Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Dickens

Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fulfilled all the rules of art.

Charles Dickens

To see the butcher slap the steak before he laid it on the block, and give his knife a sharpening, was to forget breakfast instantly. It was agreeable too - it really was - to see him cut it off so smooth and juicy. There was nothing savage in the act, although the knife was large and keen; it was a piece of art, high art; there was delicacy of touch, clearness of tone, skilful handling of the subject, fine shading. It was the triumph of mind over matter; quite.

Charles Caleb Colton

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

Charles Dickens

Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.

Charles Dickens

We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money.

Charles Spurgeon

Beware, I pray thee, of presuming that thou art saved. If thy heart be renewed, if thou shalt hate the things that thou didst once love, and love the things that thou didst once hate; if thou hast really repented; if there be a thorough change of mind in thee; if thou be born again, then hast thou reason to rejoice: but if there be no vital change, no inward godliness; if there be no love to God, no prayer, no work of the Holy Spirit, then thy saying "I am saved" is but thine own assertion, and it may delude, but it will not deliver thee.

Charles Spurgeon

Alas, if our children lose the crown of life, it will be but a small consolation that they have won the laurels of literature or art.

Charles Spurgeon

Come boldly, 'O believer, for despite the whisperings of Satan and the doubtings of thine own heart, thou art greatly beloved.

Alanis Morissette

I firmly believe that the only reason why I'm on this planet, the only reason why I live, breathe, and exist is, that it's my duty to be as honest as possible in my art.

Abigail Washburn

When I first started playing the banjo and miraculously fell into a record deal in Nashville, TN, there was a period when I didn't go to China. It hurt. Like a pain in my gut... that pain you feel when you know it's time to connect with your parents or your God or your child or your past or your future... and you don't do it.

Mena Grabowski Trott

I wrote a post about wanting to buy a banjo - a $300 banjo, which is a lot of money, and I don't play instruments; I don't know anything about music. I like music, and I like banjos, and I think I probably heard Steve Martin playing, and I said, 'I could do that.' And I said to my husband, I said, 'Ben, can I buy a banjo?' And he's like, 'No.'

Steve Martin

The thing about the banjo is, when you first hear it, it strikes many people as 'What's that?' There's something very compelling about it to certain people; that's the way I was; that's the way a lot of banjo players and people who love the banjo are.

Craig Miner

Could I get more banjo in the monitors please?

Charles Dickens

It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that in the endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.

Charles Dickens

I was a blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am - what shall I say I am today?

Charles Dickens

"Then what can you want to do now?" said the old lady,gaining courage. "I wants to make your flesh creep," replied the boy.

Charles Dickens

The sum of the whole is this: walk and be happy, walk and be healthy. "The best of all ways to lengthen our days" is not, as Mr. Thomas Moore has it, "to steal a few hours from night, my love;" but, with leave be it spoken, to walk steadily and with a purpose. The wandering man knows of certain ancients, far gone in years, who have staved off infirmities and dissolution by earnest walking,-hale fellows close upon eighty and ninety, but brisk as boys.

Alanis Morissette

So many boys, so little time...

Alan Rickman

There's, like, marks next to an actor's name or something, and boy does that go up and down! Somewhere in there, which always causes my mate Miss Ruby Wax great hilarity, I was offered a biopic of Frank Sinatra. Even I knew that was a bad idea! They'll throw anything at you at certain times. So, you know, to thine own self be true.

Alan Bennett

We have fish and chips, which W. and I fetch from the shop in Settle market-place. Some local boys come in and there is a bit of chat between them and the fish-fryer about whether the kestrel under the counter is for sale....Only when I mention it to W. does he explain Kestrel is now a lager. I imagine the future is going to contain an increasing number of incidents like this, culminating with a man in a white coat saying to one kindly, "And now can you tell me the name of the Prime Minister?

Alan Alda

I had never really wanted to be famous. Everyone is supposed to want to be rich and famous, but as a boy I never knew what rich was, and the first view I had of famous made me leery.

Al Sharpton

I've never seen an effective boycott that didn't work.

Charles Dickens

It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something.

Charles Caleb Colton

In all countries where nature does the most, man does the least.

Charles Caleb Colton

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.

Charles Caleb Colton

In great cities men are more callous both to the happiness and the misery of others, than in the country; for they are constantly in the habit of seeing both extremes.

