Sympathies Quotes

1. "Quelquefois, il y a des sympathies si réelles que, se rencontrant pour la première fois, on semble se retrouver."
Author: Alfred De Musset

2. "She clutched her purse and was completely composed, gracefully accepting people's sympathies, but when they started to shovel the dirt over old dick's coffin she began to weep, and her grief was strong enough to chase the sparrows from the trees."
Author: Alice Hoffman

3. "Humans are unique in having the astonishing capacity to extend our sympathies far beyond the here and now. through time and space, to anywhere and anything we choose. It is our culture that decides how large and inclusive our moral circle is, but it is each of us who makes up our culture. (p.250)"
Author: Andrew Westoll

4. "Love and death are the two great hinges on which all human sympathies turn."
Author: B. R. Hayden

5. "I am in no mood to fulminate on paper--I wish the two of us were in a room together talking of what matters most, the air thick with affinity. In January a man crawls into a cave of hopelessness; he hallucinates sympathies catching fire. Letters are glaciers, null frigates, trapping us where we are in the moment, unable to carry us on toward truth."
Author: Carlene Bauer

6. "As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races."
Author: Charles Darwin

7. "People talk of natural sympathies ; I have heard of good genii ; there are grains of truth in the wildest fable."
Author: Charlotte Brontë

8. "I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some time;—I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not"—(again he stopped)—"did not" (he proceeded hastily) "strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight!"
Author: Charlotte Brontë

9. "Signs may be but the sympathies of nature with man."
Author: Charlotte Brontë

10. "Presentiments are strange things: and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity had not yet found the key."
Author: Charlotte Brontë

11. "Like many Americans my thoughts and prayers are with the people of London. My deepest sympathies are extended to those who lost a loved one in the recent terror attacks."
Author: Doc Hastings

12. "Then I should have chosen a career for myself, I should have been a sluggard and a glutton, not a simple one, but for instance, one with sympathies for everything sublime and beautiful."
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

13. "Hardy's poetry is pre-eminently about ways of seeing. This is evident in the numerous angles of vision he employs in so many poems. Sometimes it involves creating a picture, as in ‘Snow in the Suburbs', which allows the eye to follow the cascading snow set off by a sparrow alighting on a tree; or it employs the camera effect, as in ‘On the Departure Platform', which tracks the gradually diminishing form and disappearance of a muslin-gowned girl among those boarding the train. However, Hardy is also a poet of social observation. His humanistic sympathies emerge in a variety of poems drawing upon his experience of both Dorset and London."
Author: Geoffrey Harvey

14. "He had no longer free energy enough for spontaneous research and speculative thinking, but by the bedside of patients the direct external calls on his judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him out of himself. It was not simply that beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live calmly - it was a perpetual claim on the immediate fresh application of thought, and on the consideration of another's need and trial. Many of us looking back through life would say that the kindest man we have ever known has been a medical man, or perhaps that surgeon whose fine tact, directed by deeply-informed perception, has come to us in our need with a more sublime beneficence than that of miracle-workers. Some of that twice-blessed mercy was always with Lydgate in his work at the Hospital or in private houses, serving better than any opiate to quiet and sustain him under anxieties and his sense of mental degeneracy."
Author: George Eliot

15. "If Art does not enlarge men's sympathies, it does nothing morally."
Author: George Eliot

16. "This airline is grateful for his extensive contributions and we will miss his friendship and support. We extend our deepest sympathies to the Casey family on its personal loss."
Author: Gerard Arpey

17. "Ainsi leur rencontre avait eu l'importance d'une aventure. Ils s'étaient, tout de suite, accrochés par des fibres secrètes. D'ailleurs, comment expliquer les sympathies? Pourquoi telle particularité, telle imperfection indifférente ou odieuse dans celui-ci enchante-t-elle dans celui-là? Ce qu'on appelle le coup de foudre est vrai pour toutes les passions. Avant la fin de la semaine, ils se tutoyèrent"
Author: Gustave Flaubert

18. "Crowds exhibit a docile respect for force, And are but slightly impressed by kindness, Which for them is scarcely other than a form of weakness. Their sympathies have never been bestowed upon easy going masters, but the tyrants who vigorously oppressed them. It is to these latter that they always erect the loftiest statues. It is true that they willingly trample on the despot whom they have stripped of his power, but it is because having lost his power he resumes his place among the feeble who are to be despised because they are not to be feared. The type of hero dear to a crowd will always have the semblance of a Caesar, His insignia attract them, His authority overawes them, and his sword instils them with fear."
Author: Gustave Le Bon

