The quote database

There is no doubt that a blizzard has a bewildering and numbing effect upon the brain of any one exposed to it.

Such extremity of suffering cannot be measured: madness or death may give relief.

The supply of time, though gloriously regular, is cruelly restricted.

Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.

Not from space must I seek my dignity, but from the ruling of my thought.

By space the Universe encompasses and swallows me as an atom, by thought I encompass it.

Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult.

Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased.

These difficulties accumulate and produce a friction which no man can imagine exactly who has not seen War

The phantom of the next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor Sabbath recreations.

How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! he is his own exclusive object.

From a poor man, poor in Time, I was suddenly lifted up into a vast revenue; I could see no end of my possessions; I wanted some steward, or judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me.

This trial comes at a moment when man's power to achieve good or to inflict evil surpasses the brightest hopes and the sharpest fears of all ages.

The affectionate heart of my aunt, Catherine Porten, bewailed a sister and a friend; but my poor father was inconsolable, and the transport of grief seemed to threaten his life or his reason.

Life is not only short, but uncertain, and art is not only long, but absorbing.

On this bit of the wild world's stage are theatrical lightning changes of scenes—changes that on most mountains would require ten thousand years or more. It is a place of strange and fleeting landscapes; the earth is ever changing like the sky.

Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man.

It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are.

Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but by the opinions about the things

Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life

The task now was to secure the safety of the party, and to that I must bend my energies and mental power and apply every bit of knowledge that experience of the Antarctic had given me.

Human effort is not futile, but man fights against the giant forces of Nature in a spirit of humility.

The task was likely to be long and strenuous, and an ordered mind and a clear programme were essential if we were to come through without loss of life.

A grave responsibility confronts this Court whenever in course of litigation it must reconcile the conflicting claims of liberty and authority.

Nevertheless the person in charge never seems to look the impossibility in the face.