Quotes about lout

A collection of quotes on the topic of lout, time, timing.

Quotes about lout

“This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vain-glorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 2 <br class="br">Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), Easter, 1916 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1477/

Beauty, Dreams, Change, Heart

“Oh Max, you large lout, you arouse the eternal maternal in me.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starman Jones

Source: Starman Jones (1953), Chapter 17, “Charity” (p. 185)

Maternity

“Postumus was clever: he guessed that this would make Cato angry enough to forget himself. And Cato rose to the bait, shouting out with a string of old-fashioned curses that in the days of his ancestor, whose memory this stammering imp was insulting, woe betide any child who failed in reverence to his elders; for they dealt out discipline with a heavy hand in those days. Whereas in these degenerate times the leading men of Rome gave any ignorant oafish lout (this was for Postumus) or any feeble-minded decrepit-limbed little whippersnapper (this was for me) full permission—
Postumus interrupted with a warning smile: "So I was right. The degenerate Augustus insults the great Censor by employing you in his degenerate family. I suppose you have told the Lady Livia just how you feel about things?"”

Robert Graves book I, Claudius

Source: I, Claudius (1934), Ch. 5.

Men, Family, Smile, Feeling

“Piss off, lout!”

Lech Kaczyński (1949–2010) Polish politician, president of Poland

Spieprzaj, dziadu <br class="br">During the 2002 campaign to a tramp (4 November 2002). More details can be found in the (Polish) Wikipedia article http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spieprzaj_dziadu or http://miasta.gazeta.pl/warszawa/1,34891,1104747.html (in Polish).

“During his sixty-odd years, he had found there were as many louts in the patrician classes as there were ignoramuses farther down the social spectrum.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Deepsix (2001), Chapter 4 (p. 72)

“Our post-Hannah Arendt imaginations are haunted by the wrong figure: for every owl-eyed, mild-mannered pen-pusher clinically shuffling the euphemistic paperwork of oblivion, there were a hundred noisily dedicated louts revelling in the bloodbath. The gas chambers, our most enduring symbol of the catastrophe, were in fact anomalous: most of those annihilated did not die suddenly and surprised as the result of a deception, but only after protracted humiliations and torments to whose devising their persecutors devoted inexhaustible creative zeal.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'Hitler's Unwitting Exculpator', a review of Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen
Essays and reviews, As Of This Writing (2003)

Imagination

“There's time enough.
Behold, in the lout's eye, love.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"I Cry, Love! Love!," ll. 33-39
Praise to the End! (1951)
Context: Beginnings start without shade,
Thinner than minnows.
The live grass whirls with the sun,
Feet run over the simple stones,
There's time enough.
Behold, in the lout's eye, love.

Love, Time

“Gritter thought it was about time the complacent louts at the top of the heap got to have a genuine red-hot poker up the ass.”

Justina Robson book Natural History

Source: Natural History (2003), Chapter 21 “The Big Debate” (p. 219)

Time

“The only thing rarer than louts who think is louts who read.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 13, “I Am Naumi/On Thairy” (p. 96)

Thinking, Reading