Mere Quotes

A great novel is concerned primarily with the interior lives of its characters as they respond to the inconvenient narratives that fate imposes on them. Movie adaptations of these monumental fictions often fail because they become mere exercises in interior decoration.

One does not study for a goal. The goal is a mere accident.

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

Fame is like a shaved pig with a greased tail, and it is only after it has slipped through the hands of some thousands, that some fellow, by mere chance, holds on to it!

Whatever man uses without the fear of God, whatever he applies to the mere gratifying of his flesh, cannot fail to operate as a poison to the soul, however pleasant and salutary it may appear to be to the body.

As the true object of education is not to render the pupil the mere copy of his preceptor, it is rather to be rejoiced in, than lamented, that various reading should lead him into new trains of thinking.

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.

We want a vernacular in art. No mere verbal or formal agreement, or dead level of uniformity but that comprehensive and harmonizing unity with individual variety which can be developed among people politically and socially free.

Wherefore the mere practical architect is not able to assign sufficient reasons for the forms he adopts; and the theoretic architect also fails, grasping the shadow instead of the substance.

The spirit of man is more important than mere physical strength, and the spiritual fiber of a nation than its wealth.

A scientist in his laboratory is not a mere technician: he is also a child confronting natural phenomena that impress him as though they were fairy tales.

For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.

A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.

I think that the mere fact that I'm doing it ought to inspire someone. In junior high school the counselor suggested that I focus on wood shop and metal shop.

I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.

All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.

There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church.

In morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact.

The mere brute pleasure of reading the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

Creation destroys as it goes, throws down one tree for the rise of another. But ideal mankind would abolish death, multiply itself million upon million, rear up city upon city, save every parasite alive, until the accumulation of mere existence is swollen to a horror.

The difference between one man and another is not mere ability it is energy.

Our authorities leave us no doubt that the trust lodged with the oligarchy was sometimes abused, but it certainly ought not to be regarded as a mere usurpation or engine of tyranny.

No doubt unity is something to be desired, to be striven for, but it cannot be willed into being by mere declarations.

The dearest friend on earth is a mere shadow compared to Jesus Christ.

The awesomeness of God is that even in the works of the Beach Boys, Beatles, etc., the beauty of the music is a mere reflection of what God does everyday. He creates music of all kinds and moods.

To jump and break the sound barrier will not be a mere record breaking experience or another extreme event that ends once the mission is accomplished.

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.

Life does not mean mere karma or mere bhakti or mere jnana.

I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build.

Some literary types subscribe to the notion that being a writer like Salinger entitles a person to remain free of the standards that might apply to mere mortals.