Quotes about comfortable
page 9

“Some great poet or philosopher once said that " he who goes to nature for comfort must go to her empty handed ", and I think he was right.”

Flora Thompson (1876–1947) English author and poet

January Chapter The Peverel Papers - A yearbook of the countryside ed Julian Shuckburgh Century Hutchinson 1986
The Peverel Papers

Richard Dawkins photo
Cormac McCarthy photo
John Flavel photo

“God kills thy comforts from no other design but to kill thy corruptions; wants are ordained to kill wantonness, poverty is appointed to kill pride, reproaches are permitted to destroy ambition.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 7.

Brian W. Aldiss photo
Robert Charles Wilson photo
John Ramsay McCulloch photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Eudora Welty photo

“The novelist works neither to correct nor to condone, not at all to comfort, but to make what's told alive.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

On Writing (2002)

Charles James Fox photo
Alexander McCall Smith photo
Vincent Gallo photo
Hugh Blair photo
Gerard O'Neill photo
George W. Bush photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“Some men who are not real men love other things about themselves, but the real man believes that his honor is dearer than his life; and a nation is merely all of us put together, and the nation's honor is dearer than the nation's comfort and the nation's peace and the nation's life itself.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Speech in Cleveland http://books.google.com/books?id=o3j10P6YFZIC&pg=PA1090&dq=%22nation's+honor+is+dearer+than+the+nation's+comfort%22 (January 1916)
1910s

Michael Swanwick photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo
David Morrison photo
Sylvia Plath photo
John Buchan photo
Paul Cézanne photo
Thomas Gainsborough photo
Pope Benedict XVI photo
Richard Arkwright photo
George F. Kennan photo
Margaret Atwood photo

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Nobody said when.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 15 (p. 89)

Jiang Zemin photo

“Tell you what, I've been through hundreds of battles. I've seen it all. Which country in the west have I not been to? Everywhere! You should know Mike Wallace, in the U. S. He's way above you all! He and I talked and laughed comfortably. Your media really need to raise your level of knowledge. Got it, or not? I'm anxious for you all, it's true.”

Jiang Zemin (1926) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

To Hong Konger reporters (2000), as quoted in "Rare Footage of Former China Leader Jiang Zemin Freak Out (With English Subs!)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GIj2BVJS2A (2013), China Uncensored.
2000s

J. P. Donleavy photo

“On Being Old. It's not nice but take comfort that you won't stay that way for ever.”

J. P. Donleavy (1926–2017) Novelist, playwright, essayist

The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival & Manners (New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1975) p. 278.

Aurelia Henry Reinhardt photo

“Yesterday’s woman was expected to have individual interests, caring for the brightness of the hearth fire and the comforts of the family group. Today she has inherited the community and the community’s welfare. Civics, religion and education have become her field of activity. She is homemaker and citizen.”

Aurelia Henry Reinhardt (1877–1948) American educator and social activist

Writing in Mills Quarterly in 1917, as quoted in Unitarian Universalist Women's Heritage Society Archives, 3 July 2018, Aurelia Isabel Henry Reinhardt (1877-1948) http://www.uuwhs.org/womenwest.php,

Derren Brown photo

“This is the comforting and lovely Leadenhall Market, an accommodating inter-mammary cleft in the bosom of old Londinium.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Trick of the Mind (2004–2006)

John Lancaster Spalding photo
Vernor Vinge photo
John Banville photo

“Come, Benjamin, put your arm around me and we shall be comfortably one, mon semblable—mon frère!”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville on the birth of his dark twin, Benjamin Black (2011)

Eddie Izzard photo
Robert Sheckley photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Melanie Joy photo
George W. Bush photo
Alan Hirsch photo

“Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones and then manage the resulting distress.”

Alan Hirsch (1959) South African missionary

Source: The Faith of Leap (2011), p. 131

Anton Mauve photo

“.. the longer I am here Laren, the more beautiful it becomes for me and now that I feel myself more comfortable, I can judge it better... It is touching beautiful here [ Laren ], with a delicacy of lines and lovely poetry radiates from everywhere, interior houses, roads, fields, beautiful heath and bushes, and people are of the sweetest kind to imagine... Usually after dinner we make a little walk, what I enjoy a lot. I don't know how to say it, but I would like to live here for ever.”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, uit zijn brief:) ..hoe langer ik hier nl:Laren (Noord-Holland) ben, hoe mooijer het voor mij wordt en nu ik een beetje meer op mijn gemak kom, kan ik er beter over oordelen.. .'t Is aandoenlijk mooi hier, van een fijnheid van lijnen en lieflijke poëzie straalt alles uit, binnenhuizen, wegen, akkers, prachtige heide en boschjes en de menschen is van het liefste soort dat te bedenken is.. .Wij maken doorgaans na den eten een loopje en wat ik geniet. Ik kan het niet zeggen maar ik zou hier altijd willen wonen.
Quote of Mauve in a letter, Juin 1882 to his wife Jet Carbentus; Mauve Archive of RKD, Den Haag
1880's