Charles Caleb Colton

As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.

Charles Caleb Colton

The most notorious swindler has not assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own. She calls herself patriotism, when at the same time she is rejoicing at just as much calamity to her native country as will introduce herself into power, and expel her rivals.

Charles Dickens

Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. Mind! I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail.

Charles Dickens

If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.

Charles Dickens

Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I'll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.

Charles Dickens

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.

Charles Dickens

Try not to associate bodily defect with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason

Charles Caleb Colton

Of two evils, it is perhaps less injurious to society, that good doctrine should be accompanied by a bad life, than that a good life should lend its support to a bad doctrine.

Charles Dickens

A good thing can't be cruel.

Charles Simmons

Promptitude is not only a duty, but is also a part of good manners; it is favorable to fortune, reputation, influence, and usefulness; a little attention and energy will form the habit, so as to make it easy and delightful.

Alan Moore

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

Alan Alda

The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart.

Akira Kurosawa

A truly good movie is enjoyable too. There’s nothing complicated about it.

Brian Nicola

We want them all to go on, and realistically they all have a shot. They all want to be state-placers and they're all looking to be pretty tough. I just want them all to have a good time.

Swae Lee

Man, I listened Nas and B.I.G growing up. I listened to both of them when I was younger for sure.

Tessa Thompson

I am multiracial, and I went through different phases - at one point, I listened to Wu-Tang and hip-hop, and then the next year I listened to Joni Mitchell.

Dan Quayle

We've been in your home, we've been on your farm, we've been in your workplace. We have listened to you. We have talked with you,

John Orton

We set up a wiretapping operation in a flophouse where we listened to their conversations, which were in German, and then translated and recorded the conversations of the Nazi spies,

Carly Simon

But when we listened to the radio, it was Bill Haley and the Comets or the Everly Brothers.

Saint Ignatius

Be slow to speak, and only after having first listened quietly, so that you may understand the meaning, leanings, and wishes of those who do speak. Thus you will better know when to speak and when to be silent.

Charlie Puth

I listened to a lot of Marvin Gaye and Motown records.

Dennis Brown

You just went right in and just recorded songs and listened them, and if there were any mistakes, then we would correct them and just went on... one take or two take.

will.i.am

Every single song that I've listened to is in my memory forever.

Jim Stoyle

We had been struggling offensively and made changes. We messed with the lineup a little bit. We're still not where we need to be, but we're going in the right direction.

Linton Johnson

We're apologizing. We screwed up. In a rush to do the right thing, we messed up.

Keith Stanfield

Some people look like they're lost causes, but they're not. Even if they're in a messed up situation, the one little thing you do to help can go a long way.

Oprah Winfrey

You are truly messed up. You really are, ... You are truly messed up.

Fernando Vargas

I was really messed up in the head. I was always angry.

Walter Jones

Being an offensive lineman, you didn't want to be in the spotlight. When you are in the spotlight, it's usually because you messed up.

Jam Master Jay

At the beginning, it was me, Run and D, but D's voice is messed up.

Paul Tracy

The whole thing got messed up when Dominguez crashed,

Chris Johnson

I kind of messed up on that one.

Neil Fallon

We want to thank (the service members) the only way we know how that's by playing rock 'n' roll.

Chord Overstreet

Ive been playing music since I was born.

Jenic Tumaneng

We stuck with them. We'll keep playing and keep working at it.

Lucas Black

When I'm not acting, I'm playing golf. I'm pretty passionate about it.

Nigel Kennedy

Why would you want to stand there waving a stick when you could be playing an instrument?

Wayne Grant

When you start playing these better region teams, you have to play well.

Beau Bridges

And I like music, too, I like playing music.

Antony Garrett Lisi

My friends are all geeks. And many of them are scientists who love playing outside as much as I do.

Derek Bailey

Playing music is not really susceptible to theory much. Circumstances affect it so much.

David Sedaris

If you stepped out of the shower and saw a leprechaun standing at the base of your toilet, would you scream, or would you innately understand that he meant you no harm?

Roman Gutierrez

We still saw some of our inexperience today. That will be the case, but there were still some steps of improvement.

Bo Burnham

I saw a giraffe with a short neck That was sad Or a deer

Audrey Meadows

Fans always ask, What did the bedroom look like? All they ever saw was Alice or Ralph going in and out.

Arnold Bennett

Saw Washington Monument. Phallic. Appalling. A national catastrophe.

