Merely Quotes

It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness.

Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness.

Basically the school system sets you up with what it wants to set you up with. They're really good at it. I think they're too good. Problem is, what they're doing is conditioning kids to merely accept the culture at hand. But the rebels won't accept it.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

There is poetry even in prose, in all the great prose which is not merely utilitarian or didactic: there exist poets who write in prose or at least in more or less apparent prose; millions of poets write verses which have no connection with poetry.

It's not merely that conservatives are better at selling their product, or that they happen to have an easier-and undoubtedly simpler-ideological product to sell. It's that they know what they are selling. Liberals in general and Obama in particular cannot say the same.

In rating ease of description as very important, we are essentially asserting a belief in quantitative knowledge - a belief that most of the key questions in our world sooner or later demand answers to 'by how much?' rather than merely to 'in which direction?'

There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.

Applause that comes thundering with such force you might think the audience merely suffers the music as an excuse for its ovations.

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid.

Chicago seems a big city instead of merely a large place.

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

The point I am making is that in the more primitive forms of society the individual is merely a unit; in more developed forms of society he is an independent personality.

What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos.

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.

Luck is merely an illusion, trusted by the ignorant and chased by the foolish.

We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the postive affirmation of peace.

If a large city can, after intense intellectual efforts, choose for its mayor a man who merely will not steal from it, we consider it a triumph of the suffrage.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

We will be safer from terrorist attack only when we have earned the respect of all other nations instead of their fear, respect for our values and not merely our weapons.

Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.

Merely that I have a World Wide Web page does not give me any power, any abilities, nor any status in the real world.

If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery.

The men in the steel industry who sacrificed their all were nor merely aiding their fellows at home but were adding strength to the cause of their comrades in all industry.

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

Many critics of the Palestinians, especially those in Congress, think the current calm is merely the eye of the storm. That's why the House of Representatives approved a foreign aid package last week that forbade the direct financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority .

I often wish... that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.