William Gilmore Simms Quotes
Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
Quotes to Explore
-
I don't understand it. Jack will spend any amount of money to buy votes but he balks at investing a thousand dollars in a beautiful painting.
-
There is no problem that is not improved by effort, and no effort that is too paltry to be worth undertaking.
-
I don't know whether the universe contains any evidence of intelligent design, but I can assure you that thousands of everyday products do not.
-
Remember, China is the largest country in the world, so they have the confidence, the capital and resources to create large companies.
-
Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation.
-
I think operating systems work best if they're free and open. Particular applications are more likely to be proprietary.
-
During the 2000 election, the current administration told our military, help is on the way. That is clearly not the case. The administration has failed to request the funds needed for the defense of this Nation. We must give the Army what it needs.
-
It's certainly true that I was brought up in that British amateur tradition, the one which always held that if you were reasonably good at cricket, knew one or two Latin texts and a few zingy Oscar Wilde quotes for dinner parties, you were pretty much ready to go and run some outpost in Hindustan.
-
Color television! Bah, I won't believe it until I see it in black and white.
-
I had never been to a fashion show before going to the Burberry show last month. It was an extraordinary spectacle. I was incredibly green and had no idea what an undertaking it is. I also have a new respect for models because they are so close to the front row and must be so self-conscious.
-
The modern rise of Alzheimer's Disease in the twentieth century is not a sign of failure. It's a sign of success. Success in living long enough to see that disease expressed.
-
You can't believe the government - on anything. And you especially can't believe them when they're talking about important stuff.
-
Politics is politics; art is art. If you play a political role, you have to stop being an artist.
-
When you write a script, you always think about what your heart is asking.
-
If I had written King Lear, I would regret it all my life afterwards. Because that work is so big, that its defects show as huge, its monstrous defects, things even minimal in between some scenes and their possible perfection. It's not the sun with spots; it's a broken greek statue.
-
Extremes, though, are always risky and ordinarily downright baneful, and the dangers of prolonged contact with any poetry that seems to exceed what we most familiarly know of the first-class are formidable.
-
Die before you Die. There is no chance after.
-
If an artwork never gets any attention from anybody, then obviously it's got problems. If it gains attention from a very small elite, then it's presumably doing something. Finnegans Wake gets a lot of attention from certain people who become passionate about it, who are usually very good readers in general. Although - I often talk about costs and benefits - it seems to me the costs of reading Finnegans Wake are not worth the benefits, however many there may be. And it's the same with the more arcane among poets, Zukofsky and so on.
-
When you're always trying to conform to the norm, you lose your uniqueness, which can be the foundation for your greatness.
-
I am desperate for attention. But everyone else is too. Everyone has fantasies of fame and greatness. Life for most people is a process of shedding those fantasies.
-
Claude rubs the back of his neck and wrinkles his nose, about to tell me he was never sad. I believe this is called bravado and is not limited to lawyers, or even men, although that combination makes it almost unavoidable.
-
Americans now believe that having equal rights in a political system also means that each person’s opinion about anything must be accepted as equal to anyone else’s.
-
Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.