Frank Wilczek photo
George W. Bush photo

“I hope I'm judged a success. I'm well-be dead, Matt, when they finally figure it out, and I'm comfortable knowing that I gave it my all, that I love America.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Interview with Matt Lauer http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/40073863#40074095 (2010), aired 8 November 2010.
2010s, 2010, Interview with Matt Lauer (November 2010)

Robert Hunter (author) photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo
Derren Brown photo
Philippe Starck photo
William Wordsworth photo

“"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my tale;
And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring
When prayer is of no avail?”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Force of Prayer.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Sally Ride photo

“It's easy to sleep floating around — it's very comfortable. But you have to be careful that you don't float into somebody or something!”

Sally Ride (1951–2012) American physicist and astronaut

Scholastic interview (1998)

Morton Feldman photo

“For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.”

Morton Feldman (1926–1987) American avant-garde composer

Quoted in in "AMERICAN SUBLIME : Morton Feldman's mysterious musical landscapes", by Alex Ross. in The New Yorker (19 June 2006)

“Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.”

originally an 'ad lib' in 1950 on BBC Home Service radio programme Listen with Mother. Used as the consistent opening line until end of series in 1982.
BBC web-site - Accessed 25 Jan 2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/great_moments/archive/january.shtml
[Partridge, Eric, A Dictionary of Catch Phrases:British and American, from the sixteenth century to the present day, 26, Routledge, 1986, 041505916X] Note that Frieda Fordham (a psychologist who advised the BBC) has also been credited with it.

David Dixon Porter photo
Theodore Kaczynski photo
Martin Farquhar Tupper photo
Alanis Morissette photo

“You're unsure and you're not ready so that must mean I want you
You're unavailable and disinterested and to you I look for comfort”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Bent for You
Feast on Scraps (2002)

Nile Kinnick photo
Elizabeth Cady Stanton photo

“I have endeavored to dissipate these religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

1896
September
The Degraded Status of Woman in the Bible
Free Thought Magazine
Chicago
14
540
http://books.google.com/books?id=TfOfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA540&dq=%22I+have+endeavored+to+dissipate%22

Harry Harrison photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Roger Ebert photo
Radhanath Swami photo
Jack Gleeson photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Chris Cornell photo
Peter F. Hamilton photo
William McFee photo
Éamon de Valera photo

“The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers. We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

Radio broadcast http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/eamon-de-valera/719124-address-by-mr-de-valera/, "On Language & the Irish Nation" (17 March 1943), often called "The Ireland that we dreamed of" speech

Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya photo

“These facts and figures must serve as an eye-opener to the people of Mysore. I refer to them here not because I have any hopes of our reaching the levels of prosperity of the two Colonies, but because it will do us good to know what organization and human endeavour are capable of achieving under favourable conditions. / The nationality of our people rests on a religious and fatalistic basis, not on an economic basis, as in the West. There are still people among us who believe that the golden age was in the past, the world is on the down-grade and the old-word conditions might yet be reproduced some day. The Hindu ideal of life is that this world is a preparation for the next and not a place to stay in and make ourselves comfortable. We are devoted to past ideals, although, out of necessity or from prospect of personal gain, we have partly taken to Western methods of work and business. There is a yearning for the old ideals and a half-hearted acquiescence in the new and, on the whole, the genius of the people is for standing still. / If we are to follow in the wake of other countries in the pursuit of material prosperity, we must give up aimless activities and bring our ideals into line with the standards of the West, namely, to spread education in all grades, multiply occupations and increase production and wealth. All other activities should conform themselves to the economic idea.”

Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya (1860–1962) Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore

148-149
[Speeches by Sir M. Visvesvaraya, K.C.I.E, https://archive.org/details/VisvesvarayaSpeeches, 1917, Bangalore Government Press, 148]

Joni Madraiwiwi photo

“In order to build a common identity, we must find a name with which all of us are comfortable. While I personally have no problem with the term ‘Fijian’, I recognize many others in my community are not. But let us not leave it there, let us find other options.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Calling for a national dialogue on an inclusive nationality adjective for all Fiji citizens
Speech to the Lautoka Rotary Club (Centenary Dinner), 12 March 2005 http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/printer_4326.shtml.

