“Happily common sense, though she is by nature the gentlest creature living, when she feels the knife at her throat, is apt to develop unexpected powers of resistance, and to send doctrinaires flying, even when they have bound her down and think they have her at their mercy.”

— Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 26

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Happily common sense, though she is by nature the gentlest creature living, when she feels the knife at her throat, is …" by Samuel Butler?

Samuel Butler 232

novelist 1835–1902

Related quotes

“The truth is that I wasn't there with her when she needed me. Now she see's how I love Nanhoï and she believes that I can't love her as much as I love my son. That I've never loved her like this. I try to tell her that she's distorting everything in her pain and not seeing the truth. That I've painfully missed her since our separation and that I've never stopped loving her. But even though she gradually calms down, I have a feeling she doesn't believe me.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On his daughter, Nastassja. p. 286
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

“Ow! Have mercy on my little Tulane
She's too alive to try to live alone
And I know her needs
And although she loves me
She's gonna try to make it
While the poor boy's gone
Somebody should tell her to live
And I'll understand it
And even love her more
When I come back home”

Chuck Berry (1926–2017) American rock-and-roll musician

"Have Mercy Judge" (1970)
Song lyrics

“She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.”

Madeleine L'Engle book And Both Were Young

Source: And Both Were Young

“Why, when I have won her, do I continue to woo her? Because, though she belongs to me, she is not and never will be mine.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

“But when Anthony kissed her, she felt as
if she were losing her mind. And when he
kissed her twice, she wasn't even sure if she wanted it back!”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Viscount Who Loved Me

“They who have a care of their souls, and do not merely live in the fashions of the body, say farewell to all this; they will not walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not resist her influence, and to her they incline, and whither she leads they follow her.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

“Venus de Milo.
To a child she is ugly.
When a mind adjusts to thinking of her as a completeness, even though, by physiologic standards, incomplete, she is beautiful.”

Charles Fort (1874–1932) American writer

Source: The Book of The Damned (1919), Ch. 1, part 4 at resologist.net

“She was my dream. She made me who I am, and holding her in my arms was more natural to me than my own heartbeat. I think about her all the time. Even now, when I'm sitting here, I think about her. There could never have been another.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“she is no longer
the beautiful woman
she was. she sends
photos of herself
sitting upon a rock
by the ocean
alone and damned.
I could have had
her once. I wonder
if she thinks I
could have
saved her?”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

“Franny has the measles, for one thing. Incidentally, did you hear her last week? She went on at beautiful length about how she used to fly all around the apartment when she was four and no one was home. The new announcer is worse than Grant — if possible, even worse than Sullivan in the old days. He said she surely dreamt that she was able to fly. The baby stood her ground like an angel. She said she knew she was able to fly because when she came down she always had dust on her fingers from touching the lightbulbs.”

Jerome David Salinger book Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963), Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1955)

“Happily common sense, though she is by nature the gentlest creature living, when she feels the knife at her throat, is apt to develop unexpected powers of resistance, and to send doctrinaires flying, even when they have bound her down and think they have her at their mercy.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Samuel Butler 232

Related quotes

Related topics