Abominable Quotes
More Abominable Quotes
One of the heresiarchs of Uqbar had stated that mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of man.
jorge luis borges— Variant translation: Mirrors and copulation are obscene, for they increase the numbers of mankind.Cf. "Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935)
The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it.
jorge luis borges— "Hakim, the Masked Dyer of Merv", in A Universal History of Iniquity (1935); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998). Cf. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)
'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his; In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is; Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.
— 'Additional Poems', no.18, in Collected Poems (1939).
It's an abominable place. If there was an Old Testamental God, he would do his job and wipe the place out. The only bad thing is that some really good restaurants would go up as well.
terry gilliam— About Hollywood. As quoted in the New York Times article Terry Gilliam's Feel-Good Endings (14 August 2005)
I see that I have too much confined my thoughts to God, and that I ought to go directly to the Saviour's arms, and that I ought to believe, abominable as my sins have been, if they have once been pardoned, they form no partition between me and the heart of Christ.
edward dorr griffin— Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 99.
Man finds happiness only in the superfluous. Under communism, he has only the essentials. How abominable and ridiculous!
nelson rodrigues— As 30 melhores entrevistas da Playboy: agosto 1975-agosto 2005" - Página 132, de Luiz Rivoiro - 2005 - 313 páginas (November 1979)
The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villainous — licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I ever read them — no — I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan— Act I, sc. i.
Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty ; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy .
jorge luis borges— Statement to the Argentine Society of Letters (c.1946)
I have heard it said, by the way, that Donne's intolerable defect of ear grew out of his own baptismal name, when harnessed to his own surname -- John Donne. No man, it was said, who had listened to this hideous jingle from childish years, could fail to have his genius for discord, and the abominable in sound, improved to the utmost.
john donne— Thomas De Quincey, Literary Reminisceneces: From The Autobiography of an English Opium-eater (1851)
The abominable effort to take one’s sins with one to paradise.
andré gide— Detached Pages, entry for 1913
Christ is not God, not the saviour of the world, but a mere man, a sinful man, and an abominable idol. All who worship him are abominable idolaters. And Christ did not rise again from death to life nor did he ascend into heaven.
— Matthew Hammond, burned at the stake by the Bishop of Norwich on 20 May 1579, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.
Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn’t exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn’t possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey*
jean-paul sartre— p. 184 (Les Temps modernes (1961))
It is abominable to convict a man behind his back.
— Holt, C.J., The Queen v. Dyer (1703), 6 Mod. 41.
Christ is not God, not the saviour of the world, but a mere man, a sinful man, and an abominable idol. All who worship him are abominable idolaters. And Christ did not rise again from death to life nor did he ascend into heaven.
— Matthew Hammond, burned at the stake by the Bishop of Norwich on 20 May 1579, cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.
The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villanous licentious abominable infernal not that I ever read them no I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan— Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Critic, Act I, scene 1.
Christ is not God, not the saviour of the world, but a mere man, a sinful man, and an abominable idol. All who worship him are abominable idolaters. And Christ did not rise again from death to life nor did he ascend into heaven.
— Matthew Hammond, burned at the stake by the Bishop of Norwich on 20 May 1579, as quoted in Holinshed's Chronicle (1587), Volume III; also in The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England (1854) by Thomas Rogers, and J. J. S. Perowne, and The Tyranny of God : Liberating Ourselves from Our Own Beliefs? (2008) by Marquez Comelab, p. 198; also cited in Jonathan Miller. (2004). A Brief History of Disbelief [TV-Series]. BBC Four.
Generally in Sheffield the average of the comfort of the lower classes is above that of most other places; we have not yet got into the abominable way of cellars or of many families living in the same house.
— John Parker, Parliamentary Select Committee on Public Walks: Minutes of Evidence (1833), quoted in Clyde Binfield et al, The History of the City of Sheffield 1843-1993: Volume One: Politics, (1993).
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.
jonathan edwards— Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, sermon delivered in Enfield, Connecticut (July 8, 1741)
