Quotes about a smile (1751 quotes, page 16)

“By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul's hypocrisy;
By the perfection of thine art
Which pass'd for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others' pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee! and compel
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!”

George Gordon Byron book Manfred

Act I, scene i.
Manfred (1817)

Pain , Art , Soul , Hell

“Esther looked at him with an expression that would have been a smile if it had not been infinitely dreary and absent; then she said, simply and finally:
"But George, I don't love you, I love him."”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Source: Esther: A Novel (1884), Ch. X, the last lines of the novel

Love

“It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving picaninnies; and one can imagine that Blair, twice victor abroad but enmired at home, is similarly seduced by foreign politeness. They say he is shortly off to the Congo. No doubt the AK47s will fall silent, and the pangas will stop their hacking of human flesh, and the tribal warriors will all break out in Watermelon smiles to see the big white chief touch down in his big white British taxpayer-funded bird.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Daily Telegraph 10 January 2002
2000s, 2002

Love , Home , Imagination , Bird

“'What's your impression of the ship so far?' she asked. 'Is it really super authentic?'
'Well, it does seem to be floating,' Mr Söderblad said with a smile, 'in spite of heavy seas.'
Enid raised her voice to aid his comprehension. 'I mean, is it AUTHENTICALLY SCANDINAVIAN?'
'Well, yes, of course," Mr. Söderblad said. 'At the same time, everything in the world is more and more American, don't you think?'”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

World , Thinking , Time , Sea

“She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind. Is that a difference between men and women or between you and me?”
“I think it’s a difference between you and merely sane people.””

Joe Haldeman book Forever Peace

Source: Forever Peace (1997), p. 54

Women , Men , People , Thinking

“I'm gonna miss that smile, I'm gonna miss you my friend
Even though it hurts the way it ended up, I'd do it all again
So play it sweet in heaven 'cause that's right where you wanna be
I'm not cryin' 'cause I feel so sorry for you, I'm cryin' for me.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Cryin' for Me.
Song lyrics, American Ride (2009)

Way , Feeling , Hurt

““What do you want out of life, Francis Lostwax?”
Francis smiled. “To never hurt anybody again.” His lack of hesitation surprised him. “To feel clean.””

James K. Morrow (1947) (1947-) science fiction author

Source: The Wine of Violence (1981), Chapter 27 (p. 314)

Life , Feeling , Hurt

“Boris Karloff was one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet and he was always laughing and smiling. Mr. Karloff gave me this wooden box and inside was a metal water gun made in Germany and wow, did it work great, I wasn't allowed to have it right away, but when I was given it a couple years later, I got in trouble for squirting people with it while on the Disney Studio lot. The studio security took it away from me one day and 70 years later, I'm still waiting to get it back.”

Donnie Dunagan (1934) actor and United States Marine

People , Guy , Water , Waiting

“I am sure that I would not make a good taxidermist; the temptation to improve upon nature would certainly be too strong for me. Think how easy it would be, when stuffing somebody's pet terrier, to slip a couple of human glass eyes into a sockets, instead of the usual buttons. Then the owner would really be justified in saying that his pet looked almost human. If I were stuffing this two-headed calf, for instance, I could not resist making one head smile and the other one frown, so that they looked like masks of Comedy and Tragedy.”

Robertson Davies book The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947)

Nature , Thinking , Strong

“Cute,” she said, smiling. “If the liberal arts do nothing else they provide engaging metaphors for the thinking they displace.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Home is the Hangman (1975)

Art , Thinking

“This is coercion,” Bruce thundered.
The patrolman smiled. “No, sir,” he said. “This is Texas.”

Bradley Denton (1958) American science fiction author

Source: Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede (1991), p. 173

“Stella, I never knew you but here I am, in your room, a week after your death. … I thought of you, Stella, and wondered if you watched your moments, or if they all snuck by. I whispered your name into the day, carried on for you in reverence, and I felt you rest and continue the smile.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

"Stella's Earrings"
Degrees: Thought Capsules and Micro Tales (1989)

Death

“I'd smile so much my face would crack in two
Then you could fix it with your kissing glue
I'd like that
Yes, I'd like that”

Andy Partridge (1953) British musician

"I'd Like That".
Apple Venus Volume 1 (1999)

Kiss

“On Mirror Lake outspread for miles and miles,
The lotus lilies in full blossom teem.
In fifth moon Xi Shi gathers them with smiles,
Watchers o'erwhelm the bank of Yuoye Stream.
Her boat turns back without waiting moonrise
To royal house amid amorous sighs.”

Li Bai (701–762) Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period

Ballads Of Four Seasons: Summer (子夜四时歌夏歌)

Waiting , Housing

“Courage was never designed for show;
It isn't a thing that can come and go;
It's written in victory and defeat
And every trial a man may meet.
It's part of his hours, his days and his years,
Back of his smiles and behind his tears.
Courage is more than a daring deed:
It's the breath of life and a strong man's creed.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: A Heap o' Livin' (1916), Courage, stanza 4, p. 73.

