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It is reported from the famous worshiper Rabi'ah al-Adawiyya (radiAllahu anha) that she said: "I have never heard the adhaan except that I remember the caller who will announce the Day of Resurrection, and I never see the falling snow except that I imagine the flying pages of the records of peoples deeds (on that day), and I never see swarms of locusts except that I think about the Great Gathering on the Last Day."
Rabia BasriStudy nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing.
Clive Barker[N]othing is as surprising as life. Except for writing. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the only consolation.
Orhan PamukIt is said by Bush men and women that we fought (the Iraq War) to strike against terrorism - except that Iraq had no documented role in the Sept. 11 attacks. It is said that we fought from a moral objection to tyranny - except that we don't seem all that troubled by tyrants in nations that lack huge oil reserves. Everything is said except the truth: that we rushed into an unnecessary war on a half-baked mission. And that the repercussions of our hubris will shadow us for years.
Leonard PittsThe actor has to have some degree of craft, along with the talent. No one tries to laugh except bad actors. No one tries to cry except bad actors. How a character hides his feelings tells us who he is. Most people don't know that, and most actors don't do that. Therefore, there are a lot of actors who put me to sleep, that are considered good actors, but they're predictable and boring. I know how the scene is going to end before it ends.
Martin LandauEven though this is late in an election year, there is no way we can go forward except together and no way anybody can win except by serving the people's urgent needs. We cannot stand still or slip backwards. We must go forward now together.
Gerald R. FordAll things are the same except for the differences, and different except for the similarities.
Thomas SowellMoreover, from the time when He said, 'Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;' and again, 'He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it; ' no one becomes a member of Christ except it be either by baptism in Christ, or death for Christ.
Saint AugustineIt has been said that genius is only the power of making continuous effort. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it. We are told that there is no failure, except in no longer trying - no defeat, except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own weakness of purpose.
Kate SmithTake me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John DonneGood is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it, truth never breaks through except through the sacrifice of those who spread it.
John Henry NewmanA calamity does not descend except due to a sin and it is not lifted except with repentance.
Ali ibn Abi TalibYou have to go back to the 1920s, almost a hundred years, to find the Democrat Party as weak and out of power as it is today. How did that happen with just one election? It didn't happen in one election. The fact is the Democrats have been losing elections, except for the White House, for the last eight years in numbers that have not been reported.
Rush LimbaughBy conversing with the mighty dead, we imbibe sentiment with knowledge. We become strongly attached to those who can no longer either hurt or serve us, except through the influence which they exert over the mind. We feel the presence of that power which gives immortality to human thoughts and actions, and catch the flame of enthusiasm from all nations and ages.
William HazlittIt takes courage and intelligence, you know, to do the stages of Yoga right, and to start with this Hatha Yogaโฆ Itโs just you and nothing but you, standing in one spot frozen like a statue with no place to go for help or excuse or scapegoat except inward.
Bikram ChoudhuryI would like to get married, actually. I've done everything else in my life now except that, but where do I find the real thing? The non-phony? In Los Angeles? I am not so sure.
Aviv NevoIt was the shaving that bothered me the most. I'm not a great fan of shaving and I had to be really clean-shaven, hands, head, hairline, all the fluff off my face, everything except my eyebrows, so this sheen, this kind of polish they used on me, would stick.
Jude LawIn philosophy class I think we finally decided that 'good' is an infinitely recursive term - it can't be defined except in terms of itself. Good is good because it's better than bad, though why it's better to be good than bad depends on how you define good, and on and on.
Orson Scott CardMen are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these; and, except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, requires no virtue in any quarter. To both parties it is emphatically a machine: to the discontented, a taxing-machine; to the contented, a machine for securing property. Its duties and its faults are not those of a father, but of an active parish-constable.
Thomas CarlyleI have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
Brendan BehanThere is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution.
Nathaniel HawthorneI never had a plan, except to write. I love what I do, and have from the beginning. Loving what you do makes it a lot easier to work, every day, to face the tough spots and heel in for the long haul. Nothing against plans; they work for some people. But for me, if I'd been planning, worrying about numbers, trying to micro-manage my career, I wouldn't have focused on the writing. If you don't write, you're not read. If you're not read, you don't sell. So that's my Master Plan, I guess. Write the books, let the agent agent, the editor edit, the publisher publish.
