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angel quotes

  • In poetry, no less than in life, he is 'a beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain'.

    - Matthew Arnold
      Of Shelley. Essays in Criticism Second Series,'Shelley'. The phrase is a quotation from his own work on Byron.

  •    And the angel of the L appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, thebushburnedwithfire,andthebushwasnotconsumed.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDExodus 3:2.

  • And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke1:28^9.

  • And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke1:38.

  • And there were in the same country shepherds abiding inthefield, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shoneround about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of Davida Saviour, which is Christthe Lord. And thisshall be a sign unto you;Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying ina manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, theshepherdssaid onetoanother,Let usnowgo even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke 2:8^15.

  • My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child, But I am black as if bereaved of light.

    -William Blake
      Songs of Innocence,'The Little Black Boy'.

  • Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from yourdoor.

    -William Blake
      Songs of Innocence,'Holy Thursday'.

  • The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land.You mayalmost hear the beating of his wings.

    -John Bright
      Of the Crimean War. Speech, House of Commons, 23 Feb.

  • To think a soul so near divine, Within a form, so angel fair, United to a heart like thine, Has gladdened once our humble sphere.

    - Anne Bronte« 
      'A Reminiscence', in Poems by Currer, Ellis and  Acton Bell.

  • Wrote one songand in my brain I sing it, Drew one angelborne, see, on my bosom!

    - Robert Browning
      Men and Women,'One Word More. To E.B.B.', closing lines.

  • O lyric love half angel and half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire.

    - Robert Browning
    ^9  The Ring and the Book, bk.1, l.1391^2.

  •    The golden Hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my Dearie; For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary.

    - Robert Burns
      'Highland Mary', stanza 2.

  • He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

    - Raymond Chandler
      Of Moose Malloy. Farewell, My Lovely, ch.1.

  • The question is this: is man an ape or an angel? I am on the side of the angels.

    - Benjamin, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield Disraeli
      Speech, Oxford, 25 Nov.

  • Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the crown: He raised a mortal to the skies; She drewan angel down.

    -John Dryden
      Of 'Divine Cecilia'.  Alexander's Feast, l.177^80.

  • You may not be an angel Cause angels are so few But until the day that one comes along I'll string along with you.

    - Al Dubin
      From the song 'I'll String  Along WithYou' in Twenty Million Sweethearts. Music by Harry Warren.

  • I know heisa devil, but hehassomethingoftheangel yet undefaced in him, which makes him so charming and agreeable that I must love him, be he never so wicked.

    - Sir George Etherege
      The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter, act 2, sc.2.

  • There was a pausejust long enough for an angel to pass, flying slowly.

    - (ArthurAnnesley) Ronald Firbank
      Vainglory, ch.6.

  • The madman bum and angel beat inTime, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death.

    - Allen Ginsberg
      Howl and Other Poems,'Howl, I'.

  • I go to my studio every day, because one day I may go and the angel will be there.What if I don't go and the angel came?

    - Philip Guston
      Quoted by Gail Godwin in the Washington Post,7 Mar.

  • Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she isgiven In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems, 'Lamia', pt.2, l.229^34.

  • Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeleine's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory like a saint: She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, Save wings, for heaven.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'The Eve of St.  Agnes', stanza 25.

  • On s'ennuie de tout, mon Ange, c'est une loi de la Nature; ce n'est pas ma faute. One gets bored of everything, my Angel, it's a law of nature; it's not my fault.

    - Pierre-Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos
      Les Liaisons dangereuses, letter141.

  • Artistic temperament†sometimes seems a battleground for a dark angel of destruction and a bright angel of creativity wrestling.

    - Madeleine married name Mrs Hugh Franklin L'Engle
      A Severed Wasp.

  • If an angel were ever to tell us anything of his philosophy I believe many propositions would sound like 2 times 2 equals13.

    - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
    c.1770  Aphorisms, Notebook B (translated by R  J Hollingdale, 1990).

  • Look homeward Angel, now, and melt with ruth.

    -John Milton
      Lycidas, l.163. The phrase was used by Thomas Clayton Wolfe for his1929 novel, Look Homeward  Angel.

  • For neither man nor angel can discern Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, By his permissive will, through heav'n and earth.

    -John Milton
      Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.3, l.681^4.

  • Apparently the average man sees woman alternatelyas an inferior being and as an angel.

    -Willa (Wilhelmina) Johnstone ne  e  Anderson also Muir
      Women:  An Inquiry, pt.1, published as Hogarth Essay no.10 in The Hogarth Essays (Second Series,1926).

  • There's no denying that Caruso came with a voice†that Beethoven came with music in his soul, Picasso was drawing like an angel in the crib.You're born with it.

    - Louise Nevelson
      Dawns and Dusks.

  • L'homme n'est ni ange ni be"  te, et le malheur veut que qui veut faire l'ange fait la be"  te. Man is neither angel nor beast.Unfortunately, he who wants to act the angel often acts the beast.

    - Blaise Pascal
    c.1654^1662  Pense  es, pt.6, no.358.

  • When you're a poet, you're a poet first.When it comes, it's like an angel. 715

    - May Sarton
    Quoted by Mel Gussow in her obituary, in the NewYorkTimes, 18 Jul1995.

  •    O Woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

    - Sir Walter Scott
      Marmion, canto 6, stanza 30.

  • Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise! She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Adonais, stanza10.

  • And she, being old, fed from a mashed plate as an old mare might droop across a fence to the dull pastures of her ignorance. Her husband held her upright while he prayed to God who is all-forgiving to send down some angel somewhere who might land perhaps in his foreign wings among the gradual crops. She munched, half dead, blindly searching the spoon.

    -A'Ghobhainn
    Thistles and Roses,'OldWoman', stanzas1^2.

  • To marry is to domesticate the Recording Angel.Once you are married, there is nothing left for you, not even suicide, but to be good.

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
    Virginibus Puerisque,'Virginibus Puerisque', pt.2.

  •    The brute curiosity of an angel's stare Turn you like them to stone.

    - (John Orley) Allen Tate
      Poems1922^1947,'Ode to the Confederate Dead'.

  • She came to the village church, And sat by a pillar alone; An angel watching an urn Wept over her, carved in stone.

    -Tennyson
      Maud, pt.1, sect.8, l.301^4.

  •    'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

    -William Makepeace Thackeray
      The History of Henry Esmond, bk.1, ch.7.

  • Ihold a beast, anangel and a madmanwithinme, and my enquiry is as to their working, and my problem is their subjugation and victory, downthrow and upheaval, and my effort is their self expression.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      Letter to HenryTreece.

  • But God, who is ableto prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own.

    - Izaak Walton
      Of Donne. Life ofJohn Donne.

  • Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer.

    - (Adeline) Virginia ne  e Stephen Woolf
      'Professions forWomen', lecture to the National Society for Women's Service, 21Jan.Woolf's solutionwas to throw the inkpot at theAngel (the embodiment of stereotypedVictorian femininity) whenever she appeared.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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