Classics for Beginners discussion

Have you ever read part of a classic which has blown you away, either from the message it is sending, the poetic language or just thought something was hilarious.

Post your quotes here...

From One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"The world must be all f**ked up," he said, "when men go first class and literature travels as freight."

Amazing!! So funny ;)

The first time i read the following quote, i put the book down and started shaking, still dunno why it affected me so

***Spoiler for Wuthering Heights *****

“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” ~Heathcliff


and part of the start of The Bell Jar -
Sylvia Plath

“It was like the first time i saw a cadaver. For weeks afterward the cadavers head, or what was left of it - floated up behind my eggs and bacon at breakfast and in the face of Buddy Willard, who was responsible for my seeing it in the first place, and pretty soon I felt as though I were carrying that cadavers head around with me on a string, like some black, noseless balloon stinking of vinegar.”

I am constantly jotting down lines I happen across while reading. Here are a few from a recent reading of Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë...


Nothing can be taught to any purpose without some little exertion on the part of the learner.

~*~*~*~

"'A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.' It isn't only in them you speak to, but in yourself."

~*~*~*~

When we hear a little good and no harm of a person, it is easy and pleasant to imagine more.

(Of course, just the opposite is true as well.)

~*~*~*~

We have some thoughts that all the angels in heaven are welcome to behold, but not our brother-men -- not even the best and kindest among them.

~*~*~*~

Reading is my favorite occupation, when I have leisure for it and books to read.

~*~*~*~

Whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are honest and of good report, think on these things.

~*~*~*~

They that wish to prosper must devote themselves body and soul to their calling.

~*~*~*~

I object to anyone so devoting himself or herself to study as to lose sight of everything else.

(A bit at odds of the above, perhaps, but though devoting time to one's studies or career is important, it's also important to try to have fun on occasion.)

~*~*~*~

'No, thank you. I don't mind the rain,' I said. I always lacked common sense when taken by surprise.

(This one made me laugh out loud, especially as it came after a more serious scene in the previous chapter--and who can't relate to saying or doing stupid things when caught off guard?)

~*~*~*~

Habitual associates are known to exercise a great influence over each other's minds and manners. Those whose actions are for ever before our eyes, whose words are ever in our ears, will naturally leda us, albeit against our will, slowly, gradually, imperceptively, perhaps, to act and speak as they do.

(I think this one could be applied to the media as well as to friends and family in this digital age.)

"the stars, whoes cold pulses were beating amid the black hollows above, in serene dissociation from these two wisps of human life" Tess of the d'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy. love that quote :)

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Sherlock Holmes (I forget which one) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

For laughs I love Oscar Wilde.
"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy."
"No man does. That's his." - A Woman of No Importance

This above all — to thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. - Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Oh and in Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities, this did send me shaking as well

****HUGE SPOILER ALERT****

(view spoiler)[ "'I tell him, "Defarge, I was brought up among the fishermen of the sea-shore, and that peasant family so injured by the two Evremonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister, that husband was my sister's husband, that brother was my brother, that father was my father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to me!" Ask him, is that so.'
'it is so' assented Defarge once more.
'Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,' returned madame; 'but don't tell me.'" ~Madam Defarge (hide spoiler)]

Awesome!

"Love, which quickly arrests the gentle heart,
Seized him with my beautiful form
That was taken from me, in a manner which still grieves me.

Love, which pardons no beloved from loving,
took me so strongly with delight in him
That, as you see, it still abandons me not..."

― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Wow, I love that.

Right now I am reading Atlas Shrugged and these are some quotes I really liked:

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.”

“If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.”

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”

"He that breaks things - to find out what it is - has left the path of wisdom."

Lord of the Rings--J.R.R. Tolkien

"What I did, I did with all my will and my might, then as always, believing in it as in the Gospel; it is for a man to act as best he knows, and afterwards pay for what was done amiss without grudging and without humility."

from one of the Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. I had written down this line, because I thought it was an inspiring attitude to have toward life, but I didn't note which book it was (I've read most of them).

Some favorites of mine..........

One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it you have no certainty until you try.
Sophocles, c. 496-406 B.C.
Greek tragic playwright

"Always speak the truth-think before you speak-write it down afterwards." The Red Queen, "Through The Looking Glass" (by Lewis Carroll)

"And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy." William Golding, "Lord of the Flies"

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon 'em."


Twelfth Night by author:William Shakespeare|947]
Act II, scene V (Malvolio)[

Squire wrote: ""Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon 'em."


Twelfth Night by Twelfth Night

Act II, scene V (Malvolio)"

Sometimes, Twelfth Night called himself Shakespeare. (joking, I know what you meant)

Good things come to those who wait, but only those things left by those who hussle.

Ben Franklin

John wrote: "Sometimes, Twelfth Night called himself Shakespeare. (joking, I know what you meant)"

Ha! I didn't catch that one . (corrected it above, tho.)