Utterance quotes
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If 'god' is a metaphysical term, then it cannot be even probable that a god exists. For to say that 'God exists' is to make a metaphysical utterance which cannot be either true or false. And by the same criterion, no sentence which purports to describe the nature of a transcendent god can possess any literal significance.
-- A.J. Ayer -
The obvious merits utterance. Character is f**king pertinent.
-- Al Swearengen -
Those emotive theorists who said that the function of moral utterance was to evince emotion would... have been correct if they had substituted the indefinite for the definite article.
-- Alasdair MacIntyre -
It is only by closing the ears of the soul, or by listening too intently to the clamors of the sense, that we become oblivious of their utterances.
-- Alexander Crummell -
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JESTER, n. An officer attached to the king's household to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances . . . the king's own conduct and decrees [being] sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
I have opposed the Communist cold war line ever since, both by public utterance and by private help to trade unionists breaking free from the Communist influence.
-- Earl Browder -
When I began painting, all my paintings were of words which were gutteral utterances like Smash, Boss, Eat. Those words were like flowers in a vase.
-- Edward Ruscha -
True emotions and sincere words never perish. The great heart of humanity gladly receives and embalms every true utterance of the humblest of its offspring.
-- Elias Lyman Magoon -
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Utterance is the evidence of foregone study.
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning -
There is an utterance of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods, eternal, sealed fast with broad oaths: whenever any one defiles his body sinfully with bloody gore or perjures himself in regard to wrong-doing, one of those spirits who are heir to long life, thrice ten thousand seasons shall he wander apart from the blessed, being born meantime in all sorts of mortal forms, changing one bitter path of life for another.
-- Empedocles -
In my commencement address I gave the language and sources of the prophetic utterance made by the Prophet Joseph that the Constitution of the United States would hang by a single thread, but be saved by the elders of Israel. I hope you will read those sources so you will be well-informed as to this prophecy and be prepared to do your part in its fulfillment.
-- Ernest L. Wilkinson -
An anthology of quotations is a museum of utterances.
-- Gary Saul Morson -
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It is necessary to me, not simply to be but to utter, and I require utterance of my friends.
-- George Eliot -
The negative way [of describing God] is a cardboard prop of Christianity to conceal its unknowable God. When this prop collapses, theistic agnosticism emerges, complete with its package of contradictions and non-sensical utterances.
-- George H. Smith -
As liberty of thought is absolute, so is liberty of speech, which is 'inseparable' from the liberty of thought. Liberty of speech, moreover, is essential not only for its own sake but for the sake of truth, which requires absolute liberty for the utterance of unpopular and even demonstrably false opinions.
-- Gertrude Himmelfarb -
There is no way to use non-Christian language and logic to arrive at Christian utterances, conclusions, and behavior.
-- Greg L. Bahnsen -
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When words fail to express the exalted sentiments and finer emotions of the human heart, music becomes the sublimated language of the soul, the divine instrumentality for its higher utterance.
-- Hans Hinrich Wendt -
Everywhere that a great soul gives utterance to its thoughts, there also is a Golgotha.
-- Heinrich Heine -
The art of utterance persuades initially by its music and its rhythm, before semiotic or personal characteristics come into play.
-- Helen Vendler -
Every gesture is a gesture from the blood, every expression a symbolic utterance... Everything is of the blood, of the senses.
-- Henry Williamson -
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Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech, and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of excitement.
-- Herbert Spencer -
The more you devote yourself to study of the sacred utterances, the richer will be your understanding of them, just as the more the soil is tilled, the richer the harvest.
-- Isidore of Seville -
The simple statement, 'God is for us', is in truth one of the richest and weightiest utterances that the Bible contains.
-- J. I. Packer -
God is not the mere dead conception to which we have thus given utterance, but he is in himself pure Life.
-- Johann Gottlieb Fichte -
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An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived.
-- John Searle -
In the performance of an illocutionary act in the literal utterance of a sentence, the speaker intends to produce a certain effect by means of getting the hearer to recognize his intention to produce that effect; and furthermore, if he is using the words literally, he intends this recognition to be achieved in virtue of the fact that the rules for using the expressions he utters associate the expression with the production of that effect.
-- John Searle -
The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism,
-- Jonathan Lethem -
Pray God in the bowels of his mercy to send you his Holy Spirit; for he hath given you his great gift of utterance, if it pleased him also to open the eyes of your heart.
-- Lady Jane Grey -
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No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence.
-- Lord Acton -
We were not meant to mask ourselves before our fellow-beings, but to be, through our human forms, true and clear utterances of the spirit within. Since God gave us these bodies, they must have been given us as guides to Him and revealers of Him.
-- Lucy Larcom -
I want to feel that art is an utterance made in good faith by one human being to another.
-- Marilynne Robinson -
A request not to worry is perhaps the least soothing message capable of human utterance.
-- Mignon G. Eberhart -
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O, when the heart is, full, when bitter thoughts come crowding thickly up for utterance, and the poor common words of courtesy are such a very mockery, how much the bursting heart may pour itself in prayer!
-- Nathaniel Parker Willis -
Life! Life! Don't let us go to life for our fulfillment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic
-- Oscar Wilde -
To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds.
-- Petrarch -
Have gentle utterances that will inspire a superior longing for all time....
-- Philip the Apostle -
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Being Poet Laureate made me realize I was capable of a larger voice. There is a more public utterance I can make as a poet.
-- Rita Dove -
All who call the Holy Ghost a creature we pity, on the ground that, by this utterance, they are falling into the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against Him.
-- Saint Basil -
Every legislative limitation upon utterance, however valid, may in a particular case serve as an inroad upon the freedom of speech which the Constitution protects.
-- Stanley Forman Reed -
The photograph is an incomplete utterance, a message that depends on some external matrix of conditions and presuppositions for its readability.
-- Allan Sekula -
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The Great Being saith: Human utterance is an essence which aspireth to exert its influence and needeth moderation. As to its influence, this is conditional upon refinement which in turn is dependent upon hearts which are detached and pure. As to its moderation, this hath to be combined with tact and wisdom as prescribed in the Holy Scriptures and Tablets.
-- Bahá'u'lláh -
To have a young person speak back, to hand him the microphone for his first-person utterances, you'd have to have an imagined architecture, otherwise people would say you're putting words in their mouths.
-- Fred D'Aguiar -
I would not know the thing I sought until I found it. It was both something within and something without myself. Within, it was like the buried memory of a name that will not come to the tongue for utterance.
-- Jay Saunders Redding -
If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.
-- Donald Davidson -
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But poetry is a way of language, it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.
-- Thomas Lynch
