“To be brave, by definition, one has first to be afraid.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“But only a fool sails into combat with nature”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“Men mistook measurement for understanding. And they always had to put themselves at the center of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth is becoming warmer-it must be our fault! The mountain is destroying us-we have not propitiated the gods! It rains too much, it rains too little-a comfort to think that these things are somehow connected to our behavior, that if only we lived a little better, a little more frugally, our virtue would be rewarded. But here was nature, sweeping toward him-unknowable, all-conquering, indifferent-and he saw in her fires the futility of human pretensions.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“The destination of the journey could not be altered, only the manner in which one approached it - whether one chose to walk erect or to be dragged complaining through the dust.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“Civilization was a relentless war that man was doomed to lose eventually. - Pg. 195”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“The natural impulse of men is to follow, he thought, and whoever has the strongest sense of purpose will always dominate the rest.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“... Mother Nature is punishing us, ..., for our greed and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mine shafts into her and drag out her entrails - and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finer. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger?" - Pliny, Pg. 176”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“What was leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason?”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“Brave words. Easy to write when one was young and death was still skulking over a distant hill somewhere... - Pg. 82”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“A nothing that said everything. - Pg. 173”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“And the great thing about money is that it doesn’t matter when you harvest it. It’s an all-year crop.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“For them, it was just an ordinary miracle.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“Men mistook measurement for understanding. And they always had to put themselves at the center of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth is becoming warmer—it must be our fault! The mountain is destroying us—we have not propitiated the gods! It rains too much, it rains too little—a comfort to think that these things are somehow connected to our behavior, that if only we lived a little better, a little more frugally, our virtue would be rewarded. But here was nature, sweeping toward him—unknowable, all-conquering, indifferent—and he saw in her fires the futility of human pretensions.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“La cenere s'indurì, cadde altra pomice. L'interno dei cadaveri marcì e insieme a loro, con il passare dei secoli, marcì anche il ricordo dell'esistenza in quel punto di una città. Pompei divenne una città di cittadini vuoti dai contorni perfetti, stretti l'uno all'altro o isolati, con gli abiti volati via o sollevati sul capo, che tentano disperatamente di afferrare i loro oggetti più adorati senza riuscire a stringere nulla tra le mani: vuote entità sospese a mezz'aria al livello dei tetti.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“[...] ma a Roma un uomo onesto era un uomo raro: cioè un cretino.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“Con quale velocità, pensò l'ingegnere, la natura si riprende ciò che ha dovuto cedere: pioggia e gelo sbriciolano la muratura, le strade sono sepolte da strati verdi di erbaccia, gli acquedotti sono ostruiti dalla stessa acqua per portare la quale sono stati costruiti. Quella della civiltà è un'incessante guerra che l'uomo è destinato a perdere.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
“Perhaps Mother Nature is punishing us, he thought, for our greed and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mineshafts into her and drag out her entrails - and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finger. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger?”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii
Robert Harris
Born place: in Nottingham, England, , The United Kingdom
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“Better would be good. Because if she felt a little less like she’d been run over by a truck, she could jump on Dr. Hottie.”
― Larissa Ione, quote from Pleasure Unbound
“What good were special talents when there was no one to share them with?”
― Dave Cullen, quote from Columbine
“He stopped and took my hand. "If we die, or if I die..."
He was speaking of dying, and I couldn't stop smiling.
In the dark he must not have noticed, because he said in a rush, "I must tell you that I love you, and if I live I will ask for your hand, but you needn't say anything now if it distresses you, and I might rather die without knowing that you don't love me if that's how you feel."
I tried to speak, but nothing came. I had gained courage during my adventures, but not for this.
"Addie?"
Too soft to hear, I whispered, "I do love you."
But he heard. He cupped his hand under my chin and tilted my face up so I had to meet his eyes. He was smiling too, with a smile as happy as mine. "Oh, Addie!" He leaned down to kiss me...”
― Gail Carson Levine, quote from The Two Princesses of Bamarre
“I hardly knew what to do. I wanted, of course, to rush down to Washington Square and grip the poor blighter silently by the hand; and then, thinking it over, I hadn't the nerve. Absent treatment seemed the touch. I gave it him in waves.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from My Man Jeeves
“Dad always warned that it was misleading when one imagined people, when one sas them in the Mind's Eye, because one never remembered them as they really were, with as many inconsistencies as there were hairs on a human head (100,000 to 200,000). Instead, the mind used a lazy shorthand, smoothed the person over into their most dominating characteristic--their pessimism or insecurity (something really being lazy, turning them into either Nice or Mean)--and one made the mistake of judging them from this basis alone and risked, on a subsequent encounter, being dangerously surprised.”
― Marisha Pessl, quote from Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Etched in Sand: A Tr...
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