“We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.”
Jane Austen book Persuasion
Source: Persuasion
“Propositions prey upon and are grounded upon one another just like living forms.”
Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
Context: Propositions prey upon and are grounded upon one another just like living forms. They support one another as plants and animals do; they are based ultimately on credit, or faith, rather than the cash of irrefragable conviction. The whole universe is carried on on the credit system, and if the mutual confidence on which it is based were to collapse, it must itself collapse immediately. Just or unjust, it lives by faith; it is based on vague and impalpable opinion that by some inscrutable process passes into will and action, and is made manifest in matter and in flesh; it is meteoric — suspended in mid-air; it is the baseless fabric of a vision to vast, so vivid, and so gorgeous that no base can seem more broad than such stupendous baselessness, and yet any man can bring it about his ears by being over-curious; when faith fails, a system based on faith fails also.
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Samuel Butler232
novelist 1835–1902Related quotes
Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist
"On Living with Dignity in China"
No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems
Context: Admittedly, righteousness is weak unless it is backed by power, but power devoid of righteousness is evil. If most people cast their lot with the latter, then evil will prey forever upon humankind, as wolves and tigers prey upon lambs.
“Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it.”
Solomon Northup book Twelve Years a Slave
Source: Twelve Years a Slave
“Let no feeling of discouragement prey
upon you, and in the end you
are sure to succeed.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Marquis de Sade book The 120 Days of Sodom
Le duc, le vit en l'air, serrait Augustine de bien près; il braillait, il jurait, il déraisonnait, et la pauvre petite, toute tremblante, se reculait toujours, comme la colombe devant l'oiseau de proie qui la guette et qui est près d'en faire sa capture.
The Second Day
The 120 Days of Sodom (1785)
“There are numerous theorems in economics that rely upon mathematically fallacious propositions.”
Steve Keen (1953) Australian economist
Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 12, Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano, p. 259
L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter
Aunt Jane’s Nieces and Uncle John (1911)
Novels published under the pseudonym Edith van Dyne
Context: I think the world is like a great mirror, and reflects our lives just as we ourselves look upon it. Those who turn sad faces toward the world find only sadness reflected. But a smile is reflected in the same way, and cheers and brightens our hearts. You think there is no pleasure to be had in life. That is because you are heartsick and — and tired, as you say. With one sad story ended you are afraid to begin another — a sequel — feeling it would be equally sad. But why should it be? Isn't the joy or sorrow equally divided in life?
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714–1799) Scottish judge, scholar of language evolution and philosopher
Of the Origin and Progress of Language (Edinburgh and London: J. Balfour and T. Cadell, 2nd ed., 1774), Vol. I, Book II, Ch. II, pp. 224-225 https://archive.org/stream/originandprogre01conggoog#page/n251/mode/2up.
Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
Richard Owen (1804–1892) English biologist
as stated in "The Edinburgh Review" on page 494 by Sydney Smith, Francis Je frey Jeffrey, William Empson, Macvey Napier, George Cornewall Lewis, Henry Reeve, Arthur Ralph Douglas Elliot, and Harold Cox, publication in 1860.
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