Infernal Quotes
More Infernal Quotes
I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore, And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert— 1879 The Major-General's song, The Pirates of Penzance, act1.
'The Art of Being Ruled'might be described from some points of view as an infernal Utopia. Rather than custom, it feels more like an invocation to an unknown deity when Cubans get together?they hold a suspenseful silence until any voice is heard saying or singing something that has nothing to do with the purpose of the meeting.
Jose Lezama Lima— 1950 Rude Assignment, ch.31. 1966 Paradiso, ch.3.
Of all those young women Not one has enquired the cause of the world Nor the modus of lunar eclipses Nor whether there be any patch left of us After we cross the infernal ripples.
— 1919 Quia PauperAmavi,'Homage to Sextus Propertius'.
I can only say that you must have totally renounced all trust in the operations of the human reason; an attitude which, while it is bad Christianity and also infernal nonsense, is oddly enough bad Positivism too, unless I misunderstand that system.
Edmund Clerihew Bentley— Chapter XVI: "The Last Straw"
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.
Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.
emanuel swedenborg— #1683
Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mysterious-terrific, altogether infernal boiling-up of the Nether Chaotic Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, which we name the Real.
thomas carlyle— Bk. III, ch. 8.
You should be allowed to rub out and start again, it means that you are human. The purists are tedious, they tell you a mistake is like an enduring black mark. Nonsense -- better to be human than some infernal machine never going wrong.
Peter Greenaway— One of the calligraphers
You think they are crusaders sent From some infernal clime, To pluck the eyes of sentiment And dock the tail of Rhyme, To crack the voice of Melody And break the legs of Time.
— The Music Grinders; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
George Bernard Shaw— Act II (The Philanderer (1893))
Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their death-like host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance.
Tacitus— Chapter 43. (Germania (98))
I would rather that this people should starve to death in the mountains, than to have the Lord Almighty hand us over to a cursed, infernal mob. I would rather go down to the grave in peace than to fight a mob, unless the Lord would give me enough Saints to fight and kill the poor devils; in such case I wish to live and fight them. But I never want to see a mob again drive and tread under foot the Saints.
Brigham Young— Journal of Discourses 3:224 (March 2, 1856)
Like all music, the figured bass should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul; where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamour and ranting.
— Johann Sebastian Bach, quoted in Ludwig Prautzsch Bibel und Symbol in den Werken Bachs p. 7 [1]; translation from Albert Schweitzer (trans. Ernest Newman) J. S. Bach (New York: Dover, 1966) vol. 1, p. 167.
The fickleness of the woman I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
George Bernard Shaw— Philanderer, Act II.
The infernal serpent; he it was whose guile, Stirr'd up with envy and revenge, deceived The mother of mankind.
john milton— John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book I, line 34
On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.
john milton— John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book II, line 879.
As ravens rejoice over carrion, so infernal spirits exult over the soul that is dead in sin.
— Christian Scriver, p. 561. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Aspiration, worthy ambition, desires for higher good for good ends all these indicate a soul that recognizes the beckoning hand of the good Father who would call us homeward towards Himself all these are the ground and justification for a Christian discontent; but a murmuring, questioning, fault-finding spirit has direct and sympathetic alliance with nothing but the infernal.
— Josiah Gilbert Holland, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 15.
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.
Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their death-like host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance.
— Chapter 43. (Germania (98))
There is nothing like it on this side of the infernal region. The peculiar corkscrew sensation that it sends down your backbone under these circumstances can never be told. You have to feel it.
— A Union soldier, on the Rebel Yell (1861).
Angels never attack, as infernal spirits do. Angels only ward off and defend.
— Emanuel Swedenborg, in Arcana Coelestia (1749 - 1756) translated as "Heavenly Secrets" #1683