Life , Courage , Tear , Strong

“Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 8
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Home , Joy

“It was a face, with nothing but the blush
To mark it from the sculptured features round :
As perfect in its beauty; but the flush
Of earthly warmth and earthly feeling crowned
The master-piece of nature;— that rich gush
Was from the heart, which thus a language found,
The eloquence of truth and silence ever : —
Words, sighs, and smiles deceive, but blushes never.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

24th December 1825) Metrical Fragments - No.1 Anecdote of Canova (under the pen name Iole
The London Literary Gazette, 1825

Truth , Beauty , Feeling , Nature

“An ad that pretends to be art is — at absolute best — like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill's real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.”

David Foster Wallace book A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Essays

Art , Feeling , Perfection , Despair

“I am grateful to some pens that are as sharp as a sword edge; they taught me how to go on calmly and smiling.”

Salman al-Ouda (1956) journalist

My Enemies, I Thank You (كتاب شكرا أيها الأعداء)

“If he descended from heaven today
the great warrior who beat the money-traders
you would once more shout your "crucifige!"
and nail him to the cross which he himself bore.

But he mildly smiles upon your hate:
"The truth will prevail, even if the bearer falls;
the faith will live, for I give my life …
and stands tall at the cross for all warriors of the world."”

Baldur von Schirach (1907–1974) German Nazi leader convicted of crimes against humanity in the Nuremberg trial

Christ, The Flag of the Persecuted ( Die Fahne der Verfolgten http://www.archive.org/details/DieFahnederVerfolgten), page 51

Life , Money , Hate , Truth

“Back and forth the fantastic tableaux would spin, past his cruel plebe hazing, the self-discovery at the West Texas Military Academy, the patriarchal Judge MacArthur, all beard and cigar smoke, presiding over dynastic feats at Washington's 1201 N Street; the chimes of the drawing-room clock there telling off the quarters; the ceremonial changing of the guard at Leavenworth; his father's tales of Sherman's dauntless Boys in Blue; his mother's imperious commands to fight and fight and never lower his blade short of victory; the clean crack of Krag rifles and the warm prickling of desert sand as he played with his brother outside the fort stockade; the rumbling of the sunset gun and Pinky's face tilting downward, her lambent smile gilding the child's upturned features while he clutched at her cascading skirts; the yellow notes of the bugles as he stirred in his cradle; the chant of sergeants hawking cadence on the parade ground outside; and, snapping proudly in the overarching sky above him, the flag, and the flag, and the flag.”

William Manchester (1922–2004) (April 1, 1922 – June 1, 2004) American author, journalist and historian

Source: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 (1978), p. 709

Boy , Change , Past , Victory

“And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower,
But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes from Schopenhauer. Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth,
And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods have need of mirth.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

"Ballad of the Double-Soul"
The Certain Hour (1916)

God , Quotes , Perfection

“Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you.
Georgia, oh Georgia, no peace I find…
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

Though renditions by Ray Charles are among the most popular and famous, the lyrics of "Georgia On My Mind" (1930) were written by Stuart Gorrell and the music by Hoagy Carmichael.
Misattributed

Peace , Dreams

“The life of Lord Krishna has been misunderstood by many Western commentators. Scriptural allegory is baffling to literal minds. A hilarious blunder by a translator will illustrate this point. The story concerns an inspired medieval saint, the cobbler Ravidas, who sang in the simple terms of his own trade of the spiritual glory hidden in all mankind:
Under the vast vault of blue
Lives the divinity clothed in hide.
One turns aside to hide a smile on hearing the pedestrian interpretation given to Ravidas' poem by a Western writer:
"He afterwards built a hut, set up in it an idol which he made from a hide, and applied himself to its worship."”

Paramahansa Yogananda book Autobiography of a Yogi

Source: Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 42 - "Last Days With My Guru"

Life , Clothes

“She looked at me. Looked away. “You think too much of me.”
I smiled. “Perhaps you think too little of yourself.””

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 62, “Leaves” (p. 464)

Thinking

“And then, all of a sudden, it was as though through those dark eyes an electrical circuit had been struck. She sat fascinated. Snake-and-bird fascinated. Afterwards she could not recall the details of what he had said. She remembered only that she had been absorbed, rapt, lost, for over ten minutes by the clock. She had perceived images conjured up from the dead past: a hand trailed in clear river water, deliciously cool, while the sun smiled and a shoal of tiny fishes darted between her fingers; the crisp flesh of a ripe apple straight from the tree, so juicy it ran down her chin; grass between her bare toes, the turf like springs so that she seemed not to bear the whole of her weight on her soles but to be floating, dreamlike, in slow motion, instantly transported to the moon; the western sky painted with vast heart-tearing slapdash streaks of red below the bright steel-blue of clouds, and stars coming snap-snap into view against the eastern dark; wind gentle in her hair and on her cheeks, bearing flower perfumes, dusting her with petals; snow cold to the palm as it was shaped into a ball; laughter echoing from a dark lane where only lovers walked, not thieves and muggers; butter like an ingot of soft gold; ocean spray sharp and clean as the edge of an axe; with the same sense of safe, provided rightly used; round pebbles polychrome beside a pool; rain to which a thirsty mouth could open, distilling the taste of a continent of air... And under, and through, and in, and around all this, a conviction: “Something can be done to get that back!”
She was crying. Small tears like ants had itched their paths down her cheeks. She said, when she realized he had fallen silent, “But I never knew that! None of it! I was born and raised right here in New York!””