19. "The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies."
Author: Henry Adams

20. "Mr. Morris's poem is ushered into the world with a very florid birthday speech from the pen of the author of the too famous Poems and Ballads,—a circumstance, we apprehend, in no small degree prejudicial to its success. But we hasten to assure all persons whom the knowledge of Mr. Swinburne's enthusiasm may have led to mistrust the character of the work, that it has to our perception nothing in common with this gentleman's own productions, and that his article proves very little more than that his sympathies are wiser than his performance. If Mr. Morris's poem may be said to remind us of the manner of any other writer, it is simply of that of Chaucer; and to resemble Chaucer is a great safeguard against resembling Swinburne."
Author: Henry James

21. "...a fundamental rule of journalism, which is to tell a story and stick to it. The narratives of journalism (significantly called "stories"), like those of mythology and folklore, derive their power from their firm, undeviating sympathies and antipathies. Cinderella must remain good and the stepsisters bad. "Second stepsister not so bad after all" is not a good story."
Author: Janet Malcolm

22. "In their sympathies, children feel nearer animals than adults."
Author: Jessamyn West

23. "I always received much more satisfaction as a defense attorney in obtaining an acquittal for a client than I ever have as a D.A. in obtaining a conviction. All my interests and sympathies tend to be on the side of the individual as opposed to the state."
Author: Jim Garrison

24. "Instead he gave Cabal his most professional pat on the shoulder. It was his best pat, the one that said, You have my most sincere albeit non-specific sympathies. It was all he could do."
Author: Jonathan L. Howard

25. "My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment and one another. Art should provoke, disturb, arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate and may not even wish."
Author: Joyce Carol Oates

26. "RULES OF LYING:1. Figure out your lie before you open your mouth.2. Play on your opponent's sympathies and weaknesses3. Dance around the lie with distracting truth. They're far more convincing.4. Picture the lie in your head as if it were the truth. They want to see how it's coming up.5. Never forget which is the lie and which is the truth.6. If you say something that brings you trouble, pretend that was actually the lie. Lie and say you were joking before, and aren't you funny? It's a quick escape from a sticky situation. It's the liars trapdoor.7. Avoid it if at all possible.8. Keep up your poker face. Never have a "tell" or a physical gesture that will give yourself away and let your opponent know your bluffing."
Author: Kristin Walker

27. "You've been playing on my sympathies as though they were harp strings. You-''What do you expect me to do?' he cut in. 'Play fair? With a woman who makes up her own rules as she goes along?''I expect you to take no for an answer!'He rose. 'I should like to know what you're afraid of.''Afraid?' Her voice climbed. 'Afraid? Of you?''The only reason I can think of for your rejecting an opportunity to run the world as you see fit is fear that you can't manage the man offering the opportunity."
Author: Loretta Chase

28. "You can't run a business based on sympathies; otherwise our business would be hampered."
Author: Marc Rich

29. "Your mother sounds like a formidable woman," Valek said into the silence."You have no idea," Leif replied with a sigh."Well, if she's anything like Yelena, my deepest sympathies," Valek teased."Hey!"Leif laughed and the tense moment dissipated.Valek handed Leif his machete. "Do you know how to use it?""Of course. I chopped Yelena's bow into firewood," Leif joked."
Author: Maria V. Snyder

30. "To us, our house was not unsentient matter -- it had a heart, and a soul, and eyes to see us with; and approvals and solicitudes and deep sympathies; it was of us, and we were in its confidence, and lived in its grace and in the peace of its benediction."
Author: Mark Twain

31. "We need to broaden our sympathies both in space and time - and perceive ourselves as part of a long heritage, and stewards for an immense future."
Author: Martin Rees

32. "God sends children for another purpose than merely to keep up the race -- to enlarge our hearts, to make us unselfish, and full of kindly sympathies and affections."
Author: Mary Howitt

33. "One as deformed and horrible as myself, could not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects... with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being..."
Author: Mary Shelley

34. "If Sally had been in an accident or come down with some overtly physical disease, I would not hesitate to tell him about it, confident that his sympathies would flow in my direction as a matter of course. But psychosis defies empathy; few people who have not experienced it up close buy the idea of a behavioral disease. It has the ring of an excuse, a license for self-absorption on the most extreme scale. It suggests that one chooses madness and not the other way around. (86)"
Author: Michael Greenberg

