Quotes by British Authors - Page 177

We cannot help where we are born or how we are raised," Tel Hesani said. "But we can reject the twisted beliefs of those around us if we need to. Our loved ones and elders don't always know what is best. A man should listen to his heart and make his own decisions about what is wrong and what is right.
Darren Shan
The difference between my beliefs and having a religious faith is that I am prepared to change my views in light of new evidence, but someone of a religious faith will just stick their fingers in the ears and say: 'I'm not listening, there's nothing you can say that will make me change my mind.
Jim Al-Khalili
People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.
Neil Gaiman
Naked I came into the world, naked I shall go out of it! And a very good thing too, for it reminds me that I am naked under my shirt, whatever its colour.
E.M. Forster
As More says, it hardly makes a man a hero, to agree to stand and burn once he is chained to a stake. I have written books and I cannot unwrite them. I cannot unbelieve what I believe. I cannot unlive my life. pg.404
Hilary Mantel
I'll always be here if you need me. I may not share your faith, but I will always help you fight for what you believe in.
Erin Hunter
Beliefs are collars to which leashes can be attached
Mike Carey
...You want a special truth. *You* want the truth to be a truth that *you* like. You want it to be a pretty little truth that fits what you already believe!
Terry Pratchett
It’s the one thing they can’t do. They can make you say anything – anything – but they can’t make you believe it. They can’t get inside you.
George Orwell
I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies.
Neil Gaiman
I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck... I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
Neil Gaiman
Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back.
G.K. Chesterton
It's one of the great temptations, you see--wanting to prove the strength of your own faith by making others believe what you believe. It shows you're right. But it doesn't prove anything of the sort. All it proves is that you're condescending and arrogant and good at doing what half-decent actors can do, or advertising agents, or pop stars, or politicians, or con men, or any of the professional persuaders. They sell illusions. And that's all they do. And they feel good when they succeed. That's what their lives depend on. Which isn't true about religion. Or shouldn't be. Your belief shouldn't depend on what other people think about it. And it certainly should not depend on whether other people believe the same as you.
Aidan Chambers
A wife's loyalty is tested when her husband has nothing. A husband's loyalty is tested when he has everything.
Habeeb Akande
Loyalty looks simple... but it ain't.
David Mitchell
If I were you, Mr Lascelles," said Childermass, softly, "I would speak more guardedly. You are in the north now. In John Uskglass's own country. Our towns and cities and abbeys were built by him. Our laws were made by him. He is in our minds and hearts andspeech. Were it summer you would see a carpet of tiny flowers beneath every hedgerow, of a bluish-white colour. We call them John's Farthings. When the weather is contrary and we have warm weather in winter or it rains in summer the country people say that JohnUskglass is in love again and neglects his business. And when we are sure of something we say it is as safe as a pebble in John Uskglass's pocket.
Susanna Clarke
Loyalty could come only of exchange and mutual regard.
Ariana Franklin
Loyalty is what matters, and that exists now, not in the past. Loyalty has to be proved every day, in every piece of fresh-kill brought back for the Clan, every claw mark on our enemies, every patrol, every training session.
Erin Hunter
Some men you stick to right off. But it's those that take time to stick that stick longest.
Joe Abercrombie
She was crude, but loyal. He began to understand her even better than before. A pity she was so old; it was too late to try to make a human being of her.
Elias Canetti
I understand the loss of a comrade is something to mourn, but our responsibilities do not end because one has lost the fight. We as defenders of this nation have an obligation to those who've sworn allegiance to us. And I intend to uphold my oath to the people of this land, no matter the cost.
Charles Lee
Brambleclaw turned to Squirrelflight first. “Will you fight beside me?”Their eyes met for a long moment. “Always,” she meowed.
Erin Hunter
I’ll always be here if you need me,” Mothwing told him. “I may not share your faith, but I will always help you fight for what you believe in.
Erin Hunter
Attracting loyal customers based on price is like believing in the tooth fairy.
Colin Myles
But because day at her dawning hours hath so bewitched me, must I yet love her when glutted with triumph she settles to garish noon? . . . Who dares call me turncoat, who do but follow now as I have followed this rare wisdom all my days: to love the sunrise and the sundown and the morning and the evening star.
E.R. Eddison
Oh, Barley. You know me so well. Better than any cat ever has. But there is a secret that I have kept from you without meaning to: I have always been a warrior. I have a loyalty to these cats, and I must fight alongside them, whatever happens.