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

”But don’t you think you should have known it?” Austin Train inquired gently.
September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Star , Spring , Flowers , Lovers

“Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid, thou innocent pretence for bringing the wicked of both sexes together in a morning; thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart- opening, wink-tipping cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate thus, and … adore thee.”

Colley Cibber (1671–1757) British poet laureate

The Lady's Last Stake (1707), Act I, sc. i.

Life , Sex , Heart , Tea

“I said, “What do you think about it, Paul?”
The boss smiled gently. “I don’t. I haven’t enough data.””

Robert A. Heinlein book Farmer in the Sky

Source: Farmer in the Sky (1950), Chapter 18, “Pioneer Party” (pp. 193-194)

Thinking

“The sea, the sea is everything! Its sovereign mass
brings to me atoms of a myriad faraway lands;
Its bright smile animates me in the limpid mornings
And when at the end of day my faith has failed me
My heart echoes the sound of its sorrow in the sands.”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

"Mi Retiro", st.6 - translated by Nick Joaquin.

Faith , Heart , Animals , Sea

“Now if there's a smile on my face,
It's only there tryin' to fool the public,
But when it comes down to foolin' you;
Now honey, that's quite a different subject.
But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression.
Really I'm sad.
I'm sadder than sad.
You're gone and I'm hurtin' so bad.
Like a clown I pretend to be glad.”

Smokey Robinson (1940) American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer

The Tears of a Clown, written by Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, and Hank Cosby (1970)
Song lyrics, With The Miracles

Sadness , Fools

“Unless in fact he had a very dim memory of her and the photograph had blown on the tiny little ember of his connection with his granny, like a faint orange glow in a heap of soft grey ash, and for a moment he really could remember when he had sat on his granny’s lap and smiled at her and patted her wrinkly old face — his mother said he smiled at her and she was really pleased.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

At Last, Chapter 10

Memory

“I could not take back the happy smiles of my sons by bringing them back to North Korea. I could not force my sons to pretend to be loyal to Kim Jong Un and the North Korean system and to shout "Long live the supreme leader Kim Jong Un!", "Long live the socialist paradise of the DPRK!"”

Thae Yong-ho (1961) former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea

like I did all my life.
Remarks to the U.S. Congress (November 2017)

Life , Happiness

“Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. Of that divine tear and that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Jésus a pleuré, Voltaire a souri; c’est de cette larme divine et de ce sourire humain qu’est faite la douceur de la civilisation actuelle.
Speech, "Le centenaire de Voltaire" http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Actes_et_paroles_-_Depuis_l%E2%80%99exil_-_1878#II_LE_CENTENAIRE_DE_VOLTAIRE, on the 100th anniversary of the death of Voltaire, Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris (30 May 1878); published in Actes et paroles - Depuis l'exil (1878)

Tear

“With the smile that was childlike and bland.”

Bret Harte (1836–1902) American author and poet

The Heathen Chinee (1870)

“Leon regarded Archie with triumph, smiling almost grotesquely, a caricature of a smile really. Leon was not accustomed to smiling. But something else was behind the smile, behind those icy cold eyes, a smile that said he had not believed a word of what Archie had said. Which did not bother Archie in the least. The important thing was that Leon had chosen to pretend he had believed.”

Robert Cormier book Beyond the Chocolate War

Source: Beyond the Chocolate War (1985), p. 81

“Art is complex, I said to Rodin, who smiled because he felt that I was struggling with nature.... the beauty of Rodin’s art is.... in the thoughts he embodied. As for me, I just take a walk on the beach. A young girl appears. From that girl walking there emanates a soul. That is That is at I want to give my statue, that thing alive, yet immaterial. In composing the figure of one young girl I must give the impression that there are all young girls. From the spirit, my feeling passes into my fingers”

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) sculptor from France

Quote in 'Aristide Maillol', ed. Andrew C. Ritchie, Albright Art Gallery N. Y. 1945, p. 31 + 45; as cited by Angelo Carnafa, in 'A sculpture of interior Solitude', Associated University Presse, 1999, p. 167

Beauty , Art , Feeling , Soul

“What another being is life when we have found out our Father; and if we work, it is beneath His eye, and if we play, it is in the light and encouragement of His smile. Earth's sunshine is heaven's radiance, and the stars of night as if the beginning of the beatific vision; so soft, so sweet, so gentle, so reposeful, so almost infinite have all things become, because we have found our Father in our God.”

Frederick William Faber (1814–1863) British hymn writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 260.