35. "The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor for ever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled."
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

36. "Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it."
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

37. "No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything."
Author: Oscar Wilde

38. "No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid."
Author: Oscar Wilde

39. "You are too kind, my lady. Indeed, you are the most amiable Englishwoman I have ever met."She laughed. The viscount was rapidly rising on her list. "Some people don't find me amiable." Like a certain unfeeling Bow Street Runner.He struck a hand to his chest. "I cannot believe that! You are such an alma brilhante...a bright soul. How can anyone not see it?"She grinned at him. "They must all be blind.""And deaf." He tapped his temple. "And not very right in the head.""Excellent, my lord," she said. "Your grasped that idiom quite well."He looked surprised by that, then smiled. "I have to learn if I am to impress the senhora."She cast him a coy glance. "And why would you want to impress me, sir?"Picking up her hand, he pressed a kiss to it again and this time didn't release it. "Why would I not?" His wistful expression tugged at her sympathies."You'd better eat your eggs before they get cold," she said, gently withdrawing her hand."
Author: Sabrina Jeffries

40. "Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.Methinks, its motion in this hush of natureGives it dim sympathies with me who live,Making it a companionable form,Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling SpiritBy its own moods interprets, every whereEcho or mirror seeking of itself,And makes a toy of Thought."
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

41. "I have to express sympathy from the bottom of my heart to those people who were taken as wartime comfort women. As a human being, I would like to express my sympathies, and also as prime minister of Japan I need to apologize to them."
Author: Shinzo Abe

42. "If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories."
Author: Susan Sontag

43. "Life is like a cloud. It comes in a million shapes and sizes and it offers no guarantees, no sympathies for the man who told his kid he'd fly a kite today, no consideration for the girl who was sure she'd see the sun today, no promises for the weary world and the wants wants wants of which it has too many today. Life is like that."
Author: Tahereh Mafi

44. "Despite his elegant appearance, Mr. Gweta's most striking asset was his alluring personality. Professor Khupe had met few such men in his life. Their warmth made everyone feel like they were their best friend. They were good men. However, they tended to be morally ambidextrous. If a stranger confessed to having been involved in a horrible crime, they would reserve judgment until they found out whether the confessor was the victim or victimizer. Once they knew, they would immediately lend their sympathies to the confessor's position. Their worldview was simple. They supported the first person to confide in them. Such men made good lawyers."
Author: Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

45. "I now bid farewell to the country of my birth - of my passions - of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies - whose factions I sought to quell - whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim - whose freedom has been my fatal dream."
Author: Thomas Francis Meagher

46. "I gave up trying to establish where progress lay, and where revolution, or to see the plot -- as Amparo's [Brazilian] comrades expressed it -- of capitalism. How could I continue to think like a European once I learned that the hopes of the far left were kept alive by a Nordeste bishop suspected of having harbored Nazi sympathies in his youth but who now faithfully and fearlessly held high the torch of revolt, upsetting the wary Vatican and the barracudas of Wall Street, and joyfully inflaming the atheism of the proletarian mystics won over by the tender yet menacing banner of a Beautiful Lady who, pierced by seven sorrows, gazed down on the sufferings of her people?"
Author: Umberto Eco

47. "For she had a great variety of selves to call upon, far more than we have been able to find room for, since a biography is considered complete if it merely accounts for six or seven selves, whereas a person may have many thousand…and these selves of which we are built up, one on top of the other, as plates are piled on a waiter's hand, have attachments elsewhere, sympathies, little constitutions and rights of their own… so that one will only come if it is raining, another in a room with green curtains, another when Mrs. Jones is not there… and some are too wildly ridiculous to be mentioned in print at all."
Author: Virginia Woolf

48. "When two members of a family or two intimate friends are separated, and one goes abroad and one remains at home, the return of the relative or friend who has been travelling always seems to place the relative or friend who has been staying at home at a painful disadvantage when the two first meet. The sudden encounter of the new thoughts and new habits eagerly gained in the one case, with the old thoughts and old habits passively preserved in the other, seems at first to part the sympathies of the most loving relatives and the fondest friends, and to set a sudden strangeness, unexpected by both and uncontrollable by both, between them on either side."
Author: Wilkie Collins

49. "Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise."
Author: Wilkie Collins

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