Alas Quotes:

Alas! never had I loved him so well!

- Charlotte Bronte

source: Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.202, Penguin

topic: Wells, Alas

Alas, I emerge from one disaster to fall into a worse.

- Pierre Corneille

topic: Fall, Disaster, Alas

Alas how difficult is it to preserve a high reputation!

- Publilius Syrus

topic: Reputation, Difficult, Alas

Alas! sorrow from happiness is oft evolved.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

source: "The Natural Daughter". Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, II. 3. 17, 1803.

topic: Sorrow, Alas

Alas! how easily things go wrong!

- George MacDonald

source: George MacDonald (1874). “Phantastes: A Faerie Romance”, p.86

topic: Alas

Do you recall Fred Merriville?” She stared at him. “Fred Merriville? Pray, what has he to say to anything?” “The poor fellow has nothing to say: he’s dead, alas!

- Georgette Heyer

source: Georgette Heyer (2011). “Frederica”, p.61, Random House

topic: Praying, Poor, Alas

Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

- John Keats

source: John Keats (1914*). “The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats”, p.111, Рипол Классик

topic: Passion, Meek, Alas

I have no words alas! to tell the loveliness of loving well

- Edgar Allan Poe

source: Edgar Allan Poe (2014). “Classics Reimagined, Edgar Allan Poe”, p.185, Race Point Publishing

topic: Wells, Alas, Loveliness

Alas, how love can trifle with itself!

- William Shakespeare

source: William Shakespeare (1833). “The plays and poems of William Shakspeare”, p.34

topic: Trifles, Alas

Alas! it is true: "Be polite to bores and so shall you have bores always round about you."

- Emily Post

source: EMILY POST (1950). “ETIQUETTE”

topic: Polite, Bores, Alas

Alas. I am not an option.

- Laini Taylor

topic: Alas

Alas!-but why Alas? It is the lot of mortality we experience.

- Euripides

topic: Life, Mortality, Alas

Now is the winter of our discontent.

- William Shakespeare

topic: Winter, Discontent, Inside And Outside, Most Memorable, Deformity

Alas, our frailty is the cause , not we! For, such as we are made of, such we be.

- William Shakespeare

source: "The Plays (poems) of Shakespeare". Ed. by H. Staunton, the illustr. by J. Gilbert engr. by the brothers Dalziel,

topic: Blame, Made, Frailty, Alas

Alas, our rulers are not gods, but puny, fallible men, like the kings who constantly forget their parts, and we common men should be their prompters.

- Lin Yutang

topic: Kings, Men, Common, Alas

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

- William Shakespeare

source: 'Hamlet' (1601) act 5, sc. 1, l. [201]

topic: Song, Imagination, Gorges, Horatio, Infinite Jest

Time goes, you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays, we go.

- Henry Austin Dobson

source: Proverbs in Porcelain (1877) "Paradox of Time"

topic: Life, Time, Times Gone By, Old Time, Short Time

Alas, all too often, the dream turns into a mud puddle. I am left looking at a disaster. What to do! Keep working. I ask the Almighty for help. That frees me...

- Jules Olitski

topic: Dream, Failure, Mud Puddles, Alas

Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.

- William Shakespeare

source: 'Hamlet' (1601) act 5, sc. 1, l. [201]

topic: Laughing, Favour, Important Hamlet, Grinning, Alas

But alas, if I have not maintained my victory, it is God's fault for not making man and the devil of equal strength.

- Victor Hugo

topic: Men, Victory, Devil, Alas

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Death, Mean, Wine, Alas

Oh literature, oh the glorious Art, how it preys upon the marrow in our bones. It scoops the stuffing out of us, and chucks us aside. Alas!

- D. H. Lawrence

source: D. H. Lawrence, James T. Boulton (2002). “The Letters of D. H. Lawrence”, p.417, Cambridge University Press

topic: Art, Literature, Bones, Marrow, Alas

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! *It’s sad. Love looks like a nice thing, but it’s actually very rough when you experience it.*

- William Shakespeare

topic: Sad Love, Nice, Views, Alas

Alas! we must suffer ourselves before we can feel for others.

- Emile Gaboriau

source: Émile Gaboriau (2015). “File”, p.41, Booklassic

topic: Empathy, Suffering, Feels, Alas

But alas, the most terrifying aspect of the whole fascist episode is the dark fact that most of its poisons are generated not by evil men or evil peoples, but by quite ordinary men in search of an answer to the baffling problems that beset every society. Nothing could have been further from the minds of most of them than the final brutish and obscene result. The gangster comes upon the stage only when the scene has been made ready for him by his blundering precursors.

- John T. Flynn

source: "As We Go Marching".

topic: Dark, Men, Evil, Ordinary Man, Evil Man

All the great Shakespeare plays are about killing. Alas, poor Yorick, thats about death. And in Romeo and Juliet everyone up ends up dying. The greatest dramas in the world are all about sex, violence and death.

