Quotes about bear
page 5

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Source: The Constitution of the United States of America

People

“Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh.”

Patricia Highsmith book The Price of Salt

Source: The Price of Salt

Happiness, Flowers

“It is said that in some countries trees will grow, but will bear no fruit because there is no winter there.”

John Bunyan (1628–1688) English Christian writer and preacher

Tree, Winter, Country

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Source: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“Remember no one expects you to be Halt. He's a legend, after all. Haven't you heard? He's eight feet tall and kills bears with his bare hands…”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

“It's not a problem. There are people out there with much worse problems than mine."-Cynthia
"Doesn't make yours any more fun to bear."-Liza
"No. But it does help with the self-pity."- Cynthia”

Jennifer Crusie book Bet Me

Source: Bet Me

People, Problem, Help

“Then again, Solomon was human. And that meant he was flawed (Go on, take a look at yourself in the mirror. A good long look, if you can bear it. See? Flawed's putting it mildly, isn't it?)”

Jonathan Stroud book The Ring of Solomon

Source: The Ring of Solomon

“Seven half-bloods shall answer the call
To storm or fire the world must fall
An oath to keep with a final breath
and foes bear arms to the doors of death”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Death, World

“There are some secrets we keep because we can't bear to let them out and some because it's better to keep them in.”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Secret

“I want you to take a red-hot bath as hot as you can bear it, and just relax your nerves. You can read in the tub if you wish.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Reading

“Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, "God told me…" As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

God, World, Way

“I have long held the opinion that the amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental capacity and therefore be regarded as a pretty fair measure of it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

Source: The Magnificent Defeat

God, Soul, Victory

“Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

“Congratulations, love. You traded up. Does he treat you well?'
'He's a teddy bear,' I said.
Teddy bear looked like he was suffering from murder withdrawal.

(Rene and Kate on Jim!)”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Love, Suffering

“And see the peaceful trees extend
their myriad leaves in leisured dance—
they bear the weight of sky and cloud
upon the fountain of their veins.”

Kathleen Raine (1908–2003) poet, critic, translator

Peace, Tree, Dance

“All you could do was take on as much weight as you can bear. And if you're lucky, there's someone close enough by to shoulder the rest.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“And we are put on this earth a little space that we might learn to bear the beams of love”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Love, Learning

“Despite everything, I can’t bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more than I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Exercises

“Christianity is the only religion whose God bears the scars of evil.”

Os Guinness (1941) American writer

God, Religion, Evil

“I am a coward, damn you! I couldna tell ye, for fear ye would leave me, and unmanly thing that I am, I thought I couldna bear that!”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Fear

“Nothing gained without cost is valued. Freedom has a cost, and all will bear it so all will value and preserve it.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

Freedom

“We must each of us bear our own misfortunes.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 3, p. 32 : 'Colonel Stonehill'

“Waiting and hoping is a hard thing to do when you've already been waiting and hoping for almost as long as you can bear it.”

Jenny Nimmo (1944) British author of children's books

Source: Charlie Bone and the Time Twister

Hope, Waiting

“Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Moonlit Road and Other Ghost and Horror Stories

Fear

“It was not apathy. It was an intelligent disinterest in those things that could have no bearing on one's existence.”

Tanith Lee Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

Source: Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

Intelligence

“You don’t have to run faster than the bear to get away. You just have to run faster than the guy next to you.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

Guy

“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are, until the poem, nameless and formless-about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

"Poetry is Not a Luxury"
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984)

Dreams, Hope, Feeling, Spring

“It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.”

Jo Walton book Among Others

Source: Among Others

Books

“A gentleman accepts the responsibility of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“And then it was all happening, what had started to happen at least twice before. Feelings so sweet and strong she could hardly bear it. Strange recognition, unexpected belonging…impossible knowing…”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 2

Feeling, Strong

“A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.”

Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Martiniquais politician

Source: Notebook of a Return to the Native Land

Life, Dance

“What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

World, Fear, Dreams, Night

“As a recluse I couldn't bear traffic. It had nothing to do with jealousy, I simply disliked people, crowds, anywhere, except at my readings. People diminished me, they sucked me dry.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

People, Jealousy, Reading

“Everyone,” she continues, looking around at all of us, “has something to say. But not everyone can bear to say it. Your job is to find a way.”