Julian of Norwich photo
Steve Allen photo
Nelson Algren photo
Husayn ibn Ali photo
Robert Rauschenberg photo
H. Rider Haggard photo

“I looked down the long lines of waving black plumes and stern faces beneath them, and sighed to think that within one short hour most, if not all, of those magnificent veteran warriors, not a man of whom was under forty years of age, would be laid dead or dying in the dust. It could not be otherwise; they were being condemned, with that wise recklessness of human life which marks the great general, and often saves his forces and attains his ends, to certain slaughter, in order to give their cause and the remainder of the army a chance of success. They were foredoomed to die, and they knew the truth. It was to be their task to engage regiment after regiment of Twala’s army on the narrow strip of green beneath us, till they were exterminated or till the wings found a favourable opportunity for their onslaught. And yet they never hesitated, nor could I detect a sign of fear upon the face of a single warrior. There they were—going to certain death, about to quit the blessed light of day for ever, and yet able to contemplate their doom without a tremor. Even at that moment I could not help contrasting their state of mind with my own, which was far from comfortable, and breathing a sigh of envy and admiration. Never before had I seen such an absolute devotion to the idea of duty, and such a complete indifference to its bitter fruits.”

Source: King Solomon's Mines (1885), Chapter 14, "The Last Stand of the Greys"

Chris Cornell photo

“I was depressed for a long time. If you’re depressed long enough, it’s almost a comfort, a state of mind that you’ve made peace with because you’ve been in it so long. It’s a very selfish world.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Interview with Men's Health magazine, September 2006 https://www.menshealth.com/guy-wisdom/chris-cornell-death-depression-suicide-interview,
On depression and suicide

Hermann Cohen photo

“If I love God, I don't in this way pantheistically love the universe, or the animals, trees and shrubs as my fellow created beings, but rather I love in God precisely the Father of Humanity. And this higher meaning, this social significance, always has its terminus in God the Father. He is not so much the creator and author, but much more the protector and comforter of the poor.”

Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) German philosopher

Wenn ich Gott liebe, so liebe ich nicht pantheistisch das Universum, nicht die Tiere, die Bäume und die Kräuter, als meine Mitgeschöpfe, sondern aber ich liebe in Gott einseitig den Vater der Menschen, und diese höhere Bedeutung und diese soziale Prägnanz hat nunmehr der religiöse Terminus von Gott alsVater: er ist nicht sowohl der Schöpfer und Urheber, sondern vielmehr der Schutz und Beistand der Armen.
Source: The Concept of Religion in the System of Philosophy (1915), p. 81 http://books.google.com/books?id=rZ9RAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA81

Lorin Morgan-Richards photo

“I am most comfortable with writing and pen and ink illustrations. My filter tends to be cut ups of what is around me blurred into my own feelings and interests of the Victorian era. I don't try to categorize myself but I do recognize my influences are a bit more macabre than usual.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

Regarding his influences and style; as quoted in "Americymru" http://americymru.blogspot.com/2010/08/interview-with-lorin-morgan-richards.html "An Interview With Lorin Morgan-Richards” (25 August 2010).

James Braid photo

“It is commonly said that seeing is believing, but feeling is the very truth. I shall, therefore, give the result of my experience of hypnotism in my own person. In the middle of September, 1844, I suffered from a most severe attack of rheumatism, implicating the left side of the neck and chest, and the left arm. At first the pain was moderately severe, and I took some medicine to remove it; but, instead of this, it became more and more violent, and had tormented me for three days, and was so excruciating, that it entirely deprived me of sleep for three nights successively, and on the last of the three nights I could not remain in any one posture for five minutes, from the severity of the pain. On the forenoon of the next day, whilst visiting my patients, every jolt of the carriage I could only compare to several sharp instruments being thrust through my shoulder, neck, and chest. A full inspiration was attended with stabbing pain, such as is experienced in pleurisy. When I returned home for dinner I could neither turn my head, lift my arm, nor draw a breath, without suffering extreme pain. In this condition I resolved to try the effects of hypnotism. I requested two friends, who were present, and who both understood the system, to watch the effects, and arouse me when I had passed sufficiently into the condition; and, with their assurance that they would give strict attention to their charge, I sat down and hypnotised myself, extending the extremities. At the expiration of nine minutes they aroused me, and, to my agreeable surprise, I was quite free from pain, being able to move in any way with perfect ease. I say agreeably surprised, on this account; I had seen like results with many patients; but it is one thing to hear of pain, and another to feel it. My suffering was so exquisite that I could not imagine anyone else ever suffered so intensely as myself on that occasion; and, therefore, I merely expected a mitigation, so that I was truly agreeably surprised to find myself quite free from pain. I continued quite easy all the afternoon, slept comfortably all night, and the following morning felt a little stiffness, but no pain. A week thereafter I had a slight return, which I removed by hypnotising myself once more; and I have remained quite free from rheumatism ever since, now nearly six years.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

In “The First Account of Self-Hypnosis Quoted in “The Original Philosophy of Hypnotherapy (from The Discovery of Hypnosis)”.

Anthony Trollope photo
Emil M. Cioran photo