Erin Hunter
You'd be surprised how rare loyalty is, sometimes.
Zoe Sugg
We must choose our allegiances carefully, for there is no going back on them.
Jayne Castel
What mattered were individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. Proles, it suddenly occurred to him, had remained in this condition. They were not loyal to a party or a country or an idea, they were loyal to one another.
George Orwell
Loyalty is just the wheels on the bus ... meaning that it keeps things moving but it's neutral when it comes to the direction they move in.
M.R. Carey
Oliver has long since grown stout and healthy; but health or sickness made no difference in his warm feelings to those about him, though they do in the feelings of a great many people. He was still the same gentle, attached, affectionate creature that he had been when pain and suffering had wasted his strength; and when he was dependent for every slight attention and comfort on those who tended him.
Charles Dickens
Would to God we were all Christians who profess to be Christians, and that we lived up to what we profess. Then would the Christian shine forth “clear as the sun, fair as the moon,” and what besides—why, “amazing as an army withbanners”! A consistent Church is an amazing Church—an honest, upright Church would shake the world! The tramp ofgodly men is the tramp of heroes; these are the thundering legions that sweep everything before them. The men that arewhat they profess to be, hate the semblance of a lie—whatever shape it wears—and would sooner die than do that which is dishonest, or that which would be degrading to the glory of a Heaven-born race, and to the honor of Him by whose name they have been called! O Christians! You will be the world’s contempt; you will be their despising, and hissing unless you live for one objective!
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
He crept up, and touched the face of the boy. "Didst thou dream that I should be faithless and forsake thee? I— a dog?" said that mute caress.
Ouida
Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.
Samuel Butler
Such loyalty is admirable, of course,” said Scrimgeour, who seemed to be restraining his irritation with difficulty, “but Dumbledore is gone, Harry. He’s gone.”“He will only be gone from the school when none here are loyal to him,” said Harry, smiling in spite of himself.
J.K. Rowling
I always think loyalty's such a tiresome virtue.
Agatha Christie
We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.
G.K. Chesterton
Loyalty is a continuous phenomenon, you don't score points for past action,
Natasha Pulley
Dumbledore's man through and through, aren't you Potter?" "Yeah I am," said Harry. "Glad we straightened that out.
J.K. Rowling
If by my life or death I can protect you, I will.
J.R.R. Tolkien
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.
T.S Eliot
While my friends struggled and calculated, I reached a solution by a set of floating steps that were partly visual, partly just a feeling for what was right. It was hard to explain how I knew what I knew.
Ian McEwan
Every man, every woman, every child has some talent, some power, some opportunity of getting good and doing good. Each day offers some occasion for using this talent. As we use it, it gradually increases, improves, becomes native to the character. As we neglect it, it dwindles, withers, and disappears. This is the stern but benign law by which we live.
James Clarke
Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
What a waste of time it would be to insist that everyone develop each of the specialties we call upon to an equal level. We'd get bogged down in remedial training programs, trying to get the cornet players up to speed with the computer programmers, sacrificing the tends to be exceptional in so many individual situations in order to be average in all of them.
Robert Watson
Hope is a beautiful lie and it requires talent to create it for others.
Karen Maitland
To not use a talent to the best of your ability is to stifle the thing that makes you most special. It is like plucking the wings off a butterfly.
Fennel Hudson
Talent is a spring from which fresh water is constantly flowing. But this spring loses its value if it is not used in the right way.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
You start off with a little spark, and it's whether or not you nurture that spark. You have to expand it and work on it
Ed Sheeran
If a man has any genuine talent he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full.
G H Hardy
What my business partner says is, if the Lord gives you a talent or a skill, you have the obligation to use it as best as you can. Don’t you agree?
Neil Gaiman
Skills are common. Talent is rare.
Colin Clark
Talent is part of the equation, but when you combine talent with accountability and authenticity, it is tough to beat.
David Ross
I also wish I'd been born with a clearly defined talent for something, or else stupid.
James Hamilton-Paterson
A familiar name on its own, however, does not carry its bearer far unless the talent is there, and the will to work.
Daphne du Maurier
Talent is nothing without persistence.
Dean Crawford
I wasn't good enough. I had a little talent but not enough. There is nothing more discouraging than having just a little talent.
Rosamunde Pilcher
Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.
Marcus Buckingham
I find a certain comfort," confesses Marinus, "in humanity's helplessness.
David Mitchell
Talent is an accident of genes, and a responsibility.
Alan Rickman