Meg Wolitzer (1959) American writer

Source: Belzhar

Way

“Amy," Elsie Moore said in her crackling voice, her gaze fixed on Declan. "I want you to get me a new bear. A blond one.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: On the Edge

“Strider: Red hots dude. He'd ruin anything for a mouthful of those. Now pull over.
William: Gummy Bears. You should have said so.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Secret

“You said you want to became Hokage. I have become the Kazekage. If you are willing to bear the name Kage, you have to do what you must do.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

“There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Life

“Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

God, Question, Waiting, Heart

“People could bear so much, but Simon did not know how much of the original you was left when the world had twisted you into a whole different shape.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Bitter of Tongue

People, World

“More was revealed in a human face than a human being can bear face to face.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“That really was NOT fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? NOT fun.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Parting

“Bear in mind, children, that they listen to you because you are kids—not because you are right. That's how our Father listens to us … We never understand what we're praying, and God, in His mercy, does not answer our prayers according to our understanding, but according to His wisdom.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

Lufkin, Texas http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/lufkin-texas-jul1997-full.html (July 19, 1997) In Concert

Wisdom, God, Children, Understanding

“Tired, tired with nothing, tired with everything, tired with the world’s weight he had never chosen to bear.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

World

“It turned out that my curiosity did not outweigh my courage after all. Sometimes love means not being able to bear seeing the one you love the way they are, when they're not what you hoped for.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Hope, Way, Courage

“Unwisely, Santa offered a teddy bear to James, unaware
he had been mauled by a grizzly earlier this year.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

“What kind of person doesn't let you have gummi bears?”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Personality

“Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Love, Death

“Sometimes carrying the burden of an upsetting truth, and hiding it, is actually a gift you give to someone else. You bear that burden, so they don’t have to, in a situation where telling them will change nothing.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Truth, Change

“Dead woman are not romantic,' Sophie said flatly.

'Okay, she's not dead,' Phin said. 'The bear ate her, and she came her brains out.”

Jennifer Crusie book Welcome to Temptation

Source: Welcome to Temptation

Dead

“She was tired of everyone wanting to go to heaven, nobody wanting to die. The only thing worth grieving over, she said, was that sometimes there was more beauty in this life than the world could bear.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Life, World, Beauty

“I want to fill every part of you, breathe the air from your lungs and leave my handprints on your soul. I want to give you more pleasure than you can bear.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Devil in Winter

Pleasure, Soul, Parting

“We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us—anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.”

Bill Russell (1934) American professional basketball player and coach

Hope, Learning

“And if anyone knows anything about anything," said Bear to himself,
"it's Owl who knows something about something," he said, "or my name's not Winnie-the-Pooh," he said. "which it is," he added. "so there you are.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

“Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Life, War, Sport

“the way i need you is a loneliness i cannot bear.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Way, Loneliness

“Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness

Love, Life

“It's good to suffer. Dont complain. Bear, bow, accept - and be grateful that God has made you suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

God, Happiness, People, Suffering

“Maybe the Merlin was right. Maybe its better to look stupid but strong, than it is to look smart but weak, I don't know. I'm not sure I want to believe that the world stage bears that strong a resemblance to high school.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

Stupidity, World, School, Strong

“We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

Charles Darwin book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

volume II, chapter XXI: "General Summary and Conclusion", page 405 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=422&itemID=F937.2&viewtype=image (Closing paragraph of the book.) The Descent of Man (1871) Context: Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system — with all these exalted powers — Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940 "War Situation" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1940/jun/18/war-situation#column_60. The Second World War (1939–1945) Source: Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches Context: Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.

Men

“A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.”
A: Quod est enim maius argumentum nihil eam prodesse quam quosdam perfectos philosophos turpiter vivere? M: Nullum vero id quidem argumentum est. Nam ut agri non omnes frugiferi sunt qui coluntur [...] sic animi non omnes culti fructum ferunt. Atque, ut in eodem simili verser, ut ager quamvis fertilis sine cultura fructuosus esse non potest, sic sine doctrina animus; ita est utraque res sine altera debilis. Cultura autem animi philosophia est; haec extrahit vitia radicitus et praeparat animos ad satus accipiendos eaque mandat eis et, ut ita dicam, serit, quae adulta fructus uberrimos ferant.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Book II, Chapter V; translation by Andrew P. Peabody
Tusculanae Disputationes – Tusculan Disputations (45 BC)
Context: A: For what stronger proof can there be of its [philosophy's] uselessness than that some accomplished philosophers lead disgraceful lives?
M: It is no proof at all; for as all cultivated fields are not harvest-yielding [... ] so all cultivated minds do not bear fruit. To continue the figure – as a field, though fertile, cannot yield a harvest without cultivation, no more can the mind without learning; thus each is feeble without the other. But philosophy is the cultivation of the soul. It draws out vices by the root, prepares the mind to receive seed, and commits to it, and, so to speak, sows in it what, when grown, may bear the most abundant fruit.