Nora RobertsTo each of my Nephews, William Augustine Washington, George Lewis, George Steptoe Washington, Bushrod Washington, and Samuel Washington, I give one of my swords or Cutteaux of which I may be Possesed; and they are to chuse in the order they are named. These Swords are accompanied with an injuction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self defense, or in the defense of their Country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands, to the relenquishment thereof.
George WashingtonOne thing is made of another, and nature allows no new creation except at the price of death.
LucretiusOften the most loving thing we can do when a friend is in pain is to share the pain-to be there even when we have nothing to offer except our presence and even when being there is painful to ourselves.
M. Scott PeckI am above the forest region, amongst grand rocks & such a torrent as you see in Salvator Rosa's paintings vegetation all a scrub of rhodods. with Pines below me as thick & bad to get through as our Fuegian Fagi on the hill tops, & except the towering peaks of P. S. that, here shoot up on all hands there is little difference in the mt sceneryยhere however the blaze of Rhod. flowers and various colored jungle proclaims a differently constituted region in a naturalists eye & twenty species here, to one there, always are asking me the vexed question, where do we come from?
Joseph Dalton HookerPractice radical humility when it comes to your own accomplishments, and give credit everywhere except to your ego.
Wayne DyerThe great weakness of the West is that it has nothing with which to inspire loyalty except wealth. But what is wealth? Another washing machine, a bigger car, a nicer house to live in? Not much to feed the spirit in all that.
John BurdettIn a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want โ not only you, your whole family and all people like you.
Ai WeiweiLegally speaking, the term 'public rights' is as vague and indefinite as are the terms 'public health,' 'public good,' 'public welfare,' and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to describe the separate, private, individual rights of a greater or less number of individuals.
Lysander SpoonerI don't want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money.
George EliotI'd be surprised if non-fiction writers hate to be interviewed. We all hate them, because there's really nothing to say except "Read the book." Right? At least with non-fiction, you can kind of convey some information, and people can decide for themselves whether they want more of that kind of information. But with a novel, what am I going to do?
Jonathan FranzenI don't use recreational drugs, except for cocaine, hallucinogens, and nitrates.
Robert MapplethorpeEnvironmentalists hate sprawl - except when it comes to the size of their expansive pet legislation on Capitol Hill.
Michelle MalkinWriting isn't generally a lucrative source of income; only a few, exceptional writers reach the income levels associated with the best-sellers. Rather, most of us write because we can make a modest living, or even supplement our day jobs, doing something about which we feel passionately. Even at the worst of times, when nothing goes right, when the prose is clumsy and the ideas feel stale, at least we're doing something that we genuinely love. There's no other reason to work this hard, except that love.
Melissa ScottWe will have more crises and none of them will look like this because no two crises have anything in common except human nature.
Alan GreenspanDay, the boy from the streets with nothing except the clothes on his back and the earnestness in his eyes, owns my heart. He is beauty, inside and out. He is the silver lining in a world of darkness. He is my light.
Marie LuI mean, Eighteen years old is the age of consent in Europe and you can go anywhere and do anything you like. In America, it is dumb. At eighteen you should be able to do anything that you like, except get married.
John EntwistleFrom authors whom I read more than once I learn to value the weight of words and to delight in their meter and cadence -- in Gibbon's polyphonic counterpoint and Guedalla's command of the subjunctive, in Mailer's hyperbole and Dillard's similes, in Twain's invectives and burlesques with which he set the torch of his ferocious wit to the hospitality tents of the world's colossal humbug . . . I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words.
Lewis H. LaphamHe never knew what hit him, and that would have comforted me, except . . . just for one second, he would have had to know, wouldn't he? There must have been a blur, a sense of the world exploding, a flashpoint of receiving more damage than a human body could endure.
Lisa KleypasOne odd thing about the current debate between religious people and atheists is that the participants don't seem to care that they entirely fail to communicate with the other side. They therefore have no account of why the religious or the atheists believe what they do, except that they are stupid or deluded. I think philosophers should try and make sense of their disputes with their opponents as far as possible without treating them as idiots. This applies to the religious participants in the debate as much as to the atheists.
Tim CraneIt had all the earmarks of a CIA operation; the bomb killed everybody in the room except the intended target!
William F. Buckley, Jr.What is news? It's hard to quantify. Certainly news has changed completely, and the morning shows are not really designed to bring you the news, except to tell you what happened overnight, and the rest of it is a kind of magazine mentality - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's harder to be an educated and informed citizen.
Harrison Ford