Alas Quotes

I could not hold my breath for seven minutes. I couldn't even make it to one. I once tried to run a mile in seven minutes after hearing some athletes could do it in four but failed spectacularly when a side stitch crippled me about halfway in.
However, there was one thing I managed to do in seven minutes that most would say is quite impressive: I became queen.
By seven tiny minutes I beat my brother, Ahren, into the world, so the throne that ought to have been his was mine. Had I been born a generation earlier, it wouldn't have mattered. Ahren was the male, so Ahren would have been the heir.
Alas, Mom and Dad couldn't stand to watch their firstborn be stripped of a title by an unfortunate but rather lovely set of breasts. So they changed the law, and the people rejoiced, and I was trained day by day to become the next ruler of Illéa. ~ Kiera Cass

This is not for me a memory. It is a portrait of now. Of a state of being of the world.' He slowly bowed his head. 'And of freedom, for change. It portends coming change. Crushing of enemies, perhaps; a coming winter, most like. But as you will never brew exactly this brew again, so the world will never again know this time or, alas, this peace. ~ Michael A. Stackpole

Why dost thou heap up wealth, which thou must quit,
Or what is worse, be left by it?
Why dost thou load thyself when thou 'rt to fly,
Oh, man! ordain'd to die?
Why dost thou build up stately rooms on high,
Thou who art under ground to lie?
Thou sow'st and plantest, but no fruit must see,
For death, alas! is reaping thee. ~ Abraham Cowley

Alas! You complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master to tune the heart-strings. ~ Charles Spurgeon

One of the odder services the Villa Candessa provided for its long-term guests was its "likeness cakes" - little frosted simulacra fashioned after the guests by the inn's Camorr-trained pastry sculptor. On a silver tray beside the looking glass, a little sweetbread Locke (with raisin eyes and almond-butter blond hair) sat beside a rounder Jean with dark chocolate hair and beard. The baked Jean's legs were already missing. A few moments later, Jean was brushing the last buttery crumbs from the front of his coat. "Alas, poor Locke and Jean." "They died of consumption," said Locke. ~ Scott Lynch

For, I must tell you, in this world where today all lose their minds over many & wondrous Machines
some of which, alas, you can see also in this Siege
I construct Aristotelian Machines, that allow anyone to see with Words ... ~ Umberto Eco

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows - only hard with luminous edges - and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe:" but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things. In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that there should be anything of what you call a "solid" kind; but I dare say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate. ~ Edwin A. Abbott

When he found out his wife was unfaithful, Hector Castillo told his son to get in the car because they were going fishing. It was after midnight but this was nothing unusual. The Rickenbacker Bridge suspended across Biscayne Bay was full of night fishermen leaning on the railings, avoiding going home to their wives. Except Hector didn't bring any fishing gear with him. He led his son, Carlito, who'd just turned three, by the hand to the concrete wall, picked him up by his waist, and held him so that the boy grinned and stretched his arms out like a bird, telling his papi he was flying, flying, and Hector said, "Si, Carlito, tienes alas, you have wings."

Then Hector pushed little Carlito up into the air, spun him around, and the boy giggled, kicking up his legs up and about, telling his father, "Higher, Papi! Higher!" before Hector took a step back and with all his might hoisted the boy as high in the sky as he'd go, told him he loved him, and threw his son over the railing into the sea. ~ Patricia Engel

But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,
cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness. ~ Anthony Trollope

Alas! I had not then learned the measure of "man's inhumanity to man," nor to what limitless extent of wickedness he will go for the love of gain ~ Solomon Northup

If California is a state of mind, Hollywood is where you take its temperature. There is a peculiar sense in which this city existing mainly on film and tape is our national capital, alas, and not just the capital of California. It's the place where our children learn how and what to dream and where everything happens just before, or just after, it happens to us. ~ Ross Macdonald

Woe, alas, to the one who shall have loved bodies, forms, appearances only. Death will take everything from him. Try to love souls, you shall find them again ~ Victor Hugo