- Ray Winstone

source: "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Sex, Drama, Play, Shakespeare Play, Alas

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

- Henry David Thoreau

source: Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.170, Cosimo, Inc.

topic: Beauty, Memories, Doe, Alas

I will frankly confess that after passing a few weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. But, alas, since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of- war, and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous theories.

- Herman Melville

topic: War, Men, Valleys, Alas

Our sense of worth, of well-being, even our sanity depends upon our remembering. But, alas, our sense of worth, our well-being, our sanity also depend upon our forgetting.

- Joyce Appleby

topic: Remember, Forget, Sanity, Alas

I shall be glad to see thee back, daughter, for I miss thee dreadfully. I wish I did not! I was taking a nap in my chair today, and I thought I heard thee rustling thy papers, and I looked over at thy table expecting to see thee, and alas! thee was not there, and it was dreadful.

- Hannah Whitall Smith

topic: Daughter, Naps, Missing, Alas

we usually think of ourselves as sitting the driver's seat, with ultimate control over the decisions we made and the direction our life takes; but, alas, this perception has more to do with our desires-with how we want to view ourselves-than with reality

- Dan Ariely

topic: Reality, Thinking, Views, Alas

Academia is alas full of special interests and specialists who presumed it was possible to "leapfrog" over this or that entire line of development. These minds hoped to distance themselves from the pernicious vices of a whole way of thinking, but of course at the same time excluded all of its virtues too. Modern abstractivism in its simplex form (which does not preclude a high degree of articulate facility within the ambit of what is preconceived and accepted).

- Kenny Smith

topic: Philosophy, Distance, Thinking, Pernicious, Alas

The difference between Libertarian and Conservative is that Conservatives understand this, and know that unregulated capitalism will eventually end with human meat sold in market places, and slavery. Alas, many Conservatives think that everything has to be regulated and controlled.

- Jerry Pournelle

topic: Thinking, Differences, Political, Alas

But for the Jews this moral-spiritual issue raises the same societal problem it does for the Greeks: how can a man have the "right" to make himself spiritually or rationally destitute or retarded when this corrupts the whole quality of the culture that we all together need and depend on? If anyone wants a cloistered and closed-minded life, an anti-aristic life, let him either go off and live among the wolves-or else join the community of like-minded idiots that (alas) compose and define the basic terms of modern society.

- Kenny Smith

topic: Spiritual, Men, Issues, Closed Minded, Alas

Alas, why does my mind have to walk through the dust of the past every day?

- Sri Chinmoy

source: "Twenty Seven Thousand Aspiration Plants". Poetry series by Sri Chinmoy (#14702, Part 15), 1983.

topic: Past, Dust, Mind, Alas

A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him. It is necessarily part of the business of a banker to maintain appearances, and to confess a conventional respectability, which is more than human. Life-long practices of this kind make them the most romantic and the least realistic of men.

- John Maynard Keynes

source: "The Consequences to the Banks of the Collapse of Money Values" (1931)

topic: Men, Practice, Long, Conventional Ways, Alas

Alas, I have done nothing this day! What?! Have you not lived? It is not only the fundamental but the noblest of your occupations.

- James O'Donnell Bennett

topic: Life, Fundamentals, Done, Alas

Sublime Philosophy! Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven; And bright with beckoning angels—but alas! We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams, By the first step, dull slumbering on the earth.

- Alan Judd

topic: Dream, Art, Philosophy, Beckoning, Patriarch

Alas, why are my nights all thus lost? Ah, why do I ever miss his sight whose breath touches my sleep?

- Rabindranath Tagore

source: Rabindranath Tagore, William Radice (2011). “Gitanjali: Song Offerings”, p.180, Penguin Books India

topic: Sleep, Night, Sight, Alas

I loved dancing with a delirious 'I wish I could die' passion, especially when the music appealed to me ... but alas! only one in ten partners had any notion of time, and what made it worse, the nine were always behind, never before the beat. ... Sometimes I would firmly seize smaller, lighter partners by the scruff of the neck, so to speak, and whirl them along in the way they should go, but I saw they were not enjoying themselves, and oddly enough I wanted these wretches to like dancing with me.

- Ethel Smyth

topic: Dance, Passion, Dancing, Alas, Delirious

I fear I must agree," Magnus murmured. He pressed a hand over his heart and his new peacock-blue waistcoast. "I strive to find some respect in my heart for you, but alas! It seems an impossible quest.

- Cassandra Clare

topic: Heart, Blue, Hands, Alas

Nothing is more common than for men to make partial and absurd distinctions between vices of equal enormity, and to observe some of the divine commands with great scrupulousness, while they violate others, equally important, without any concern, or the least apparent conciousness of guilt. Alas, it is only wisdom which perceives this tragedy.

- Samuel Johnson

topic: Men, Important, Tragedy, Alas

In a free world there is, alas, more common crime than in a dictatorial system.

