Michael Dennis > Michael's Quotes

“For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I proceed to add was Joe's. It was not because I was faithful, but because Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or a sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-going man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restless aspiring discontented me”
― Charles Dickens

“Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turn, then to go forward does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Surely you do not think that criticism is like the answer to a sum. The richer the work of art the more diverse are the true interpretations. There is not one answer only, but many answers. I pity that book on which critics are agreed. It must be a very obvious and shallow production.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde

“Rick, the world is before you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a good thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
― Isaac Newton

“(Query here becomes unavoidable: Does not a misplaced optimism exist, common to all mankind, leading on to false conviction that social engagements, if dated sufficiently far ahead, will never really materialise?)”
― E.M. Delafield, Diary of a Provincial Lady

“Intellectual 'work' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand, who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him - why, certainly he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair - but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash also.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

“On this view, the world of
facts, without one trace of value, and the world of feelings, without one trace of
truth or falsehood, justice or injustice, confront one another, and no rapprochement
is possible.”
― Lewis C s Clive Staples, The Abolition of Man

“It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Stop thinking of what you intend to do. Stop thinking of what you have just done. Then, stop thinking that you have stopped thinking of those things. Then you will find the Now, the time that stretches eternal, and is really the only time there is.”
― Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin

“Some things may be learned from words on a page, but some skills are learned first by a man’s hands and heart, and later by his head.”
― Robin Hobb, Royal Assassin

“Rowing is like a beautiful duck. On the surface it is all grace, but underneath the bastard’s paddling like mad!”
― Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“I like to let them talk things out, but fact isn’t a democratic process; if a thing isn’t true it isn’t true, even if everybody votes that it is.”
― K.J. Parker, Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City

“Me, poor man, my library
Was dukedom large enough.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Or Miki was a bot who had never been abused or lied to or treated with anything but indulgent kindness. It really thought its humans were its friends, because that’s how they treated it. I signaled Miki I would be withdrawing for one minute. I needed to have an emotion in private.”
― Martha Wells, Rogue Protocol

“They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little.”
― Martha Wells, Rogue Protocol

“And this is the evil that heresy inflicts on the Christian people, obfuscating ideas and inciting all to become inquisitors to their personal benefit. For what I was to see at the abbey would make me think that it is often inquisitors who create heretics. And not only in the sense that they imagine heretics where these do not exist, but also that inquisitors repress the heretical putrefaction so vehemently that many are driven to share in it, in their hatred for the judges. Truly, a circle conceived by the Devil. God preserve us.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“We're living in momentous times, Garion. The events of a thousand years and more have all focused on these very days. The world, I'm told, is like that. Centuries pass when nothing happens, and then in a few short years events of such tremendous importance take place that the world is never the same again."
I think that if I had my choice, I'd prefer one of those quiet centuries," Garion said glumly.
Oh, no," Silk said, his lips drawing back in a ferretlike grin. "Now's the time to be alive - to see it all happen, to be a part of it. That makes the blood race, and each breath is an adventure.”
― David Eddings, Pawn of Prophecy

“It's only a story, isn't it?"...
"Who's to say what's only a story and what's truth disguised as a story?”
― David Eddings, Pawn of Prophecy

“Both were silent, but the very way in which they were silent, in which they were sitting together, was expressive of confidential intimacy; each of them seemed not even to be thinking of his companion, while secretly rejoicing in his presence.”
― Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

“Mademoiselle De Brie: But it can't be much fun seeing your work torn to shreds.

Moliere: What do I care? Didn't I get everything I wanted from my play? I was lucky -- it appealed to the distinguished audience I was particularly eager to please. Don't you think I'm right to be happy with how it turned out? Can't you see that their attacks have come too late? It's out of my hands at this point. If people attack a successful play, they're attacking the audience who liked it, for their lack of judgement, not the art of the man who wrote the play, don't you see?”
― Molière, The Impromptu at Versailles

“They were philosophers; they put two and two together and got a goldfish.”
― Natasha Pulley, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

“I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.”
― Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber

“All roads lead to Amber," he said, as though it were an axiom.”
― Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber

“To paraphrase Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear, and all those guys, "I wish I had known this some time ago.”
― Roger Zelazny, Sign of the Unicorn

“I wish," said the old lady, "for her own sake, for the sake of her family, and for the sake of her reputation, that my lady Delacour had fewer admirers, and more friends."

"Women, who have met with so many admirers, seldom meet with many friends," said lady Anne.

"No," said Mrs. Delacour, "for they seldom are wise enough to know their value."

"We learn the value of all things, but especially of friends, by experience," said lady Anne, "and it is no wonder, therefore, that those who have little experience of the pleasures of friendship should not be wise enough to know their value.”
― Maria Edgeworth, Belinda