I am so fed up and joyless that not only have I nothing to fill my soul, I cannot even conceive of anything that could possibly satisfy it - alas, not even the bliss of heaven. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Our wise acts accompany us through life to please us and to help us. Just as surely, our unwise acts follow us to plague and torment us. Alas, they cannot be forgotten. In the front rank of the torments that do follow us are the memories of the things we should have done, of the opportunities which came to us and we took not. ~ George S. Clason

Writing anything is terribly hard but, alas for me, because I am addicted, a heck of a lot of fun. I often am sorry I ever started writing prose, because it is so hard. But I can't stop. ~ Judy Collins

Alas, I had always loved sorrow and grief, but only for myself, for myself; for them I wept in my pity. I stretched out my arms to them in my despair, accusing, cursing, and despising myself. I told them that I had done all this, I alone, that I had brought them corruption, contagion, and lies! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A year ago on my twenty-third birthday, I rebuffed the advances of a beautiful young woman whom I did not love. Alas, she turned out to be a sorceress. She repaid me by casting a spell that forces every female I touch to fall into a frenzy of lust." His mouth twisted bitterly. "Thus she robbed me of one of mankind's greatest gifts - the ability to seek and find true love. ~ Jo Grafford

But, O alas! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear? ~ John Donne

Though I love you to the core of my being, so thoroughly that every cell comprising me aches to be near you, I must accept that we can never be together. For our existence parallels the sun and the moon - a temptation in constant, beautiful view, yet if the sun were ever to kiss the moon it would devour the heavenly orb whole. Oh, my darling, if only I were the moon! Then I would dare taste your lips and be happy for my last and final joy! But alas, I am the sun, and I will not venture to destroy the one I love. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Alas! never had I loved him so well! ~ Charlotte Bronte

Like the medieval heretics that Norm Cohn wrote about in The Pursuit of the Millennium, the Beats cultivated an extreme narcissism that bordered on self-deification and that 'liberated them from all restraints' and allowed them to experience every impulse as a 'divine command'. What Norman Podhoretz observed of Ginsberg was also true of the Beats generally: they 'conjured up a world of complete freedom from the limits imposed by [bourgeois] responsibilities'. Podhoretz added, 'It was a world that promised endless erotic possibility together with the excitements of an expanded consciousness constantly open to new dimensions of being: more adventure, more sex, more intensity, more life'. Alas, the promise was illusory. Instead of an 'expanded consciousness', the Beats purchased madness, ruination, and, for many, an early death. Their attack on bourgeois responsibility led not to greater freedom but to greater chaos. The erotic paradise they envisioned turned out to be rife with misery. ~ Roger Kimball

Alas! They were so young, so beautiful, so lonely, loving, helpless, and the hour was that in which the heart is always full, annd, having o'er itself no further power, prompts deeds eternity can not annul. ~ George Gordon Byron

Alas! if my best Friend, who laid down His life for me, were to remember all the instances in which I have neglected Him, and to plead them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the day of recompense? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they continue such. ~ William Cowper

Alas for him who seeks salvation in good only! Balanced on God's strong shoulders, Good and Evil flap together like two mighty wings and lift him high. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You've hit no traitor on the hip. You've dashed no cup from perjured lip. You've never turned the wrong to right. You've been a coward in the fight. ~ Charles Mackay

Like water spilt upon the ground
alas, Our little lives flow swiftly on and pass; Yet may they bring rich harvests and green grass! ~ Henry Van Dyke

I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and, when he found
'Twas vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death.
I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me! but mine returns,
And this lorn bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years
Wept he as bitter tears.
Merciful God! such was his latest prayer,
These may she never share.
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,
Than daisies in the mould,
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life's brief date.
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be,
And oh! pray too for me! ~ Walter Savage Landor

We hear in these days a great deal respecting rights
the rights of private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights of property, and the rights of man. Rights are grand things, divine things in this world of God's; but the way in which we expound these rights, alas! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I can see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas! alas! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights. ~ Frederick William Robertson

Great wealth may be to its owner a blessing or a curse. Alas! I fear it is too often the latter. It hardens the heart, blunts the finer susceptibilities, and transforms into a fiend what under more favourable circumstances might have been a human being. ~ Arnold Bennett

The rough pitter-patter of rain against the tin roof caused me to stir in my sleep, but I struggled to fight it. I yearned to remain under the warmth of my thick quilt, wandering aimlessly through the dream world. But, alas, I knew reality would ease its way in and pull me out. ~ K.A. Poe

