Quotes: Rewards. Rhetoric. Right and Wrong. Roles. Roller Coaster. Romanticism. Rome. Routine. Ruins. Rules. Rural Life.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Rewards
Our only reward will be a good conscience, i.e., we feel good about what we did.
Reward 278 JFK: ...with a good conscience our only sure reward.... Sorenson, Kennedy

Rhetoric
Wilson engendered emotion through rhetoric and when his goals could not be achieved, the emotion was broken.
Rhetoric 8 …the emotions engendered by Wilson’s crusading rhetoric and the collapse of mood that accompanied the broken—indeed the unattainable—promises of that rhetoric. Blum, V Was for Victory

During WWII, The President was careful not to whip up emotion he could not control.
Rhetoric 8 During WWII the President tried to prevent his rhetoric from whipping up emotions he could not control. Blum, V Was for Victory

I thought he was a lord among wits, but found that he was only a wit among lords.
Rhetorical technique 159 Johnson on Lord Chesterfield: This man…I thought had been a lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among lords. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.


Right and Wrong
Right and wrong can never compromise.
Right and Wrong 1172 Hilda: But there is, I believe, only one right and one wrong; and I do not understand…how two things so totally unlike can be mistaken for one another; nor how two mortal foes—as Right and Wrong surely are—can work together in the same deed. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Roles
We play roles in order, mainly, to protect ourselves.
Roles 104 We act out many roles…some because it’s fun, some because others want us to act out those roles…mostly because we want to protect ourselves. Bergman, Ingmar. Fiction: “Confession.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), 92-104.

Roller Coaster
Impressions of riding a roller coaster.
Roller coaster 76 The roller coaster would click-clack its way to the top of that first big drop and as...your heart raced, suddenly the whole Lenape valley opened up before you, the river solidly in place way down there.... Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.

Romanticism
Romanticism explores emotion beyond the control of reason.
Romanticism 311 …the Romantic impulse to explore beyond the bounds of reason. Clark, Civilization.

Rome
The idealism and reality of Rome.
Rome 496 He had begun to sense the antitheses of Rome: a city of architectural splendors and sunless streets running with human filth; a city of the highest artistic aspirations and pestilential fleas. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

A crumbling stone pillar lying on the ground epitomizes Rome.
Rome 977 [An immense gray granite shaft lying in the piazza]: …was a great, solid fact of the past, making old Rome actually sensible to the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor force of thought, nor magic of song, could so vitally assure us that Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what its rulers and people wrought. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

The blood of the Christian martyrs was swallowed by the greatest of beasts, the populace of Rome.
Rome 980 …where so much blood of Christian martyrs had been lapt up by that fiercest of wild beasts, the Roman populace of yore. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

So many hopes lie crushed in the soil of Rome.
Rome 1196 …the myriads of dead hopes that lie crushed into the soil of Rome. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Routine
Routine masks our deep sense of insecurity.
Routine 7 We counteract a deep feeling of insecurity by making of our existence a fixed routine. Hoffer, The True Believer

Ruins
The English ruin is overcome by the forces of nature.
Ruins 990 Nature takes an English ruin to her heart…strives to make it a part of herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man, and supplanting it with her own mosses and trailing verdure, till she has won the whole structure back. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

In Rome, Nature can never take back man’s accomplishments.
Ruins 990 But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, Nature forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never lays her finger on it again…bare and naked, in the barren sunshine…. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Rules
Observe the rules and then take the liberty of violating them—for a purpose.
Rules 216 T.S. Eliot: It’s not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Rural Life
Country cousins drop in unannounced.
Rural life 411 …and how like a country-cousin, to come down upon a poor body in this way, without so much as a day’s notice, or asking whether she would be welcome! Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables.

The city person in the country has difficulty accepting unexpected guests.
Rural life 398 A man that is out of humor when an unexpected guest breaks in upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an afternoon to every chance-comer; that will be the master of his own time, and the pursuer of his own inclinations, makes but a very unsociable figure in this kind of [rural] life. Addison, 7/31/1711. The Spectator.