“… as if someone had thrown a hand grenade into the middle of a teddy bear orgy and the only survivors had had their fur blown off.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: You Suck

“I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone's joy seemed to double it?”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

People, Way, Feeling, Joy

“At the beauty of what she had stumbled onto, at the fear that something terrible would happen because she was not vigilant enough. She cried at the fear of something so good that she would not be brave enough to bear it.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Fear, Beauty

“Hold it. You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the three bears eat the three little pigs, and then the bears join up with the big bad wolf and eat Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood! Tell me a story like that, OK?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Wolf

“Be kind to everyone - you don't know what cross they're bearing and how sweet that kind word might ring.”

Ann B. Ross American writer

Source: Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind

“Friends are "annuals" that need seasonal nurturing to bear blossoms. Family is a "perennial" that comes up year after year, enduring the droughts of absence and neglect. There's a place in the garden for both of them.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Source: Family - The Ties that Bind...And Gag!

Family, Season

“I remind myself that not everything is a sign, that some things simply are what they appear to be and should not be analyzed, deconstructed, or forced to bear the burden of metaphor, symbol, omen, or portent.”

Diane Schoemperlen (1954) Canadian writer

Source: Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship

Appearance

“For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Youth, Dependency

“Why do grown-ups think it's easier for children to bear secrets than the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Children, Truth, Secret, Imagination

“Does koala bear poop smell like cough drops?”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume

“The longer I live, the more I observe that carrying around anger is the most debilitating to the person who bears it.”

Katharine Graham (1917–2001) American publisher

Personality, Anger

“Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not "This is misfortune," but "To bear this worthily is good fortune.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Feeling, Future

“Okay. I'll help you fight. What do you think we're up against? Bears, Coyotes…"
"My Brother.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

Thinking, Help, Fight

“Bare," came her answer in a squeak.
"Yes, we'd both have to be bare," he said with a laugh. "Not bare naked," she gasped. "Bear bear. Furry bear. Bear!"
-Mortimer and Sam”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Source: The Rogue Hunter

“We had no choice. Sadness was a dangerous as panthers and bears. the wilderness needs your whole attention.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

Sadness

“when you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: The House at Pooh Corner (1928), Chapter Six - "In which Pooh invents a new game and Eeyore joins in".
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

People, Thinking

“When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

November, 1933
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Truth

“Most of life is unbearable. It’s unbearable but we bear it”

Frank Beddor American skier and writer

Life

“The best way of being kind to bears is not to be very close to them.”

Margaret Atwood book MaddAddam

Source: MaddAddam

Way

“What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney?”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Truth

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

T.S. Eliot book Four Quartets

Source: Four Quartets

Reality

“and i can't stand the idea of being alone.
i can't bear the thought of being free.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Idea

“Great tragedies have great consequences. They ripple through the fabric of this world and the next. When the loss is too great for either world to bear, Everlost absorbs the shock, like a cushion between the two.”

Neal Shusterman book Everwild

Source: Everwild

World, Loss

“Time and I have quarrelled. All hours are midnight now. I had a clock and a watch, but I destroyed them both. I could not bear the way they mocked me.”

Susanna Clarke book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Way, Time

“To affirm is not to bear, carry, or harness oneself to that which exists, but on the contrary to unburden, unharness, and set free that which lives.”

Gilles Deleuze book Nietzsche and Philosophy

Source: Nietzsche and Philosophy

“I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only - only - don't make it more than I can bear!”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Angels

“.

The natural state. Our moods change. Our lives change. Our feelings for each other change. Our bearings change. The song changes. The air changes. The temperature of the shower changes.
Accept this. We must accept this.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Feeling, Mood, Nature, Change

“Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

Source: The House at Pooh Corner (1928)
Context: Then Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh walked hand in hand down the forest path and they said goodbye. So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing.

Way, Boy

“Sometimes love means not being able to bear seeing the one you love the way they are, when they’re not what you hoped for them.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Hope, Way

“The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Life