Alas, how wretched is the being who depends on the stability of public favour! ~ Sarah Siddons

Alas! how easily things go wrong! ~ George MacDonald

In a free world there is, alas, more common crime than in a dictatorial system. ~ Barbara Amiel

So I ask my pride that it always go along with my wisdom. And when my wisdom leaves me one day alas - it loves to flyway - let my pride then fly with my folly. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another; by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave! ~ Charles Caleb Colton

It's always that way with periods of crisis: people you expect and want to be there for you are incapable and/or unwilling, and others you never imagined would be there for you show up with exactly what you need, exactly how you need it. And there is almost no way, alas, no way at all, to predict which people will be which. ~ Elisa Albert

Eagleton has spent his life inside two mental boxes, Catholicism and Marxism, of both of which he is a severe internal critic - that is, he frequently kicks and scratches at the inside of the boxes, but does not leave them. Neither are ideologies that loosen their grip easily, and people who need the security of adherence to a big dominating ideology, however much they kick and scratch but without daring to leave go, hold on to it every bit as tightly as it holds onto them. The result is of course strangulation, but alas not mutual strangulation: the ideology always wins. ~ A.C. Grayling

Alas, the magic of these battles is that whoever looks at them must also fight them. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Man has obeyed commands of the Mother, the Father, the Guru; but he has not obeyed the commands of 'God' (Bhagwan). Had he obeyed 'God's' commands, his work (for liberation) would have been accomplished. Alas! He will follow his boss's commands and even his wife's commands! ~ Dada Bhagwan

[Luke, holding stormtrooper helmet.] Alas, poor stormtrooper, I knew ye not,/ yet have I taken both uniform and life/ From thee. What manner of a man wert thou?/ A man of inf'nite jest or cruelty?/ A man with helpmate and with children too?/ A man who hath his Empire serv'd with pride?/ A man, perhaps, who wish'd for perfect peace?/ What'er thou wert, goodman, thy pardon grant/ Unto the one who took thy place: e'en me. ~ Ian Doescher

How can I no longer bear my weary doom? Alas! what have I gain'd for all I lost? ~ Maria Gowen Brooks

Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence. ~ Jean Cocteau

You know those particular stand out beauties you see once in a blue moon walking by themselves down the high street on a Saturday afternoon or sitting on a park bench all alone during their lunch break in the middle of summer, who immediately catch your eye, looking utterly bored out of their minds and just begging for some single handsome stranger to come and distract them away for twenty minutes or so from their mundane and repetitive daily worlds. That special girl who right away tugged so hard on your heart strings that your blood turned to ice and your soul melted to its very core because you knew she was completely your type without even having spoken to her. All you had to go on was a gut feeling and that special crazy something about her that spoke to every inch of your fibre and being and said this girl is the one for you, my friend, if you would only step up to the damn plate, put all your fears of public rejection, humiliation and inhibitions behind you and gather the courage, will power and determination to go and get her. That rare, radiant and beautiful Angel who caught a glimpse of you, too, and smiled back at you in turn while you were within their proximity but, alas, you had absolutely nothing to say to them in that moment. Nothing. No simple magic words, no charming chat up line, just a blank frozen mind and a stuttering tongue. But in reality, just to say one word, utter one stupid, tiny, silly little insignificant syllable would surely have been a million ~ Sean-Paul Thomas

A DOZEN PHALLACIES WOMEN BUY
Phallacy 3.
If you use your power to support a man, he'll always support you.
Truth
Alas, not true. It's wonderful to stand by your man, to give to the one you love, but you must never forget yourself, and your children, since he may. Being a man, he takes for granted that his needs come first. Being a woman, you take that for granted too. Don't. Protect yourself -- not with feminist rhetoric or argument, but with actions. A bank account and real estate in your own name, money put aside for your kids' education that he can't touch (or give to the next -- younger -- wife and her spawn), a profession of your own to rely on. Above all, empower yourself, and then help empower him if it pleases you to do so. ~ Erica Jong

Alas, it looks like those unsubstantiated rumours about me are about to come true after all this time ... ~ Paul McCartney