Life , God , Star , Light

“Have you ever seen a picture
Of Jesus laughing?
Mmm, do you think
He had a beautiful smile?
A smile that healed.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Red Shoes (1993)

Beauty , Thinking

“The gods smile on us, my son, or so it is written. It's a wonder they don't laugh aloud.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Volume 1, Ch. 2
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

God

“To risk life to save a smile on a face of a woman or a child is the secret of chivalry.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Simplicity http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21390/Simplicity
From the poems written in English

Life , Secret

“Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

What Is Religion? (1899) is Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899. Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Dresden Memorial Edition Volume IV, pages 477-508, edited by Cliff Walker. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingwhatrel.htm

Life , God , World , Fear

“I'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em.
Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me:
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act V, scene i.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Life , Death , War , Youth

“All of your days will be blessed so put on a smile and get dressed into the void we will fly away from here.”

Ed Harcourt (1977) British musician

All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed

Flying

“(Tatiana nervously looked down at the present.)
"Thank you".
Gifts were not something she was used to. Wrapped gifts? Unheard of, even when they came wrapped only in plain brown paper.
"No. Open first. Then say thank you."
She smiled.
"What do I do? Do I take the paper off?"
"Yes. You tear it off."
"And then what?"
"And then you throw it away."
"The whole present or just the paper?" Slowly he said, "Just the paper."
"and but you wrapped it so nicely. Why would I throw it away?"
"It’s just paper."”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

"If it’s just paper, why did you wrap it?"
The Bronze Horseman (2001)

Tear

“We had an inspection today of the brigade. The Twenty-third was pronounced the crack regiment in appearance, … [but] I could see only six to ten in a company of the old men. They all smiled as I rode by. But as I passed away I couldn’t help dropping a few natural tears. I felt as I did when I saw them mustered in at Camp Chase.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Letter to Lucy Webb Hayes (17 December 1864)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)

Men , Nature , Tear , Appearance

“"He's like a drug for you, Bella." His voice was still gentle, not at all critical. "I see that you can't live without him now. It's too late. But I would have been healthier for you. Not a drug; I would have been the air, the sun."
The corner of my mouth turned up in a wistful half-smile. "I used to think of you that way, you know. Like the sun. My personal sun. You balanced out the clouds nicely for me."
He sighed. "The clouds I can handle. But I can't fight with an eclipse."”

Stephenie Meyer (1973) American author

Jacob Black and Bella Swan, pp. 599-600
Twilight series, Eclipse (2007)

Way , Thinking , Sun , Fight

“…death came so easily, hardly announced, without apparent cause, often greeted with smiles.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Beds in the East (1959)

Death

“As soon as baseball becomes a job, as soon as I stop caring, as soon as the smile goes away, I'll hang up my spikes and do something else.”

David Wright (1982) American baseball player

[Sports Illustrated, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/preview/siexclusive/2006/pr/subs/siexclusive/05/22/wright0529/?url=http%253A%252F%252Fpremium.si.cnn.com%252Fpr%252Fsubs2%252Fsiexclusive%252F2006%252Fpr%252Fsubs%252Fsiexclusive%252F05%252F22%252Fwright0529%252F, Prince of the City, Lidz, Franz, 2006-05-22]

“And what is the point of putting a picture of the perfectly ordinary Irish smile on the box of cigarettes? what's that all about? what you supposed to achieve?”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

What It Is (2009)

Box

“I need to build a wall around me. But I want to smile with everybody. Would you say that is possessive of me?”

Ed Harcourt (1977) British musician

God Protect Your Soul.

“O violet-tressed Sappho chaste,
O maid with honeyed smile!
I fain would tell what is in my breast,
Did shame me not beguile.”

Alcaeus of Mytilene (-600–-560 BC) ancient Greek poet

"To Sappho", as translated by Walter Petersen

“"I thought they'd never fall asleep." Ivan paused; a slow smirk displaced the snarl on his face. "But they were smiling, when they finally did."”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Vorkosigan Saga, Cetaganda (1996)

“The only acting you ever see at the Oscars is when people act like they're not mad they lost. Nicole Kidman was smiling so wide, she should have won an Emmy at the Oscars for her great performance. I was like, "If you'd done that in the movie, you'd have won an Oscar, girl."”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

At the Academy Awards as host
Miscellaneous

People , Girl , Madness

“He smiled at her, and she felt uncomfortable as she always did when he showed her affection as opposed to lust. Lust she expected from a man but not affection. The men in her life, her brothers and father, had not been affectionate; and lust would have been inappropriate, though she saw them direct that at other women, usually women of low rank, ripe to be used and cast aside”

Alice Borchardt book The Dragon Queen

The Dragon Queen

Life , Women , Men

“What on earth should we do if we had no matches to make, or mar; no "unfortunate attachments" to shake our heads over; no flirtations to speculate about and comment upon with knowing smiles; no engagements "on" or "off" to speak our minds about, nosing out every little circumstance, and ferreting out our game to their very hole, as if all their affairs, their hopes, trials, faults, or wrongs, were being transacted for our own private and peculiar entertainment! Of all forms of gossip — I speak of mere gossip, as distinguished from the carrion-crow and dunghill-fly system of scandal-mongering — this tittle-tattle about love-affairs is the most general, the most odious, and the most dangerous.
Every one of us must have known within our own experience many an instance of dawning loves checked, unhappy loves made cruelly public, happy loves embittered, warm, honest loves turned cold, by this horrible system of gossiping about young or unmarried people…”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8

