Popular quotes about Alas! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
We hear in these days a great deal respecting rights--the rights of private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights of property, and the rights of man. Rights are grand things, divine things in this world of God's; but the way in which we expound these rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I can see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights.
Frederick William RobertsonOf all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, alas! and the most darkness.
Victor HugoStupid women, and all are stupid, think the first winning of the man the final victory. Then they settle down and grow fat, and stale, and dead, and heartbroken. Alas, they are so stupid. But you, little infant-woman with your first victory, you must make your love-life an unending chain of victories. Each day you must win your man again. And when you have won the last victory, when you can find no more to win, then ends love. Finis is written, and your man wanders in strange gardens.
Jack LondonIt is an exquisite and beautiful thing in our nature, that, when the heart is touched and softened by some tranquil happiness or affectionate feeling, the memory of the dead comes over it most powerfully and irresistibly. It would seem almost as though our better thoughts and sympathies were charms, in virtue of which the soul is enabled to hold some vague and mysterious intercourse with the spirits of those whom we loved in life. Alas! how often and how long may these patient angels hover around us, watching for the spell which is so soon forgotten!
Charles DickensFor, I must tell you, in this world where today all lose their minds over many & wondrous Machines - some of which, alas, you can see also in this Siege - I construct Aristotelian Machines, that allow anyone to see with Words.
Umberto EcoWriting anything is terribly hard but, alas for me, because I am addicted, a heck of a lot of fun. I often am sorry I ever started writing prose, because it is so hard. But I can't stop.
Judy CollinsI saw myself. . . in the time I watched, I saw strength and frailty, pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly much. Of intentions many good ones; but many more left undone. On this alas, I saw myself a man like any other. But this too I saw . . . Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same.You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.
Lloyd AlexanderPublishers, theatrical managers, and critics ask not for the quality inherent in creative art, but will it meet with a good sale, will it suit the palate of the people? Alas, this palate is like a dumping ground; it relishes anything that needs no mental mastication. As a result, the mediocre, the ordinary, the commonplace represents the chief literary output.
Emma GoldmanHere with my beer I sit, while golden moments flit: alas! They pass unheeded by: and as they fly, I, being dry, sit idly sipping here, my beer.
George ArnoldAlas for America as I must so often say, the ungirt, the diffuse, the profuse, procumbent, one wide ground juniper, out of which no cedar, no oak will rear up a mast to the clouds! It all runs to leaves, to suckers, to tendrils, to miscellany. The air is loaded with poppy, with imbecility, with dispersion, & sloth.
Ralph Waldo EmersonI have precognitive dreams such as the year my brother's apartment caught fire and he lost everything. I'd dreamt it two months before. Alas, though I warned him, it still happened. Thankfully no one was harmed. I also read Tarot cards, mostly for fun.
Franny ArmstrongSecond, they [those who disagree with market efficiency] always claim they know a man, a bank, or a fund that does do better. Alas, anecdotes are not science. And once Wharton School dissertations seek to quantify the performers, these have a tendency to evaporate into the air - or, at least, into statistically insignificant t-statistics.
Paul SamuelsonThey say that Hope is happiness But genuine Love must prize the past; And Mem'ry wakes the thoughts that bless: They rose first -- they set the last. And all that mem'ry loves the most Was once our only hope to be: And all that hope adored and lost Hath melted into memory. Alas! It is delusion all-- The future cheats us from afar: Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.
Lord ByronAlas! dear Joy, the merriest, is dead. But I have wed Peace ; and our babe, a boy, New-born, is Joy.
John B. TabbSuperficial to understand the journal as just a receptable for one's private, secret thoughts - like a confidante who is deaf, dumb, and illiterate. In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself. ... The journal is a vehicle for my sense of selfhood. It represents me as emotionally and spiritually independent. Therefore (alas) it does not simply record my actual, daily life but rather - in many cases - offers an alternative to it.
Susan SontagThe problem of disbelieving in God is not that a man ends up believing nothing. Alas, it is much worse. He ends up believing anything.
Gilbert K. ChestertonNo white nor red was ever seen So am'rous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress' name. Little, alas, they know or heed How far these beauties hers exceed! Fair trees! where s'e'er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found.
Andrew MarvellWere I to be angry at men being fools, I could here find ample room for declamation; but, alas! I have been a fool myself; and why should I be angry with them for being something so natural to every child of humanity?
Oliver GoldsmithSublime Philosophy! Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven; And bright with beckoning angelsยbut alas! We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams, By the first step, dull slumbering on the earth.
Alan JuddMy curiosity, alas, is not the kind that can be satisfied by objective knowledge. Plato said that opinion is worthless and that only knowledge counts, which is a neat formulation. ... But melancholy Danes from the northern mists understand that opinion is all there is. The great questions transcend fact, and discourse is a process of personality. Knowledge cannot respond to knowledge. And wisdom? Is it not opinion refined, opinion killed and resuscitated upward? Maybe Plato would have agreed with this.
Hayden CarruthFun comes hard - like, alas, its prarens, pleasure and happiness, whom we have to pursue.
Saul BellowPlace (or put) a spider on top of a mountain, it will only try to catch flies; alas, they are many those who, in the figurative meaning, have spider's eyes.
African SpirAlas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play! No sense have they of ills to come nor care beyond today.
Thomas GrayImagine, if you will, that I am an idiot. Then, imagine that I am also a Congressman. But, alas, I repeat myself.
Mark TwainAnd if that is the Foremast, what do you think that sail might be called, Mr. Wheeler?" "The Foresail?" "Very good, Mr. Wheeler, and the next one up would be called..." ..."The Next Sail, Sir?" "Alas, no, Mr. Wheeler.
L.A. MeyerThe life's story of great geniuses is a sad one, without much tangible reward, which does not inspire future generations to face a similar fate. Alas also, it stands to reason why so many talent will not come to sparkle on the artistic firmanent.
Joseph HaydnAlas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.
SophoclesAnd of the Witch? In the life of a Witch, there is no "after", in the "ever after" of a Witch there is no "happily"; in the story of a Witch, there is no afterword. Of that part that is beyond the life story, beyond the story of the life, there is-alas, or perhaps thank mercy-no telling. She was dead, dead, and gone, and all that was left of her was the carapace of her reputation for malice.
Gregory MaguireAlas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
Henry David ThoreauAlas for the unhappy man that is called to stand in the pulpit, and not give the bread of life.
Ralph Waldo EmersonHow many times has He delivered me! Yet, alas! How distrustful and ungrateful is my heart even until the present!
John NewtonShe dreams of him that has forgot her love; You dote on her that cares not for your love. 'Tis pity love should be so contrary; And thinking of it makes me cry 'alas!
William ShakespeareI will frankly confess that after passing a few weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But, alas, since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of- war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.
Herman Melville