Top 252 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Biographers - Page 4

The happiness of the world is transitory. The less you become attached to the world, the more you enjoy peace of mind.

The hats were nearly all as though made by somebody who had once heard about flowers but never seen one huge muffs of horror.

A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed?—??what gospel is that?

The first rule of life is to reveal nothing, to be exceptionally cautious in what you say, in whatever company you may find yourself. If you have a secret, you have only to whisper it to your dearest friend with the strictest injunction that it will go no further, and within half a day the story is all over town, and when you do make what would seem to be a perfectly sensible remark, you will find it reported in the most grotesque form, thus incurring no end of criticism to rebound upon you.

I don't think we would have had to be an occupying power if we had done the right thing in 1991.

We may talk of the best means of doing good; but, after all, the greatest difficulty lies in doing it in a proper spirit. Speak- the truth in love, "in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves" - with the meekness and gentleness of Christ.

I write because, exacting as it may be to do so, it is still more difficult to refrain, and because - however conscious of one's limitations one may be - there is always at the back of one's mind an irrational hope that this next book will be different: it will be the rounded achievement, the complete fulfilment. It never has been: yet I am still writing.

Even the impossible becomes possible through devotion.

No one of Lincoln's old acquaintances in this city ever heard of his conversion to Christianity by Dr. Smith or anyone else. It was never suggested nor thought of here until after his death.... I never saw him read a second of time in Dr. Smith's book on Infidelity. He threw at down upon our table - spit upon it as it were - and never opened it to my knowledge.

I'm a teacher. A teacher is someone who leads. There is no magic here. I do not walk on water. I do not part the sea. I just love children.

So, from generation to generation, the spiritual church is rising upwards toward its perfection; and, though one after another the workmen pass away, the fabric remains, and the great Master-builder carries on the undertaking. Be it ours to build in our portion in a solid and substantial manner, so that they who come after us may be at once thankful for our thoroughness, and inspired by our example.

An eldery fallen angel travelling incognito.

I can never refuse anyone who addresses me as Mother.

The reason territorial monarchs failed time after time against maritime powers was not that absolutist, non-consensual governments were incapable of building great fleets in peace - quite the reverse - but that they were unable to fund them in the crises of war. Mainly this was because they were forced to divert resources from the fleet to their armies, to fight territorial rivals frequently financed by their maritime enemy from the profits of sea trade.

Every sinner is now on trial once for all. He is now invited by the bleeding Saviour, urged by all the horrors of hell, to enter heaven. But death closes the possibility for ever.

Readers are leaders. Thinkers succeed.

[The oyster] accepts algae and detritus in one end - and through this beautiful, glamorous set of stomach organs, out the other end comes cleaner water.

The engine of growth is also the engine of inequality.

Success doesn't come to you, you go to it.

You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish.

To be a heretic to-day is almost a human obligation.

The more monies we spend, the less children learn; because the more machines we have there, the more gadgets, the more gimmicks, the less children have to really think - the less they have to use their innate abilities, their curiosity, their brains.

There is a gesture he has, a motion, that always reminds me of a great batter leaning into a hit. He has a way of throwing one foot forward, putting his head down a bit as he silently runs the valves, and then the cheeks bloom out in the way that has mystified his dentist for years, and he hits into the solo. When that foot goes forward like that, you know that John Birks Gillespie is no longer clowning. Stand back.

Women do not disapprove their rivals; they hate them.

I do not think that one is likely to write a good biography unless one feels some sympathy with its subject.

Clergymen have much the same in their breeches as other men.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

Charles Darwin, who had witnessed the atrocities perpetrated against Argentina’s native Indians by Juan Manuel de Rosas, had predicted that “the country will be in the hands of white Gaucho savages instead of copper-coloured Indians. The former being a little superior in education, as they are inferior in every moral virtue.

The lack of brotherhood among believers themselves has paralyzed the church in front of the skepticism and immorality of the world; but when we go back in simple faith to the one great fact of our redemption, we shall be both brought into closer fellowship with each other, and stimulated to more tender regard for the salvation of men.

I think that when one is dead one should be a little bit bolder, so that the rest of us may have some record of how things actually were.

Prayers born out of murmuring are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, let'us take care what we cry for, lest God give it to us, and thereby punish us.

Everything works when the teacher works. It's as easy as that, and as hard.

The mercy caravans are through there the medicine refugees flowing out. It makes the United States look very bad here. And much more like an occupation force than it did before.

It is a sadness of growing older that some of us lose our ardent appreciation of what is new and different and difficult.

Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.

The art world loves to throw things out and bring new things in. There's always this new circle of artists entering every five years.

I had never understood quite so clearly the effective power of Jane Jacob's writing - no, her clear-headed observation - as I did reading “What We See”. Maybe that's really the point of writing. That if you take the time to look, to really observe, then you see what is happening, and, with the clarity of that vision, you can act to save neighborhoods.

When someone is taught the joy of learning, it becomes a life-long process that never stops, a process that creates a logical individual. That is the challenge and joy of teaching.

One should not hurt others even by words. One must not speak an unpleasant truth unnecessarily.

The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior.

I think in a sense this is a house that was built on a bad foundation. And the foundation was the Americans coming here and allowing the sacking, burning and plunder of Baghdad, for whatever reason.

I believe, not theoretically, but from direct personal experience, that very few of the things that happen to us are purposeless or accidental (and this includes suffering and grief - even that of others), and that sometimes one catches a glimpse of the link between these happenings. I believe - even when I am myself blind and deaf, or even indifferent - in the existence of a mystery.

Peace is the product of justice and love.

There is a lot of money to be made from miseducation, from the easy to read easy to learn textbooks, workbooks, teacher manuals, educational games and visual aids. The textbook business is more than a billion-dollar-a-year industry and some of its biggest profits come from 'audio-visual aids' - flash cards, tape cassettes, and filmstrips. No wonder the education industry encourages schools to focus on surface education.

I hate to be sporty and athletic. I wish that I could be, but I just wasn't born that way.

Lincoln, speaking of his mother:] "God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her.

God cannot be realized without love. Yes, sincere love.

Che is not just a potent figure of protest, but the idealistic, questioning kid who exists in every society and every time.

The difference between a great soul and an ordinary man is this: the latter weeps while leaving this body, whereas the former laughs. Death seems to him a mere play.

[On writing biography:] If you wish to see a person you must not start by seeing through him.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

It is important to know how influential people think and perceive their countrymen, let's say, especially when you are talking about people in power. I think it can be very revealing how they regard themselves and their relationship or their responsibility to their countrymen. That is vital for us all to know and in order to be able to judge them and evaluate them.

Don't puzzle the mind with too many inquiries. One finds it difficult to put one single thing into practising, but dares invite distraction by filling the mind with too many things.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

The whole track of history is marked with the ruin of empires which having been founded in injustice, or perpetuated by wrong, were ultimately destroyed.

People make one happy, not houses? I do not think so. Houses are more to be trusted than people.

We have to surrender ourselves completely to the Lord with faith and devotion in Him, serve others to the best of our capacity, and never be a source of sorrow to anybody.

For me going to war offers me the ability to write about apparently very alien, sometimes hated or despised people, who've been objectified in a way that restores their humanity. Hopefully for my readers, that denies them the ability to objectify them. I think that's the point. If you can do that, that's a good thing.

A contemplative life has more the appearance of a life of piety than any other; but it is the divine plan to bring faith into activity and exercise.

We suffer with those who have disappeared, those who have had to flee their homes, and those who have been tortured.