Love , People , Hope , Game

“"I assume I'm expendable, sir." "You're a soldier, aren't you? Of course you're expendable!" Sharpe was still smiling. He was a soldier, and a lady needed recuing, and was that not what soldiers throughout history had done?”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Captain Richard Sharpe and Major General Nairn, p. 49
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

History

“though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose, roses(you feel
certain) will only smile”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

72
95 poems (1958)

Feeling

“I could not riding out alone about my business, but smile out to God in praises, in assurance of victory because God would, by things that are not, bring to naught things that are.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

Before the Battle of Naseby (14 June 1645)

God , Business , Victory

“And so it went on, day after day. This was not the first time that those who had at first smiled at him turned their backs on him and began to think of themselves isntead of thinking of him. Sometimes it was as if you understood people's souls; a few days later, you understood nothing. One day you were kissed, and it meant everything; next day, you were not kissed.... He consoled himself by looking at his exercise books with the poems approaching the thousand total soon, and more. Perhaps the world would some day understand that the heart existed. Some day.</b”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

People , Books , World , Exercises

“There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place,
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face,
And when responding to the cheers he lightly of his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt, 't was Casey at the bat.”

Ernest Thayer Casey at the Bat

Source: Casey at the Bat, Lines 21-24.

“I didn't expect you to have learnt to smile yet. When one is born, one only knows how to cry. It's only very gradually that one learns to smile.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Hólmfríður
Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

Learning , Cry

“Men of measured merriment! Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles, damn the men that run the shops, oh, damn their measured merriment, the men with measured merriment, oh, damn their measured merriment, and DAMN their careful smiles!”

Sinclair Lewis book Arrowsmith

Arrowsmith (1925), Ch. 25

Men

““I have been waiting for a sign. I knew that if I waited here long enough my bird, that tarishawk that rests here each day, I knew that he would come. Our Mother said that if he flew from the right, then I would have good fortune. If he came from the left, my journey would be disastrous for me, and it would bear no positive fruits for you.”
“And the hawk? Which way did it come? Did it come from the left?”
Dore smiled once more; his smile was always the most cheerless aspect of him. “The hawk has not come at all,” he said.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: What Entropy Means to Me (1972), Chapter 1 “Prelude to...Danger!” (p. 19).

Way , Bird , Waiting

“A gun cracked, quite close to the tent. Soldier's instinct pulled Lee's head up. Then he smiled and laughed to himself. One of his staff officers, most likely, shooting at a possum or squirrel. He hoped the young man had scored a hit. But no sooner had the smile appeared than it vanished. The report of the gun sounded- odd. It had been an abrupt bark, not a pistol shot or the deeper boom of an Enfield rifle musket. Maybe it was a captured Federal weapon. The gun cracked again and again and again. Each report came closer to the one than two heartbeats were to each other. A Federal weapon indeed, Lee thought: one of those fancy repeaters their cavalry like so well. The fusillade went on and on. He frowned at the waste of precious cartridges- no Southern armory could easily duplicate them. He frowned once more, this time in puzzlement, when silence fell. He had automatically kept track of the number of rounds fired. No Northern rifle he knew was a thirty-shooter. He turned his mind back to the letter to President Davis. -Valley, he wrote. Then gunfire rang out again, an unbelievably rapid stutter of shots, altogether too quick to count and altogether unlike anything he had ever heard. He took off his glasses and set down the pen. Then he put on a hat and got up to see what was going on.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 4

Hope , Silence , Appearance , Time

“I am a believer in what I call "intellectual hospitality." A man comes to your door. If you are a gentleman and he appears to be a good man, you receive him with a smile. You ask after his health. You say: "Take a chair; are you thirsty, are you hungry, will you not break bread with me?" That is what a hospitable, good man does -- he does not set the dog on him. Now, how should we treat a new thought? I say that the brain should be hospitable and say to the new thought: "Come in; sit down; I want to cross-examine you; I want to find whether you are good or bad; if good, stay; if bad, I don't want to hurt you -- probably you think you are all right, -- but your room is better than your company, and I will take another idea in your place."”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)

Health , Dogs , Idea , Thinking

“My grandfather, a teacher of religion, could think of nothing better than to place my father – his eldest son, still a child – as a clerk with a firm of herring wholesalers, and his youngest son with a barber. No, my father was not a clerk, but, for thirty-two years, a plain workman [in the Jewish ghetto of Vitebsk ]. He lifted heavy barrels, and my heart used to twist like a Turkish pretzel as I watched him carrying those loads and stirring the little herrings with his frozen hands... Sometimes my father's clothes would glisten with herring brine. The light played above him, besides him. But his face, now yellow, now clear, would sometimes break into a wan smile.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 23
1920's, My life (1922)

Religion , Thinking , Light , Teachers

“The dynamo of your smile caressed a barefoot virgin child to wander.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Beside You
Song lyrics, Astral Weeks (1969)

“So down to Main Street and to Fifth Street, to the long dark bars, to the King Edward Cellar, and there a girl with yellow hair and sickness in her smile. Her name was Jean, she was thin and tubercular, but she was hard too, so anxious to get my money, her languid mouth for my lips, her long fingers at my trousers, her sickly lovely eyes watching every dollar bill.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Love , Money , Girl

““I wonder,” he thought, “is it worth getting myself crushed in that crowd just to save my life? Is it worth getting all frustrated and angry, lowering myself to their level, pushing and shoving with all the rest, fighting like a common animal, just to stay alive?” He smiled ruefully. “It always comes to the simple question: what is more important, life or self-respect?””