I know what the caged bird feels, alas! ~ Paul Laurence Dunbar

Alas, he himself was a man too easily encouraged, too completely seduced by hope, only to be devastated by disappointment. He'd been born to privilege, conditioned to expect things would go well, and pathetically unable to cope once they started to go wrong. ~ Richard Russo

Alas for the seed of man. ~ Sophocles

Alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Alas, that they are so!
To die even when they to perfection grow! ~ William Shakespeare

To Do Start with a conversation - a "stay interview." Learn about your talented employees' goals and what they love (or don't love) about their work. Don't stop with one chat. Talk (and listen!) daily, weekly, monthly. Develop a true relationship with every single person you hope to keep on your team. Hold "Alas Clinics" - opportunities to talk with others about talented people who have left your team lately. Why did they go? What role (if any) did you play in their leaving? How can you prevent more unwanted turnover? Think about who might be "loose in the saddle" (about ready to leave you); talk with them soon, and collaborate with them to get more of what they want and need from you, from the team, from their jobs. Go big picture. Ask yourself, "What kind of work environment do I want to create?" Then figure out what you need to do in order to make that vision come alive. Then - go do it! ~ Beverly Kaye

Alas, we are what we are, and we need the stories, we need the public transportation, the anxiety meds, the television shows by the dozens, the music in bars and restaurants saving us from the terror of silence, the everlasting promise of brown liquor, the bathrooms in national parks, and the political catchphrases we can all shout and stick to our bumpers. ~ Jaroslav Kalfar

I have asked myself if the best which can be done with virtue is to shut it within high walls as though it were some savage creature. If the good will lock themselves up, and if the wicked will still wander free, then alas for the world! Alleyne ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

The justice hearing thereof (whose name is Mr Francis Wingate), forthwith issued out his warrant to take me, and bring me before him, and in the meantime to keep a very strong watch about the house where the meeting should be kept, as if we that were to meet together in that place did intend to do some fearful business, to the destruction of the country; when alas! the constable, when he came in, found us only with our Bibles in our hands, ready to speak and hear the word of God; for we were just about to begin our exercise. Nay, we had begun in prayer for the blessing of God upon our opportunity, intending to have preached the word of the Lord unto them there present: but the constable coming in prevented us. ~ John Bunyan

Sustainability, or fairness to the future, therefore involves the concept of stewardship, the idea that the living generation must be stewards of the earth's resources for the generations that will come later. That's a tough role to play. There is nothing natural or innate about it. We need to defend the interests of those whom we've never met and never will. Yet those are our descendants and our fellow humanity. Alas, it's a role that we've mostly ignored till now, to the increasing peril of all who will follow. The ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

But, alas, he never really belonged in either place, the sad fate, I am afraid, of those whose hearts break and then mend in crooked ways. ~ Kate DiCamillo

Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters. ~ Honore De Balzac

Bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Once I faced a female with diamond skin," Nix said breathlessly. "I was transfixed - even as she was choking the life out of me."
"Really?"
" No, I saw that character on X men. I just wanted to commiserate. Alas, I have no weaknesses."
"Except your insanity," Lucia pointed out.
sigh. "Well played, Archer. then carry on ... ~ Kresley Cole

And Hagsgate, alas, paid her no heed. She was treated politely and referred to the proper authorities, whereupon she flew into a fury and screamed that in our eagerness to make no enemies at all, we had now made two. ~ Peter S. Beagle

He dreams he is happy; that his corporeal nature has changed; or at least that he has flown off upon a purple cloud of another sphere peopled by beings of the same kind as himself. Alas! May his illusion last till dawn's awakening! He dreams the flowers dance round him in a ring like immense demented garlands, and impregnate him with their balmy perfumes while he sings a hymn of love, locked in the arms of a magically beautiful human being. But it is merely twilight mist he embraces, and when he wakes their arms will no longer be entwined. Awaken not, hermaphrodite. Do not wake yet, I beg you. Why will you not believe me? Sleep ... sleep forever. May your breast heave while pursuing the chimerical hope of happiness - that I allow you; but do not open your eyes. Ah! do not open your eyes. ~ Comte De Lautreamont

