A Quote by Cyril Connolly

We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.

Cyril Connolly

Quote Topics

Dungeon Life Self Sentence Serving

Quote Author

Cyril Connolly
English - Journalist
September 10, 1903 - November 26, 1974

A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

William J. Clinton

self-sacrifice is one of a woman's seven deadly sins (along with self-abuse, self-loathing, self-deception, self-pity, self-serving, and self-immolation).

Sarah Ban Breathnach

We are all serving a life sentence, and good behavior is our only hope for a pardon.

Douglas Horton

I have spent a lot of time listening to people who are serving life sentences and getting to know them and the circumstances of their lives. I have never met anyone serving a long prison sentence who had anything close to what I could call a childhood; instead, the upbringings always - always - involve extreme situations of poverty and abuse.

Rachel Kushner

Staying in a marriage without love is like serving a life sentence with an incompatible cell mate.

Jeanne Phillips

Kindness is weak when you use it in a self-serving manner. Self-serving kindness is thin - people can see right through it when a kind leader has an agenda.

Travis Bradberry

Increasingly, people perceive no difference between the narcissistic self-serving reporters asking questions, and the narcissistic self-serving politicians who evade them.

Michael Crichton

Animosity towards the merchant class has been around for centuries. Why? The goal of making a profit is quite obviously a self-serving motive. Other occupations, while equally self-serving, are better able to hide their motives.

James Cook

Ignorance has been well represented under the similitude of a dungeon, where, though it is full of life, yet darkness and silence reign. But in society the bars and locks have been broken; the dungeon itself is demolished; the prisoners are out; they are in the midst of us. We have no security but to teach and renovate them.

Horace Mann

Our greatest individual challenge in life is self-discipline. The self-discipline of a healthy diet, daily exercise, controlling our thoughts, selflessly serving others, and living a life of integrity.

Bradford Winters

When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.

George C. Wolfe

Repentance is more than just sorrow for the past; repentance is a change of mind and heart, a new life of denying self and serving the Savior as king in self's place.

J. I. Packer

Rather than serving in the U.S. Senate for almost 20 years or having so many other wonderful life experiences, I could have served a longer sentence in prison for some of the stupid, reckless things I did as a teenager.

Alan K. Simpson

The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.

Margaret Atwood

Of course you want to drive that out of yourself because you want to be wise, not foolish. You also have to allow for the self-serving bias of everybody else because most people are not going to remove it all that successfully, the human condition being what it is. If you don't allow for self-serving bias in your conduct, again you're a fool.