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Relatives (1973)., Chapter 8 (p. 123).

Life , Question , Animals , Fight

“I must consider," said Monica with a smile, "but one can't do these things offhand--that is worse than doing nothing. I'll tell you what to do NOW. Why not go and stay with Aunt Anne? She would like to see you, I know, and I have always thought it rather lazy of you not to go there--she is rather a remarkable woman, and it's a pretty country. Have you ever been there?”

A. C. Benson (1862–1925) English essayist, poet, author and Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge

Source: Watersprings (1902), Chapter II, Restlessness.

Country

“In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror, I spent seventeen months in the prison lines of Leningrad. Once, someone "recognized" me. Then a woman with bluish lips standing behind me, who, of course, had never heard me called by name before, woke up from the supor to which everyone had succumbed and whispered in my ear (everyone spoke in whispers there):
"Can you describe this?"
And I answered: "Yes, I can."
Then something that looked like a smile passed over what had once been her face.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Leningrad, 1 April 1957
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), Instead of a Preface

“Yet will the loved one’s gentle smile suffice
To ope the door of Paradise,
And turn to joy our dark and cruel lot.”

Francesco Maria Molza (1489–1544) Italian poet

Canzone IV. Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 256.
Original: (Ma) bene a forza il caro e dolce riso
Scoprir il Paradiso
E far lieta fortuna d’atra e dura.

Love , Joy

“I have thought proper to recommend, and I do hereby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people;" that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise; that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea; that He would put an end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace; and that he would extend the blessings of knowledge, of true liberty, and of pure and undefiled religion throughout the world.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Presidential proclamation of a national day of fasting and prayer (6 March 1799)
1790s

God , People , Health , World

“Did you ever hear about the great deception?
Well the plastic revolutionaries take the money and run.
Have you ever been down to love city?
Where they rip you off with a smile,
And it don't take a gun.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

The Great Deception
Song lyrics, Hard Nose the Highway (1973)

Love , Money

“I was sixteen when suddenly
I wasn't that little girl you used to see.
But your eyes still shined like pretty lights,
And our daddies used to joke about the two of us.
They never believed we'd really fall in love.
And our mamas smiled and rolled their eyes
And said oh my my my…”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Mary's Song (Oh My My My), written by Taylor Swift, Liz Rose, and Brian Maher.
Song lyrics, Taylor Swift (2006)

Love , Girl , Light

“You see our new towns, our smiling countryside. I am proud of our achievements. There is an enormous amount more to do. Remember that we are a great crusading body, armed with a fervent spirit for the reign of righteousness on earth. Let us go forward into this fight in the spirit of William Blake: "I will not cease from mental strife/Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand/Till we have built Jerusalem/In England's green and pleasant land."”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Labour Party Conference in Scarborough (1 October 1951), quoted in The Times (2 October 1951), p. 4
Prime Minister

Sleep , Fight

“A speckled bird, humbly inspired,
Ran across the road when it could have flown,
And it made me smile.”

Aaron Weiss

O, Porcupine.
Brother, Sister (2006)

Bird

“Ought I not to have been more careful to win the good opinion of others, more determined to conquer their hostility or indifference? It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give, kindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation — to force the esteem of others — seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself, almost a degradation.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Journal Intime (1882), Quotes used in the Introduction by Ward
Context: Ought I not to have been more careful to win the good opinion of others, more determined to conquer their hostility or indifference? It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give, kindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation — to force the esteem of others — seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself, almost a degradation. A struggle with unfavorable opinion has seemed to me beneath me, for all the while my heart has been full of sadness and disappointment, and I have known and felt that I have been systematically and deliberately isolated. Untimely despair and the deepest discouragement have been my constant portion. Incapable of taking any interest in my talents for their own sake, I let everything slip as soon as the hope of being loved for them and by them had forsaken me. A hermit against my will, I have not even found peace in solitude, because my inmost conscience has not been any better satisfied than my heart.

Love , Hostility , Effort , Joy

“He never stopped smiling and laughing — even while struggling to button his shirt, even while using two canes to get himself across the room to give my mom a kiss. He just woke up a little earlier and worked a little harder.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2000s, Democratic National Convention speech (2008)
Context: My dad was our rock. Although he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his early 30s, he was our provider, our champion, our hero. As he got sicker, it got harder for him to walk, it took him longer to get dressed in the morning. But if he was in pain, he never let on. He never stopped smiling and laughing — even while struggling to button his shirt, even while using two canes to get himself across the room to give my mom a kiss. He just woke up a little earlier and worked a little harder.

Moms , Kiss

“From yon blue heaven above us bent,
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Stanza 7
Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

“The show of weeping and of ruth
To the forlorn will all men pay,
But of the grief their eyes display,
Nought to the heart doth pierce its way.
And, with the joyous, they beguile
Their lips unto a feigned smile.”

