Quotes about beginning page 3
“A civilization begins to decline the moment Life becomes its sole obsession.”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
“The beginning is always today.”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer
“I don't see how he can ever finish, if he doesn't begin.”
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Variant: Alice thought to herself "I don't see how he can ever finish, if he doesn't begin.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
“Possession of anything begins in the mind.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
Part 6 "Beyond System — The Ultimate Source of Jeet Kune Do"
Jeet Kune Do (1997)
“When words leave off, music begins.”
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic
As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 343
“A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.”
John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist
Variant: You can get discouraged many times, but you are not a failure until you begin to blame somebody else and stop trying.
Henry David Thoreau A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight
Variant: And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.
Source: I Shall Wear Midnight
“When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.”
Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson
Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson
“We can only begin to live when we conceive life as
Tragedy.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
“Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.”
John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician
Virginia Woolf The Common Reader
"Modern Fiction"
The Common Reader (1925)
Context: Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions — trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel. From all sides they come, an incessant shower of innumerable atoms; and as they fall, as they shape themselves into the life of Monday or Tuesday, the accent falls differently from of old; the moment of importance came not here but there; so that, if a writer were a free man and not a slave, if he could write what he chose, not what he must, if he could base his work upon his own feeling and not upon convention, there would be no plot, no comedy, no tragedy, no love interest or catastrophe in the accepted style, and perhaps not a single button sewn on as the Bond Street tailors would have it. Life is not a series of gig-lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end. Is it not the task of the novelist to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the proper stuff of fiction is a little other than custom would have us believe it.
Source: Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul
“It is because I dove into the abyss that I am beginning to love the abyss I am made of.”
Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) Brazilian writer
“All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
Wartime Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke 1914-1921 (1940), translated by M.D. Herter Norton
“Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.”
Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist
“The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.”
Frank Herbert (1920–1986) American writer
“Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don't realize it.”
Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) American photojournalist
“Think where man's glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
The Municipal Gallery Revisited http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1659/, st. 7 <br class="br">Last Poems (1936-1939) <br class="br">Variant: Think where man's glory most begins and ends. And say my glory was I had such friends. <br class="br">Context: You that would judge me, do not judge alone<br>This book or that, come to this hallowed place<br>Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;<br>Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;<br>Think where man's glory most begins and ends<br>And say my glory was I had such friends.
“Security is a false God. Begin to make sacrifices to it and you are lost.”
Paul Bowles (1910–1999) American composer, writer, translator
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
speech at Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942 : ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/EndoBegn.html) <br class="br">Referring to the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt. <br class="br">The Second World War (1939–1945) <br class="br">Variant: This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning. <br class="br">Source: Their Finest Hour
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.”
Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator
Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Bestselling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information
“From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher
André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist
Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme personne n'écoute, il faut toujours recommencer. <br class="br"> Le Traité du Narcisse https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Trait%C3%A9_du_narcisse (The Treatise of the Narcissus) <br class="br">Nothing is said that has not been said before. -- Terence
“In dreams begins responsibility.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
Variant: In Dreams begins Responsibility.
Source: Epigraph to the book Responsibilities (1914); this was later adapted as the title of the story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" (1937) by Delmore Schwartz.
Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
“Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Elias Canetti (1905–1994) Bulgarian-born Swiss and British jewish modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer
“Our old history ends with the Cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.”
Watchman Nee book The Normal Christian Life
Source: The Normal Christian Life
Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist
As quoted in Women on War : Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age (1988), by Daniela Gioseffi, p. 103
Variant: A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.
As quoted in Singing the Living Tradition (1993) by the Unitarian Universalist Association, p. 560
Context: What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. Going to jail for distributing leaflets advocating war tax refusal causes a ripple of thought, of conscience among us all. And of remembrance too. …. There may be ever improving standards of living in the U. S., with every worker eventually owning his own home and driving his own car; but our modern economy is based on preparation for war. … The absolutist begins a work, others take it up and try to spread it. Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist
Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 82
“Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“Often on a wet day I begin counting up; what I've read and what I haven't read.”
Virginia Woolf book Between the Acts
Source: Between the Acts
John Muir book Our National Parks
Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 1: The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West
“All true stories begin and end in a cemetery" - The Shadow of the Wind”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
“When the fight begins within himself,
A man's worth something.”
"Bishop Blougram's Apology".
Men and Women (1855)
J'accuse! (1898)
Context: These military tribunals have, decidedly, a most singular idea of justice.
This is the plain truth, Mr. President, and it is terrifying. It will leave an indelible stain on your presidency. I realise that you have no power over this case, that you are limited by the Constitution and your entourage. You have, nonetheless, your duty as a man, which you will recognise and fulfill. As for myself, I have not despaired in the least, of the triumph of right. I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.
Dean Koontz (1945) American author
Source: A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
“We've had this date with each other from the beginning.”
Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire
Source: A Streetcar Named Desire
John Powell (1645–1713) American Jesuit priest
Source: Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?: 25 Guidelines for Good Communication
“Whatever you do or dream you can do—begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”
Jennifer Donnelly (1963) American writer
Source: Deep Blue
Source: Metamorphoses
Barack Obama book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Source: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: Unpopular Essays
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mrs. Arbuthnot http://books.google.com/books?id=RHkWAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Children+begin+by+loving+their+parents+after+a+time%22+%22they+judge+them+rarely+if+ever+do+they+forgive+them%22&pg=PA187#v=onepage, Act IV <br class="br">A Woman of No Importance (1893) <br class="br">Variant: Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. <br class="br">Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Henry Beston book Northern Farm
Source: Northern Farm
“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.”
Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese writer
As quoted in Hard-to-Solve Cryptograms (2001) by Derrick Niederman, p. 96
Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon
Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
Immanuel Kant book Critique of Pure Reason
B 730; Variant translation: All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.
Variant: All human knowledge begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.
Source: Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)