When I look back upon my own religious experience," says Andrew Murray, "or round upon the Church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special fellowship with Christians, in the direction and performance of work for Christ - alas! how much proof there is that humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus. ~ D.L. Moody

Alas! it is too true that our souls always contract themselves on the approach of a blessing, and seem as if their powers, exhausted in the effort to obtain it, had no longer energy to embrace the object. ~ Charles Robert Maturin

I felt deeply in my heart both the sorrow of one that goes and the grief of one that remains, just as a solitary bird separated from his flock in dark clouds, and wrote in answer:
From this day forth, alas,
The dew-drops shall wash away
The letters on my hat
Saying 'A party of two'. ~ Matsuo Basho

A true evangelist is almost as great a rarity as a true pastor. Alas! Alas! How rare are both! The two are closely connected. The evangelist gathers the sheep; the pastor feeds and cares for them. The work of each lies very near the heart of Christ- [Who Is] The Divine Evangelist and Pastor ... ~ Charles Henry Mackintosh

My Lamb, you are so very small, You have not learned to read at all; Yet never a printed book withstands The urgence of your dimpled hands. So, though this book is for yourself, Let mother keep it on the shelf Till you can read. O days that pass, That day will come too soon, alas! ~ E. Nesbit

I have, alas, only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of Canterbury. ~ Sydney Smith

Alas, all too often, the dream turns into a mud puddle. I am left looking at a disaster. What to do! Keep working. I ask the Almighty for help. That frees me ... ~ Jules Olitski

Alas. I am not an option. ~ Laini Taylor

Property is unstable, and youth perishes in a moment. Life itself is held in the grinning fangs of Death, Yet men delay to obtain release from the world. Alas, the conduct of mankind is surprising. ~ Plautus

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.
Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.
That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.
I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I slew him-this right hand struck the dagger to his heart. My deeds slew Christ. Alas! I slew my best beloved; I killed him who loved me with an everlasting love. Oh eyes, why do you refuse to weep when you see Jesus' body mangled and torn? Give vent to your sorrow, Christians, for you have good reason to do so. ~ Charles Spurgeon

At the time of our hike, the
Appalachian Trail was fifty-nine years old. That is, by American standards, incredibly venerable. The Oregon and Santa Fe trails didn't last as long. Route 66 didn't last as long.
The old coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway, a road that brought transforming wealth and life to hundreds of little towns, so important and familiar that it became known as "America's Main Street," didn't last as long. Nothing in America does. If a product or enterprise doesn't constantly reinvent itself, it is superseded, cast aside, abandoned without sentiment in favor of something bigger, newer, and, alas, nearly always uglier. And then there is the good old AT, still quietly ticking along after six decades, unassuming, splendid, faithful to its founding principles, sweetly unaware that the world has quite moved on. It's a miracle really. ~ Bill Bryson

Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding, and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Now that one was mature then, said Peter, one could watch, one could understand, and one did not lose the power of feeling, he said. No, that is true, said Sally. She felt more deeply, more passionately, every year. It increased, he said, alas, perhaps, but one should be glad of it
it went on increasing in his experience. ~ Virginia Woolf

Beggars, alas, could not be choosers. ~ Rachel Hartman

Monstrously giving birth to yourself,
Admiring yourself and choking on yourself,
Are you not, alas, the only tie
Between good and evil, earthly pits and paradise?
It seems to me that you are always on the boundary. ~ Anna Akhmatova

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted! Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into ~ Lewis Carroll

How is it with the President? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast Republic. By means of principles which he has introduced, and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises, uncontrolled, the power of the State. In ~ Henry Clay

Alas! this is not what I thought life was.
I knew that there were crimes and evil men,
Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass
Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.
In mine own heart I saw as in a glass
The hearts of others ... And when
I went among my kind, with triple brass
Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,
To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woeful mass! ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

I, alas, must present myself somewhat ignominiously as a chef in a busy kitchen. Somewhere a novel is bubbling on a back burner, an old attempt at history may come out of the freezer. ~ Theodore White

It does not astonish me that the critics in London relegate me to the lowest rank. Alas! I fear that they are only too justified! ~ Camille Pissarro

Yes, alas, I've been on some recording sessions where the music wasn't good. Not so many, really, considering how many I've done. It's a very awkward situation because to do a recording well you focus on the positive of what will make the piece better. ~ Tony Levin

