Famous Quotes & Sayings

John Foxe

A prisoner in the Inquisition is never allowed to see the face of his accuser, or of the witnesses against him, but every method is taken by threats and tortures, to oblige him to accuse himself, and by that means corroborate their evidence.

John Flanagan

You surely can't be trying to blame us for Erak's habit of charging ashore waving an axe and grabbing everything that isn't nailed down? No offence, Svengal." Svengal shrugged. "None taken. It's a pretty accurate description of Erak on a raid, as a matter of fact.

John Flanagan

Gundar isn't so much a ship's captain as a reformed pirate and a heathen." [Evanlyn] looked apologetically at Gundar. "No offense, Gundar." The skirl shrugged cheerfully. "None taken, little lady. It's a pretty fair description. Not sure about the reformed part," he added thoughtfully.

John F. Kennedy

I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk.

John F. Kennedy

Every president has taken comfort and courage when told...that the Lord "will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Fear not-neither be thou dismayed."

Lionel Barber

The Financial Times is pro-British membership of the European Union. We have taken that position for decades. But we are not starry-eyed about the European Union. And we do not believe and have not believed for at least 10 years that Britain should be part of the euro.

Lionel Trilling

After all, no one is ever taken in by the happy ending, but we are often divinely fuddled by the tragic curtain.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

I wrote two poems about the '81 uprisings: 'Di Great Insohreckshan' and 'Mekin Histri.' I wrote those two poems from the perspective of those who had taken part in the Brixton riots. The tone of the poem is celebratory because I wanted to capture the mood of exhilaration felt by black people at the time.

Lindsey Buckingham

This time, there were no drugs involved. The hours were completely normal daytime hours. I think we were able to appreciate the interplay, where before we had taken it for granted.

Linda Sue Park

If a man is keeping an idea to himself, and that idea is taken by stealth or trickery-I say it is stealing. But once a man has revealed his idea to others, it is no longer his alone. It belongs to the world.

Leo Tolstoy

They say: sufferings are misfortunes," said Pierre. 'But if at once this minute, I was asked, would I remain what I was before I was taken prisoner, or go through it all again, I should say, for God's sake let me rather be a prisoner and erat horseflesh again. We imagine that as soon as we are torn out of our habitual path all is over, but it is only the beginning of something new and good. As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us.

Leo Tolstoy

Our whole life is taken up with anxiety for personal security, with preparations for living, so that we really never live at all.

Lawrence Lessig

Creativity builds upon the public domain. The battle that we're fighting now is about whether the public domain will continue to be fed by creative works after their copyright expires. That has been our tradition but that tradition has been perverted in the last generation. We're trying to use the Constitution to reestablish what has always been taken for granted--that the public domain would grow each year with new creative work.

Lawrence Lessig

The more important point, however, is not about what the money does. It's about what has to be done to get the money. The effect of the money might be (democratically) benign. But what is done to secure that money is not necessarily benign. To miss this point is to betray the Robin Hood fallacy: the fact that the loot was distributed justly doesn't excuse the means taken to secure it.

Lawrence Lessig

A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense.

Larry Kramer

Writers who are activists are very rarely taken seriously as artists.

Joseph Heller

You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.

Joseph Campbell

The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It's usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.

Joseph Campbell

I have found that you have only to take that one step toward the gods, and they will then take ten steps toward you. That step, the heroic first step of the journey, is out of, or over the edge of, your boundaries, and it often must be taken before you know that you will.

Karl Popper

[The aim of science is] to explain what so far has taken to be an explicans, such as a law of nature. The task of empirical science constantly renews itself. We may go on forever, proceeding to explanations of a higher and higher universality...

Karl Popper

A system is empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation... It must be possible for an empirical or scientific system to be refuted by experience.

Julio Cortazar

I'm such a jerk; it had never occurred to me that when we look at a photo from the front, the eyes reproduce exactly the position and the vision of the lens; it's these things that are taken for granted and it never occurs to anyone to think about them.

John Dryden

Want is a bitter and a hateful good, Because its virtues are not understood; Yet many things, impossible to thought, Have been by need to full perfection brought. The daring of the soul proceeds from thence, Sharpness of wit, and active diligence; Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives; And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.

John Mayer

I may have taken someone through the wringer psychologically, but I've never been sinister.

John Maynard Keynes

Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits-a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

John Malkovich

I mean, a lot of time rehearsals are taken up with other things other than preparing a character.

John Lubbock

A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody.

John Lubbock

When important decisions have to be taken, the natural anxiety to come to a right decision will often keep you awake. Nothing, however, is more conducive to healthful sleep than plenty of open air.

John Lydon

Being born into the Royal Family is like being born into a mental asylum. Marrying into it is not something to be taken lightly.

John Locke

[Individuals] have a right to defend themselves and recover by force what by unlawful force is taken from them.

John Lennon

That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor.

John Lennon

I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this.

John Landis

There have been 14 versions that I can find of Burke & Hare movies. They have all been horror films and all the movies have taken place in Victorian times, which doesn't make any sense.