Suppose Quotes - page 65
"Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?"
"Go away and–"
He interrupted with a triumphant laugh, "Die as heroines always do, tender slaves as they are."
"No, live and forget you", was the unexpected reply.
Louisa May Alcott
To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. That a pitched coin should sometimes turn up heads and sometimes tails calls for no particular explanation; but if it shows heads every time, we wish to know how this result has been brought about. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason.
Charles Sanders Peirce
They're often bracketed together, Tolkien and Lewis, which I suppose is fair because they were great friends - both Oxford writers and scholars, both Christians. Tolkien's work has very little of interest in it to a reader of literature, in my opinion. When I think of literature - Dickens, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad - the great novelists found their subject matter in human nature, emotion, in the ways we relate to each other. If that's what Tolkien's up to, he's left out half of it. The books are wholly male-oriented. The entire question of sexual relationships is omitted.
Philip Pullman
It would be an error... to suppose that science makes the artist; yet it lends to him the most powerful assistance. In general, it is difficult to keep it within due limits; and I shall even freely admit that Albert Durer, in his work upon the proportions of the human frame, has imparted to it a certain scientific dryness, which lessens its utility. One finds there more of the geometer than the artist, and the geometer, moreover, such as he was at a time when it had not yet been discovered how much the rules of style enhance the value of scientific works, and, above all, of those which appertain at the same time to the domain of the fine arts.
Adolphe Quetelet
I suppose any form of art can be said to be propaganda for a state of mind. Inevitably, if you are creating a painting, or writing a story, you are making propaganda, in a sense, for the way that you feel, the way that you think, the way that you see the world. You are trying to express your own view of reality and existence, and that is inevitably going to be a political action-especially if your view of existence is too far removed from the mainstream view of existence. Which is how an awful lot of writers have gotten into terrible trouble in the past.
Alan Moore
But the Persians, supposing that they had penetrated more within the confines of the truth, asserted that the Deity is luminous, a light contained in air. The Babylonians, however, affirmed that the Deity is dark, which very opinion also appears the consequence of the other; for day follows night, and night day. Do not the Egyptians, however, who suppose themselves more ancient than all, speak of the power of the Deity? [This power they estimate by] calculating these intervals of the parts [of the zodiac and, as if] by a most divine inspiration, they asserted that the Deity is an indivisible monad, both itself generating itself, and that out of this were formed all things.
Hippolytus of Rome
I do walk off sets but not for the reasons you might suppose. I'm not temperamental about myself. I can take care of myself all right. But I do get temperamental when I hear some little would-be Napoleon of a director, some little killer-diller of a petty czar cursing out extras, grips, electricians. I've walked off sets when things like that happen. And will again, if and when they happen again. I've said to the pettifogging Nappies, ‘Why don't you bawl me out if that's the way you feel about it? You don't dare to bawl the stars out, do you? They could bark right back at you, couldn't they? So you have to light on the little fellows, the ones who can't talk back, don't you?' It's an obsession with me.
Carole Lombard
Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence ... In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men ... to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Samuel Adams
When it has become silly to suppose that the role of our government should be to "seek balance," then count me with the silly, for that means that this has become quite serious indeed. If it should be obvious to everyone that the government does not seek balance, that the government is simply the tool of the most powerful lobbyists, that the idea of holding the government to a different standard is absurd, that the idea of demanding of the government that it speak truth and not lies is just naïve, then who have we, the most powerful democracy in the world, become?
Lawrence Lessig
I guess you could say that I was somewhat withdrawn from my classmates. I spent a good deal of time being a loner. I suppose that had something to do with the way we lived - always on the move, never living in one town very long. It's very hard to make lasting friendships that way. And my father was rather strict with me and my two younger sisters. He insisted on proper behaviour and very often vetoed our choices of boyfriends. There was always a curfew whenever my sisters or I would go out on a date - we had to be home on time or else. But I never resented his authority. In fact, I'm thankful for my strict upbringing; I feel it has helped me learn discipline - and that's very important in this business.
Sharon Tate
"What do you see in that Barrayaran boy, anyway?” the Baronne asked querulously, dodging back despite Tej's best efforts. "He just doesn't seem very ambitious.”
"Mm,” said Tej. One woman's defect is another woman's delight? "I suppose...it's all the things he sees in me.” That you don't.
Lois McMaster Bujold
A man won't steal, ordinarily, unless that which he steals is something he cannot as easily get without stealing; in liberty the cost of stealing would involve greater difficulties than producing, and consequently he would not be apt to steal. But suppose a man steals. Today you go to a representative of that power which has robbed you of the earth, of the right of free contract of the means of exchange, taxes you for everything you eat or wear (the meanest form of robbery), - you go to him for redress from a thief!
Voltairine de Cleyre
‘How can I tell you, Lydia? What do we care. I can only be happy that I love you, and what will come of it never troubles me. My heart leaps up to see you ride, to hear your voice, and feel your fingers in my hair. I shall be full of joy when I can kiss you.'
‘Goldmund, a man may only kiss his Bride. And did you never think of that, then?
‘No, I never thought of that. Why should I? You know as well as I that you can never be my bride,'
‘So that is it; and since you can never be my goodman, and stay for ever at my side, it was very wicked of you to speak of love to me. Did you really think you could entice me?'
‘I thought of nothing, Lydia, but you only. I think much less than you suppose. And I ask nothing, except that one day you should kiss me. We talk too much; lovers should never talk. Ch IX.
Hermann Hesse
Suerly my lord I suppose this had been no greate cause more to reiect the one than thother for ye know by histories of the bible that god may by his reuelation dispense with his own Law, as with the Israelites spoyling the egiptians and with Jacob to hue iiij wifes, and suche other.
Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex
Surah iii. 72, 73: "And some truly are there among them who torture the Scriptures with they tongues, in order that ye may suppose it to be from the Scripture, yet it is not from the Scripture. And they say, 'This is from God'; yet it is not from God; and they utter s lie against God, and they know they do so. It beseemeth not a man, that God should give his the Scriptures and the Wisdom, and the gift of prophecy, and that then he should say to his followers, 'Be ye worshipers of me, as well as of God'; but rather, 'Be ye perfect in things pertaining to God, since ye know the Scriptures, and have studied deep.'"
Jesus Christ
If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.
Jesus Christ
I made no such assertion,” Ifness said. "You drew a faulty inference, for which I cannot accept responsibility. In any event the situation is more complicated than you suppose, and you must be prepared for subtlety.”
"Subtlety or deception?” demanded Etzwane. "The effect is much the same.”
Ifness held up his hand. "I will explain the situation, if only to reduce the flow of your reproaches.
Jack Vance
