A Quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Drowning men, it is said, cling to wisps of straw.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Quote Topics

Cling Drowning Men Said Straw Wisps

Quote Author

Fyodor Dostoevsky
Russian - Novelist
November 11, 1821 - February 9, 1881

We cling to words like drowning men to straws. But still we drown, we drown.

Anna Kamienska

A drowning man will clutch at a straw.

Thomas More

I turned on the pillow with a little moan, and at this juncture Jeeves entered with the vital oolong. I clutched at it like a drowning man at a straw hat.

P. G. Wodehouse

They call it the drowning instinct. It's when drowning doesn't look like drowning. (pg. 241)

Ilsa J. Bick

I can't tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know that a mere glance is enough to make dspair pause. For in truth, we who are creatures of impulse, are creatures of despair.

Joseph Conrad

A straw enables you to drink without using your wrist. A straw is your friend - until you lose eye contact with the straw. Then it will betray you and make you look like an idiot.

Demetri Martin

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

William Gaddis

For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril;--nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown.

Herman Melville

In the media, waterboarding is called 'simulated drowning,' but that's a misnomer. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning.

Malcolm Nance

The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state....The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.

Henry David Thoreau

I believe that a revolution can begin from this one strand of straw. Seen at a glance, this rice straw may appear light and insignificant. Hardly anyone would believe that it could start a revolution. But I have come to realize the weight and power of this straw. For me, this revolution is very real.

Masanobu Fukuoka

Some men tend to cling to old intellectual excitements, just as some belles, when they are old ladies, still cling to the fashions and coiffures of their exciting youth.

Jane Jacobs

Obama specializes in knocking down straw men. 'I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves,' he said, implying that's the view of Republicans. It's the view of almost no one.

Fred Barnes

It's only water," she said. "Tell that to a drowning man," Giddon said.

Kristin Cashore

He sighed and then focused his eyes right on me. It was like drowning, drowning in seas of green. There was nothing in the world except for those eyes. "I want to kiss you, Rose," he said softly. "And I want you to want me too.