Reply Quotes

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation. (Molière)

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.

Leonard Bernstein

Klopstock was questioned regarding the meaning of a passage in his poem. He replied, 'God and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone knows.'

Cesare Lombroso

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

Stephen Covey

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked for his final counsel. He replied, 'Verify your quotations.'

Winston Churchill

When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as 'Catch-22' I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?'

Joseph Heller

I said to Heart, 'How goes it' Heart replied 'Right as a Ribstone Pippin' But it lied.

Hilaire Belloc

I found, one day in school, a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babiesthat's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.

Bertrand Russell

Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, 'Tis mans perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.'

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To the dumb question, 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, 'Why not?'

Christopher Hitchens

The hope of a new politics does not lie in formulating a left-wing reply to the right-it lies in rejecting conventional political categories. (Christopher Lasch)

I finally had to go to the American Civil Liberties Union here in northern California to get my reply published to what I considered to be a hatchet job done by Stanley Crouch.

Ishmael Reed

The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing.

Daniel Webster

In desperation I asked Fermi whether he was not impressed by the agreement between our calculated numbers and his measured numbers. He replied, "How many arbitrary parameters did you use for your calculations?" I thought for a moment about our cut-off procedures and said, "Four." He said, "I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk."

Freeman Dyson

Nonmathematical people sometimes ask me, "You know math, huh? Tell me something I've always wondered, What is infinity divided by infinity?” I can only reply, "The words you just uttered do not make sense. That was not a mathematical sentence. You spoke of ‘infinity' as if it were a number. It's not. You may as well ask, 'What is truth divided by beauty?' I have no clue. I only know how to divide numbers. ‘Infinity,' ‘truth,' ‘beauty'-those are not numbers.”.

John Derbyshire

Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied,- "If you seek for Eldorado.

Edgar Allan Poe

One of the neighbors found Nasreddin scattering crumbs all around his house. "Why are you doing that?" he asked. "I'm keeping the tigers away," replied Nasreddin. "But there aren't any tigers around here," said the neighbor. "That's right," said Nasreddin. "You see how well it works?"

Nasreddin

As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was something wrong with the story, so that's going to be no drawback as far as I'm concerned. "Good Lord, why am I so bored"-"I know; it must be the plot developing harmoniously." So I often reply to myself, and there rises before me my special nightmare-that of the writer as craftsman, natty and deft.

E. M. Forster

But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.

Joseph Addison

A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."

Stephen Crane

From now on I'm thinking only of me.” Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way?”
"Then,” said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I? (Joseph Heller)

When asked to make the formal declaration that I did not intend to overthrow the Constitution of the United States, I was fool enough to reply that I had no such purpose, but that were I to do it by mistake I should be inexpressibly contrite.

Peter Medawar

A disciple asked, "Who is a Master?" The Master replied, "Anyone to whom it is given to let go of the ego. Such a person's life is then a masterpiece.

Anthony de Mello

A disciple said to him, "I am ready, in the quest for God, to give up anything: wealth, friends, family, country, life itself. What else can a person give up?" The Master calmly replied, "One's beliefs about God.

Anthony de Mello

The Master was exceedingly gracious to university dons who visited him, but he would never reply to their questions or be drawn into their theological speculations. To his disciples, who marveled at this, he said, "Can one talk about the ocean to a frog in a well or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?"

Anthony de Mello

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