Deborah Harkness

You do angry. I just saw it. And you left at least one hole in my carpet to prove it.

Dennis Hopper

I wanted to be an actor. I decided when I was very young, when I first saw movies, that I wanted to be an actor.

Bill Murray

If you walk up to some random person on the street, grab them by the shoulder, and say 'Did you just see what I saw?!', you'll find that no-one wants to talk to you.

Carol Leifer

There were very few women comics when I started out doing stand-up. But I always saw that as a great advantage.

Alan Bennett

Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.

Al Sharpton

We're not willing to give black leaders second chances because, in most cases, we're not willing to give them first chances.

Al Jourgensen

It certainly is gravy every day above ground right now, after kicking that heroin habit. I've been given a second chance in life, and I don't want to let a minute go by without enjoying it.

Al Jarreau

I really do see it as the start of the second half of my career.

Chet Williamson

Publishers love to compartmentalize, and Second Chance was not an easy novel to define.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

There are no second chances in life, except to feel remorse.

Bertrand Russell

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the second chance were offered me.

Nick Whaley

We were better in the second game, so it's disappointing that we didn't play more relaxed.

Charles Rangel

I am a firm believer that upon release, ex-offenders should be afforded a second chance to become productive citizens by providing rehabilitation and education that will help them join the workforce.

Charles Caleb Colton

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.

Charles Dickens

And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a bright old song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round!

Charles Dickens

Heaven above was blue, and earth beneath was green; the river glistened like a path of diamonds in the sun; the birds poured forth their songs from the shady trees; the lark soared high above the waving corn; and the deep buzz of insects filled the air.

Charles Stuart Calverley

I can not sing the old songs now! It is not that I deem them low, 'Tis that I can't remember how They go.

Charles Spurgeon

Song of God and Son of Man, there He hangs, bearing pains unutterable, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.

Charles Spurgeon

Praise is the rehearsal of our eternal song. By grace we learn to sing, and in glory we continue to sing. What will some of you do when you get to heaven, if you go on grumbling all the way? Do not hope to get to heaven in that style. But now begin to bless the name of the Lord.

Charles Spurgeon

The best thing is to go from nature's God dawn to nature; and if you once get to nature's God, and believe Him, and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds; to see God everywhere in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks, and hear Him everywhere, in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling of thunder, and in the fury of tempests. Get Christ first, put Him in the right place, and you will find Him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience.

Charles Spurgeon

Our griefs cannot mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life's song, 'He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.'

Charles Spurgeon

He who sings a song to Christ in the night, sings the best song in all the world; for he sings from the heart.

Charles Spurgeon

Do not begin to teach others until the Lord has taught you.

Alan Watts

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it - aliens.

Alan Paton

Life has not taught me to expect nothing, but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God.

Dave Barry

I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat more than anything else. I know I voted for Carter. Watergate taught me how bad the Republicans were.

Bryan Stevenson

My parents, who grew up in terror and dealt with segregation and humiliation, nonetheless taught us to be hopeful and open and loving and not hateful toward anyone.

Charles Koch

To be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good.

Audre Lorde

If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I, who thought to sink, was caught up into love, and taught the whole of life in a new rhythm.

Cass McCombs

When I was young, I used to go to Baha'i camp, and they taught me a lot about the equality of religions.

Kent Haruf

I write in a journal first, briefly. Then read something I've read many times before, for about half an hour, then rework what I wrote the day before.

Kent Haruf

Writing is the hardest thing I know, but it was the only thing I wanted to do. I wrote for 20 years and published nothing before my first book.

Alice Walker

My mother says I was writing before I was crawling. I wrote in the dirt with a twig.

William Gibson

In 1981, I was a futurist - or at least I was a guy who put on a futurist hat occasionally - and I wrote about the 21st century.

Natalie Babbitt

My husband wrote the story for my first book, but then he didn't want to do that anymore. So if I was going to go on being an illustrator, I had to start writing the stories, too.

Gail Carson Levine

I wrote as a kid, but I never wanted to be a writer, particularly. I had been drawing and painting for years and loved that.

Kathryn Harrison

I wrote 'The Kiss' 12 hours a day for six months.

Jennifer McMahon

I wrote my first short story in third grade.

Randy Alcorn

I wrote my first novel, 'Deadline,' in 1994 as an experiment.