Aeschylus Agamemnon

Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, lines 790–794 (tr. E. D. A. Morshead)

Men , Way , Heart

“Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The gardener Adam and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Stanza 7
Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

Faith , Heart

“The dawn smiles, repelling gloom”

Taliesin (534–599) Welsh bard

Book of Taliesin (c. 1275?), The Song of the Horses
Context: The dawn smiles, repelling gloom,
At the dawn with violence,
At every meet season,
At the meet season of his turnings,
At the four stages of his course,
I will extol him that judges violence,
Of the strong din, deep his wrath.
I am not a man, cowardly, gray,
A scum near the wattle.

“Beautiful ladies in danger. Danger all around the world. But I will protect them, because I am Chris de Burgh! Beautiful ladies in emergency situations. Beautiful ladies are lovely but sometimes they don't take care
They're too busy with their makeup and combing their lovely hairTo take basic safety precautions But I will protect them I will save the pretty onesWith their smiles and their beautiful eyesBut let the ugly ones dieI have no place for them in my new world orderI won't waste my seed on hideous trollsKill kill kill kill kill the trolls hunt them down there shall be no clemencyKill kill kill kill kill the trollsLook under the bridges that's where they hideThat's where they hideAnd beauty shall be my bride.”

Bill Bailey (1965) English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author

Lyrics

Love , World , Beauty , Business

“I am the dreamer and the doer
I the hearer and the knower
I the giver and the taker
I the sword and the wound of sword.
If this be true, then let sword fall free from hand.
I embrace myself.
I laugh until I weep
And weep until I smile…”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)

“Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat.”

Julian Huxley (1887–1975) English biologist, philosopher, author

Religion without Revelation (1957) p. 58
Context: The supernatural is being swept out of the universe in the flood of new knowledge of what is natural. It will soon be as impossible for an intelligent, educated man or woman to believe in a god as it is now to believe the earth is flat, that flies can be spontaneously generated... or that death is always due to witchcraft... The god hypothesis is no longer of any pragmatic value for the interpretation or comprehension of nature, and indeed often stands in the way of better and truer interpretation. Operationally, God is beginning to resemble not a ruler but the last fading smile of a cosmic Cheshire cat.

God , Cats

“There's not much to hide behind
We can see for a mile
Without our eyes.
I can see through a smile
To any lie.”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

"Words Weren't Made For Cowards"
Warpaint (1991)

Lie

“The voices of winter's sorrow
Already we can hear.And we know that the frosts will find us,
And the smiling skies grow rude,
While we look in the face of Beauty,
And worship her every mood.”

Celia Thaxter (1835–1894) American writer

"Already" in Drift-Weed (1878), p. 103.
Context: O brief, bright smile of summer!
O days divine and dear
The voices of winter's sorrow
Already we can hear.And we know that the frosts will find us,
And the smiling skies grow rude,
While we look in the face of Beauty,
And worship her every mood.

Beauty , Mood , Winter

“He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled. And He said again: "All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself."”

Khalil Gibran book Jesus, The Son of Man

Jesus, The Son of Man (1928)
Context: He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled. And He said again: "All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself."
And then He walked away.
But no other man ever walked the way He walked. Was it a breath born in my garden that moved to the east? Or was it a storm that would shake all things to their foundations?
I knew not, but on that day the sunset of His eyes slew the dragon in me, and I became a woman, I became Miriam, Miriam of Mijdel.

Mary Magdalen: On Meeting Jesus For The First Time

Love , Men , Season

“I am contradicted at this moment on politics, and the smile that comes to my face is not an act of my will, so much it comes naturally, from the satisfaction that I prove that I experience seeing one of my difficulties disappearing.”

Louis Riel (1844–1885) Canadian politician

Address on sentencing (1885)
Context: I am contradicted at this moment on politics, and the smile that comes to my face is not an act of my will, so much it comes naturally, from the satisfaction that I prove that I experience seeing one of my difficulties disappearing. Should I be executed, at least if I were going to be executed, I would not be executed as an insane man, it would be a great consolation for my mother, for my wife, for my children, for my brothers, for my relatives, even for my protectors, for my countrymen. I thank the gentlemen who were composing the Jury for having recommended me to the clemency of the Court. When I express the great hope that I have just expressed to you, I don't express it without ground, my hopes are reasonable, and since they are recommended, since the recommendation of the Jury to the Crown is for clemency.

Nature

“Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives and dies.”
Vis tu cogitare istum quem servum tuum vocas ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori! tam tu illum videre ingenuum potes quam ille te servum.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Letter XLVII: On master and slave, line 10.
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius)
Context: Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives and dies. It is just as possible for you to see in him a free-born man as for him to see in you a slave.

“To the faith that "God is love" and that love is the power that can save the world, many give the jaunty answer "What nonsense!" Very well. But one of the most impressive sights of 1951 was that of an elderly man giving a lecture at Columbia University. He was a man not ordinarily accounted one of the twelve disciples, and I am not baptizing him now — Bertrand Russell. It was rather amusing to many to see and hear the apologies and hesitations with which he made his announcement that Christian love was the world's greatest need. Here are his words, with all the apologies left in:
The root of the matter (if we want a stable world) is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it, for fear of the derisive smile with which wise cynics will greet my words. The thing I mean is love, Christian love.
"Christian love."”