- Barbara Amiel

topic: World, Common, Crime, Alas

Alas, poor Yorick! How surprised he would be to see how his counterpart of today is whisked off to a funeral parlor and is in short order sprayed, sliced, pierced, pickled, trussed, trimmed, creamed, waxed, painted, rouged and neatly dressed - transformed from a common corpse into a Beautiful Memory Picture.

- Jessica Mitford

source: Jessica Mitford (2011). “The American Way of Death Revisited”, p.43, Vintage

topic: Beautiful, Memories, Order, Parlor, Alas

Sun and moon have no light left, earth is dark; Our women's world is sunk so deep, who can help us? Jewelry sold to pay this trip across the seas, Cut off from my family I leave my native land. Unbinding my feet I clean out a thousand years of poison, With heated heart arouse all women's spirits. Alas, this delicate kerchief here Is half stained with blood, and half with tears.

- Qiu Jin

topic: Heart, Cutting, Dark, Alas

The Raven's house is built with reeds, — Sing woe, and alas is me! And the Raven's couch is spread with weeds, High on the hollow tree; And the Raven himself, telling his beads In penance for his past misdeeds, Upon the top I see.

- Thomas D

topic: Weed, Past, Ravens, Misdeeds, Alas

To tell the truth, in Pacific 231 I was on the trail of a very abstract and quite ideal concept, by giving the impression of a mathematical acceleration of rhythm, while the movement itself slowed .  I first called this piece Mouvement symphonique. On reflection I found that a bit colorless. Suddenly, a rather romantic image crossed my mind, and when the work was finished, I wrote the title Pacific 231, which indicates a locomotive for heavy loads and high speeds (a type unfortunately disappeared, alas, and sacrificed to electric traction).

- Arthur Honegger

topic: Reflection, Giving, Mind, Acceleration, Traction

Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?

- Jean-Baptiste Say

topic: Alas

Alas, our technology has marched ahead of our spiritual and social evolution, making us, frankly, a dangerous people.

- Steven M. Greer

topic: Spiritual, Technology, People, Alas

Alas! Alas! Life is full of disappointments; as one reaches one ridge there is always another and a higher one beyond which blocks the view.

- Fridtjof Nansen

source: Fridtjof Nansen (1897). “The First Crossing of Greenland”, Longmans, Green

topic: Disappointment, Block, Views, Ridges, Alas

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist.

- Francis Pharcellus Church

source: "Is There a Santa Claus" (editorial), Sun (N.Y.), 21 Sept. 1897

topic: Christmas, Virginia, Generosity, Childlike Faith, Eternal Light

Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right.

- Robert L. Park

source: "Cancer doctor under fire for providing false hope to patients". www.foxnews.com. November 18, 2013.

topic: Enough, Establishment, Unkind, Alas

A set of Bollywood actresses are coming through Dallas soon in a live tour; I'd pay a lot to see them, but alas, I'm fully booked elsewhere.

- Bruce Sterling

topic: Bollywood, Dallas, Pay, Alas

I set out to become the greatest lover in Vienna, the greatest horseman in Austria, and the greatest economist in the world. Alas, for the illusions of youth: as a horseman, I was never really first-rate.

- Joseph A. Schumpeter

topic: Vienna, Austria, World, Horsemen, Alas

Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.

- Charles Caleb Colton

source: Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.480

topic: Mean, Men, Light, Alas

Alas! it is not the child but the boy that generally survives in the man.

- Arthur Helps

source: Sir Arthur Helps (1892). “Essays and Aphorisms”

topic: Children, Boys, Men, Alas

Sometimes writers say true things about the overall nature of publicity, promotion, and the publishing industry; but alas, not always.

- Teresa Nielsen Hayden

topic: Publicity, Sometimes, Promotion, Publishing Industry, Alas

To take, for example, my own death: what I consider most likely to be true is that death will be the complete and utter end of my existence, with no successor existence of any kind that can be related to me as I now am. And if that is not the case, the next most likely scenario, it seems to me, is something along the lines indicated by Schopenhauer. But neither of these is what I most want. What I want to be true is that I have an individual, innermost self, a soul, which is the real me and which survives my death. That too could be true. But alas, I do not believe it.

- Bryan Magee

topic: Real, Believe, Self, Real Me, Alas

If the Europeans truly wish to improve their NATO contribution they can show it simply enough. They can establish professional armed forces, like those of the UK. And they can acquire more advanced technology. Indeed, unless that happens soon the gulf between the European and US capabilities will yawn so wide that it will not be possible to share the same battlefield. Alas, I do not think that sharing battlefields with our American friends - but rather disputing global primacy with them - is what European defence plans are truly about.

- Margaret Thatcher

topic: Technology, Thinking, Wish, Primacy, Advanced Technology

Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.

- Sophocles

topic: Gratitude, Flow, Deceiver, Alas