Browsing Topic Best Recoil Quotes

Violence recoils on the violent.

Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil, and bruise itself.

Not surprisingly, the insurance lobby recoils in horror at the prospect of automatic coverage (including, when it was first proposed, Social Security), no matter how efficient it may be. Automatic coverage eliminates sales commissions and profit.

The Democrats generally recoil from the subject of entitlements.

I’m always making things, and I have this ongoing practice of compelling stuff that strikes me. Over the course of my life doing this, I’ve trained myself to do the opposite of what’s human nature, and that is to recoil from things I don’t like.

Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.

My dad used to take my younger sister Whitney and I to the firing range, and he’d stand behind us as we shot. We were tiny, tiny girls, only about ten years old at the time, so the recoil when we pulled the trigger would send us flying backwards. But he’d stand behind us and make sure we were safe.

Just in time for Bob Dylan to recoil from the attention, leave the city for Woodstock, and turn his back on fame.

What I question is the extent to which any of us truly knows what the facts really are. I mistrust every ideal cherished in western democratic civilization. The words that make others smile and nod in agreement cause me to recoil.

Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing; the civility consists in the assumption that one’s silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don’t want to hear; and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.

For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.

Analysis takes back with one hand what it gives with the other. I recoil in fear and loathing from that deplorable evil: continuous functions with no derivatives.

Life presents itself in constantly changing ways, but you’re able to accept the challenges, rather than recoil, throw up your hands, and go on a binge.

The Saga of Dharmapuri is one of the great works of modern Indian literature. (…) Set against Vijayan’s heroic and scatological Candide — originally written in Malayalam and finely translated into English by the author — the timidity of our own English talent for political satire is embarrassingly laid bare. For this is dangerous stuff, and cut close to the bone. (…) Fiercest of all is Vijayan’s Voltairean recoil from Indian cringing to power.

All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.

Archer was too intelligent to think that a young woman like Ellen Olenska would necessarily recoil from everything that reminded her of her past. She might believe herself wholly in revolt against it; but what had charmed her in it would still charm her even though it were against her will.

Every life is its own excuse for being, and to deny or refute the untrue things that are said of you is an error in judgment. All wrong recoils upon the doer, and the person who makes wrong statements about others is themselves to be pitied, not the person they vilify. It is better to be lied about than to lie. At the last no one can harm us but ourselves.

There never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.

I strongly oppose cloning, as do most Americans. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our convenience. And while we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means.

The stone often recoils on the head of the thrower.

I thought this must be obvious to everyone else, as it seemed obvious to me; and that, if once it became apparent that we were on the edge, all the Great Powers would call a halt and recoil from the abyss.

I despise Birth-Control first because it is … an entirely meaningless word; and is used so as to curry favour even with those who would first recoil from its real meaning. The proceeding these quack doctors recommend does not control any birth.

We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory. Like the images the photographer plunges into a golden bath, our sentiments take on color; and only then, after that recoil and that trans-figuration, do we understand their real meaning and enjoy them in all their tranquil splendor.

Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings – as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.

Satire recoils whenever charged too high; round your own fame the fatal splinters fly.

At man’s core there is a voice that wants him never to give in to fear. But if it is true that in general man cannot give in to fear, at the very least he postpones indefinitely the moment when he will have to confront himself with the object of his fear… when he will no longer have the assistance of reason as guaranteed by God, or when he will no longer have the assistance of God such as reason guaranteed. It is necessary to recoil, but it is necessary to leap, and perhaps one only recoils in order to leap better.

Many spiritual seekers who say their wish is to awaken don’t actually want what they believe they do. This becomes clear sometimes at the approach to the brink of what feels like a void, where the obliteration of the egoic self seems imminent. With a shocked recognition of what is being asked, the person will recoil. The scale of the loss-the dissolution of the familiar self-is beyond what was bargained for.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

It is only the intellect that can be thoroughly and hideously wicked. It can forget everything in the attainment of its ends. The heart recoils; in its retired some drops of childhood’s dew still linger, defying manhood’s fiery noon.

The good or evil we confer on others very often, I believe, recoils on ourselves; for as men of a benign disposition enjoy their own acts of beneficence equally with those to whom they are done, so there are scarce any natures so entirely diabolical as to be capable of doing injuries without paying themselves some pangs for the ruin which they bring on their fellow-creatures.

On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th’ infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.

He for himself weaves woe who weaves for others woe, and evil counsel on the counselor recoils.

Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.

Evil on itself shall back recoil.