Halford E. Luccock (1885–1960) American Methodist minister

But trying to have Christian love, without its source in the revelation of a God of love in Christ, is trying to create something out of nothing.
Marching Off the Map : And Other Sermons (1952), p. 83; in his autobiography Russell has emphasized that in such expressions he was using the term "Christian love" in a very broad sense, in contrast to sexual love, and was not actually endorsing Christian creeds.

Love , God , World , Fear

“Hope is the boy, a blind, headlong, pleasant fellow, good to chase swallows with the salt; Faith is the grave, experienced, yet smiling man.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book Virginibus Puerisque

Virginibus Puerisque, Ch. 2.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: Hope is the boy, a blind, headlong, pleasant fellow, good to chase swallows with the salt; Faith is the grave, experienced, yet smiling man. Hope lives on ignorance; open-eyed Faith is built upon a knowledge of our life, of the tyranny of circumstance and the frailty of human resolution. Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honourable defeat to be a form of victory. Hope is a kind old pagan; but Faith grew up in Christian days, and early learnt humility. In the one temper, a man is indignant that he cannot spring up in a clap to heights of elegance and virtue; in the other, out of a sense of his infirmities, he is filled with confidence because a year has come and gone, and he has still preserved some rags of honour. In the first, he expects an angel for a wife; in the last, he knows that she is like himself - erring, thoughtless, and untrue; but like himself also, filled with a struggling radiancy of better things, and adorned with ineffective qualities. You may safely go to school with hope; but ere you marry, should have learned the mingled lesson of the world: that dolls are stuffed with sawdust, and yet are excellent play-things; that hope and love address themselves to a perfection never realised, and yet, firmly held, become the salt and staff of life; that you yourself are compacted of infirmities, perfect, you might say, in imperfection, and yet you have a something in you lovable and worth preserving; and that, while the mass of mankind lies under this scurvy condemnation, you will scarce find one but, by some generous reading, will become to you a lesson, a model, and a noble spouse through life.

Faith , Hope , Boy

“From time to time some denigrator or critic with umbrage will say of my work, "He only wrote that to shock." I smile and nod. Precisely.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Quoted by Stephen King in his book Danse Macabre (1981)
Context: I am anti-entropy. My work is foursquare for chaos. I spend my life personally, and my work professionally, keeping the soup boiling. Gadfly is what they call you when you are no longer dangerous; I much prefer troublemaker, malcontent, desperado. I see myself as a combination of Zorro and Jiminy Cricket. My stories go out from here and raise hell. From time to time some denigrator or critic with umbrage will say of my work, "He only wrote that to shock." I smile and nod. Precisely.

Time

“May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)
Context: This is life to come, —
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

Love , Soul

“Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors?”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Prelude
Middlemarch (1871)
Context: Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great resolve. That child-pilgrimage was a fit beginning. Theresa's passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in the reform of a religious order.

Life , History , Girl , Time

“I hear voices, see smiles. I cannot
Write anything”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"In Warsaw" (1945), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz, Robert Hass and Madeline Levine
Rescue (1945)
Context: How can I live in this country
Where the foot knocks against
The unburied bones of kin?
I hear voices, see smiles. I cannot
Write anything; five hands
Seize my pen and order me to write
The story of their lives and deaths.
Was I born to become
a ritual mourner?
I want to sing of festivities,
The greenwood into which Shakespeare
Often took me. Leave
To poets a moment of happiness,
Otherwise your world will perish.

“Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
Of me you shall not win renown:
You thought to break a country heart
For pastime, ere you went to town.
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled
I saw the snare, and I retired;
The daughter of a hundred earls,
You are not one to be desired.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Stanza 1
Lady Clara Vere de Vere (1832)

Heart , Daughters , Country

“And sometimes when I am weary,
When the path is thorny and Wild,
I'll look back to the Eyes in the twilight,
Back to the eyes that smiled. And pray that a wreath like a rainbow
May slip from the beautiful past,
And Crown me again with the sweet, strong love
And keep me, and hold me fast.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) American anarchist writer and feminist

And Thou Too (1888)

Love , Beauty , Strong , Past

“I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious.”

Hank Aaron (1934) Retired American baseball player

As quoted in the July 31, 1956 issue of The Milwaukee Journal; reproduced in Baseball's Greatest Quotations : An Illustrated Treasury of Baseball Quotations and Historical Lore https://books.google.com/books?id=468IU6sa2VYC&pg=PA2&dq=%22I+never+smile+when+I+have+a+bat+in+my+hands%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi74bmMysjVAhWoz4MKHfK7AmsQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=%22I%20never%20smile%20when%20I%20have%20a%20bat%20in%20my%20hands%22&f=false (2009) by Paul Dickson, p. 2
Context: I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing's a joke to me. I don't feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face.

Quotes about a smile page 16

Quotes about a smile
page 16