Letter Quotes - 3
More Letter Quotes
He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realize,' he said 'The bitterness of life!'
— 1889 Sylvie and Bruno, ch.5.
There is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all TomJones.
— 1772 Remark, 6 Apr. Quoted in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.2.
As to those who have debarred themselves from the Revelation of God, they have indeed failed to understand the significance of a single letter of the Qur’án, nor have they obtained the slightest notion of the Faith of Islám, otherwise they would not have turned away from God, Who hath brought them into being, Who hath nurtured them, hath caused them to die and hath proffered life unto them, by clinging to parts of their religion, thinking that they are doing righteous work for the sake of God.
báb— XVII, 2 (The Kitáb-I-Asmá)
I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.
Ludwig van Beethoven— "A meeting of minds", The Guardian, 18 November 2005.
On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.
Nathaniel Hawthorne— Chapter II: The Market-Place
The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers — stern and wild ones, — and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Nathaniel Hawthorne— Chapter XVIII: A Flood of Sunshine
Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl.
ernest hemingway— "Trout Fishing in Europe" The Toronto Star Weekly (17 November 1923)
No one has ever told me precisely what is wrong with me. Morrell's method of cure is so logical that I have the greatest confidence in him. I shall follow his prescriptions to the letter.
theodor morell— Adolf Hitler
This is a letter of hate. It is for you my countrymen, I mean those men of my country who have defiled it. The men with manic fingers leading the sightless, feeble, betrayed body of my country to its death.
john osborne— "A Letter To My Fellow Countrymen", Tribune, August 18, 1961.
I have owed you this letter for a very long time — but my fingers have avoided the pencil as though it were an old and poisoned tool.
john steinbeck— Letter to his literary agent, found on his desk after his death in 1968
All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the letter but by the spirit — the spirit which unfolds itself with the growth of life in history.
rabindranath tagore— Preface
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
mark twain— Often misattributed to Twain, this is actually by Blaise Pascal, "Lettres provinciales", letter 16, 1657:Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.Translation: I have only made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the opportunity to make it shorter.
Thought may well be ever ranging, And opinion ever changing, Task-work be, though ill begun, Dealt with by experience better; By the law and by the letter Duty done is duty done Do it, Time is on the wing!
arthur hugh clough— Love, Not Duty, st. 1 (1841).
Goethe said, “The author whom a lexicon can keep up with is worth nothing”; Somerset Maugham says that the finest compliment he ever received was a letter in which one of his readers said: “I read your novel without having to look up a single word in the dictionary.” These writers, plainly, lived in different worlds.
Randall Jarrell— "The Obscurity of the Poet", p. 13
I regard criticism as an art, and if in this country and in this age it is practiced with honesty, it is no more remunerative than the work of an avant-garde film artist. My dear anonymous letter writers, if you think it is so easy to be a critic, so difficult to be a poet or a painter or film experimenter, may I suggest you try both? You may discover why there are so few critics, so many poets.
Pauline Kael— "Replying to Listeners", broadcast on KPFA (January 1963)
I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you!
john keats— Letter to Charles Armitage Brown (November 30, 1820).
I must say the enclosed letter from Rütten and Loening is a bit stiff. Do I suffer this impertinence because of the possession of a German name, or do their lunatic laws require a certificate of 'arisch' origin from all persons of all countries? ... I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.
j. r. r. tolkien— No. 30: Letter to Stanley Unwin (25 July, 1938); Tolkien's German publishers had written to ask him whether he was of "Aryan" origin.
No doubt he had acted in direct opposition to the spirit of the injunction, but legal orders are read by the letter, and not by the spirit.
Anthony Trollope— Ch. 28 (Phineas Redux (1874))
He [Turgot] now, in 1749, at the age of twenty two, wrote... a letter which has been an object of wonder among political thinkers ever since. Its subject was paper money. Discussing the ideas of John Law, and especially the essay of Terrasson which had supported them, he dissected them mercilessly, but in a way useful not only in those times but in these.
turgot, anne robert jacques, baron de laune— White, ibid., Seven Great Statesmen...
I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
Blaise Pascal— "Lettres provinciales", letter 16, 1657
The only road, the sure road to unquestioned credit and a sound financial condition is the exact and punctual fulfilment of every pecuniary obligation, public and private, according to its letter and spirit.
— Rutherford B. Hayes, speech at N. E. Society Dinner, Brooklyn, Dec. 21, 1880.
I read your letter, made me feel better, How did you know that I was singing the blues? I felt your sunshine, made me feel so fine, How did you know that I was thinking of you?
Paul Davis— "Thinking of You" (1976)
For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick O'Teen. And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear, But I have been priest of Partagas a matter of seven year. And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cherry light Of stumps that I burned to friendship, and pleasure and work and fight.
rudyard kipling— Rudyard Kipling, The Betrothed.
The advent of other Greek letter fraternities met the social needs or supposed needs of underclass men and left Phi Beta Kappa to give sole concern to scholarly affairs.
— Rev. E. B. Parsons, D. D., Phi Beta Kappa Hand-Book and General Address Catalogue (1900), p. 14
The spirit of our oldest chapters, combined with the vigor of our youngest who join each year, should inspire all of us to maintain our faith in the principles which unite us, our determination to live by them, and our intention to continue to be the very best fraternity in the greek letter world.
— Anthony Fusaro, Phi Sigma Kappa; Former Grand Chapter President of Phi Sigma Kappa (p. 9)
It is not fair to criticise every line and letter of a summing-up which has been delivered by a Judge in trying a case, especially when there is a somewhat imperfect record of it.
— Lord Hatherley, Prudential Assurance Co. v. Edmonds (1877), L. B. 2 App. Ca. 494.
By our rules we cannot receive a letter from a friend.
— Bayley, J., King v. Knowles (1820), 1 St. Tr. (N. S.) 515.
Although Hinduism has no official symbol, the religious symbol most sacred to most Hindus is the mythical syllable Om [also spelled aum]...the symbol is composed of equivalent of our letter a, u, and m. Although as a syllable it has no literal meaning, Om symbolizes the fundamental hidden reality of the universe and is the basic spiritual sound the universe makes, particularly the sound of World Soul.
— Hinduism, in RELG: World, p.76
The reason and spirit of cases make law; not the letter of particular precedents.
— Lord Mansfield, Fisher v. Prince (1763), 3 Burr. 1364.
It's a letter to my dad...it's got blood on it..
— Who: Private Adrian Carpazo (Vin Diesel)
— Note: Last words after being shot by a German sniper, he tries to show Mellish his letter, telling him to send it for him. He ends up bleeding to death.
