A Quote by Polly Allen Mellen

You cannot squelch what's happening at the moment - you cannot put a lid on it and squash it down.

Polly Allen Mellen

Quote Topics

Cannot Down Happening Lid Moment Put Squash

Quote Author

Polly Allen Mellen
Born: June 18, 1924

It is a confession that we do not have such a prodigious head as is required to answer the question what is happening, that we cannot get on top of what is happening, that we are stuck in the middle of it, in medias res, inter-esse, amazing and bewildered. We cannot soar over what is happening with philosophy's eagle-wings. What's happening has clipped our wings.

John D. Caputo

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending

William J. H. Boetcker

I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing. Just as I believe that a painter cannot sit down to his morning coffee without noticing what color it is, so a writer cannot see an odd little gesture without putting a verbal description to it, and ought never to let a moment go by undescribed.

Shirley Jackson

We must recognize that anger only agitates and incites. It cannot squelch or satisfy the hunger for justice.

Afeni Shakur

Life cannot be destroyed for good, neithercan history be brought entirely to a halt. A secret streamlet trickles on beneath the heavy lid of inertia and pseudo-events, slowly and inconspicuously undercutting it. It may be a long process, but one day it must happen: the lid will no longer hold and will start to crack. This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and uniquesomething truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.

Vaclav Havel

We cannot wholly rely, as though it were Medieval times, [on the notion that] the only reality is what we see in front of us. There are germs. There are changes that are happening in our planet's ecology that are happening over such a long period of time that we cannot see the changes.

John Hodgman

Nature is a divine art; it cannot be the artist. It is a dominical book and cannot be the scribe. It is an embroidery and cannot be the embroiderer. It is a register and cannot be the accountant. It is the law and cannot be the power.

Said Nursi

I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.

Franz Kafka

With lacquerware there is an extra beauty in that moment between removing the lid and lifting the bowl to the mouth, when one gazes at the still, silent liquid in the dark depths of the bowl, its colour hardly differing from that of the bowl itself. What lies within the darkness one cannot distinguish, but the palm senses the gentle movements of the liquid, vapour rises from within, forming droplets on the rim, and the fragrance carried upon the vapour brings a delicate anticipation ... a moment of mystery, it might almost be called, a moment of trance.

Junichiro Tanizaki

You cannot put a song - you cannot put a person's talent over somebody's humanity. That's just insane.

Tarana Burke

He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

If you put fleas in a shallow container they jump out. But if you put a lid on the container for just a short time, they hit the lid trying to escape and learn quickly not to jump so high. They give up their quest for freedom. After the lid is removed, the fleas remain imprisond by their own self policing. So it is with life. Most of us let our own fears or the impositions of others imprison us in a world of low expectations.

John Taylor Gatto

As I watch what is happening in the Middle East and the carnage that comes over our television screens every evening, I cannot help but ask myself, what is wrong with humankind that we cannot stop the killing?