who were taken in by [supernatural] follies. And now I think that I was at least as much to be pitied myself. Not that experience has since shown me anything surpassing my first beliefs, and that through no fault of my curiosity; but reason has taught me to condemn a thing thus, dogmatically, as false and impossible, is to assume the distinction of knowing the bounds and limits of God's will and of the power of our mother Nature; and that there is no more notable folly in the world than to measure these things by our capacity and competence. If we call prodigies or miracles whatever our reason cannot reach, how many of these appear continually before our eyes! Let us consider through what clouds and how gropingly we are led to the knowledge of most of the things that are right in our hands; assuredly we shall find that it is rather familiarity than knowledge that takes away their strangeness. — Michel De Montaigne

It is important to strengthen the State governments; and as this cannot be done by any change in the Federal Constitution (for the preservation of that is all we need contend for), it must be done by the States themselves, erecting such barriers at the constitutional line as cannot be surmounted either by themselves or by the General Government. The only barrier in their power is a wise government. A weak one will lose ground in every contest. — Thomas Jefferson

It's deprivation that makes people writers, if they have it in them to be a writer. — William Maxwell

I CHOOSE to live by choice not by chance, to be motivated not manipulated, to be useful not used, to make change not excuses, to excel not compete. I CHOOSE self-esteem not self pity. I choose to listen to my inner voice, NOT TO LISTEN TO THE RANDOM OPINIONS OF OTHERS. — Auliq Ice

You can only really appreciate being up when you know what it's like to have been down. — Christina Engela

If you can't be brilliant, at least be memorable — David Ogilvy