With respect to love we speak continually about perfection and the perfect person. With respect to love Christianity also speaks continually about perfection and the perfect person. Alas, but we men talk about finding the perfect person in order to love him. Christianity speaks about being the perfect person who limitlessly loves the person he sees. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Alas, our technology has marched ahead of our spiritual and social evolution, making us, frankly, a dangerous people. ~ Steven M. Greer

The multitude of men and women choose the less adventurous way of the comparatively unconscious civic and tribal routines. But these seekers, too, are saved - by virtue of the inherited symbolic aids of society, the rites of passage, the grace-yielding sacraments, given to mankind of old by the redeemers and handed down through millenniums. It is only those who know neither an inner call nor an outer doctrine whose plight truly is desperate; that is to say, most of us today, in this labyrinth without and within the heart. Alas, where is the guide, that fond virgin, Ariadne, to supply the simple clue that will give us courage to face the Minotaur, and the means then to find our way to freedom when the monster has been met and slain? ~ Joseph Campbell

Our sense of worth, of well-being, even our sanity depends upon our remembering. But, alas, our sense of worth, our well-being, our sanity also depend upon our forgetting. ~ Joyce Appleby

Alas, Islam turned against science in the twelfth century. The most influential figure was the philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, who argued in The Incoherence of the Philosophers against the very idea of laws of nature, on the ground that any such laws would put God's hands in chains. According to al-Ghazzali, a piece of cotton placed in a flame does not darken and smoulder because of the heat, but because God wants it to darken and smoulder. After al-Ghazzali, there was no more science worth mentioning in Islamic countries. ~ Steven Weinberg

Everything, alas, is an abyss, - actions, desires, dreams, words! ~ Charles Baudelaire

Nothing is more common than for men to think that because they are familiar with words they understand the ideas they stand for. ~ John Henry Newman

Now you say, alas! Christianity is hard; I grant it; but gainful and happy. I contemn the difficulty when I respect the advantage. The greatest labors that have answerable requitals are less than the least that have no regard. Believe me, when I look to the reward, I would not have the work easier. It is a good Master whom we serve, who not only pays, but gives; not after the proportion of our earnings, but of His own mercy. ~ Joseph Hall

I suspect if we were as familiar with our bones as with our skin, we'd never bury dead but shrine them in their rooms, arranged as we might like to find them on a visit; and our enemies, if we could steal their bodies from the battle sites, would be museumed as they died, the steel still eloquent in their sides, their metal hats askew, the protective toes of their shoes unworn, and friend and enemy would be so wondrously historical that in a hundred years we'd find the jaws still hung for the same speech and all the parts we spent our life with titled as they always were - rib cage, collar, skull - still repetitious, still defiant, angel light, still worthy of memorial and affection. After all, what does it mean to say that when our cat has bitten through the shell and put confusion in the pulp, the life goes out of them? Alas for us, I want to cry, our bones are secret, showing last, so we must love what perishes: the muscles and the waters and the fats. ~ William H Gass

And again, alas! for how many Christians there are for whom, when the word is heard, it has but little attraction, because it has never yet been shown to them as a life that is indeed possible, and unutterably blessed. ~ Andrew Murray

There must be no concealment," she said. "Alas! We have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured, than I suffer now! ~ Bram Stoker

In the irresistible logic of guilt, one evil leads to another, one sin is developed out of another. There is nothing abrupt, nothing casual in the process. The road to sin is smooth, because an army of transgressions has passed over it. When such a development takes place, the community is filled with consternation. Men meet each other and say, "Have you heard what has happened? Mr. A. has turned out a defaulter. Mr. B. has been robbing his bank. How could he have done it?" Alas! he did it long ago, when he took the first step, when he diverged a very little way from the path of right. After that, every other step was easy, natural, and logical. ~ James Clarke

Alas, Measured Perfectly"

Saturday, August 25, 1888. 5:20 P.M.
is the name of a photograph of two
old women in a front yard, beside
a white house. One of the women is
sitting in a chair with a dog in her
lap. The other woman is looking at
some flowers. Perhaps the women are
happy, but then it is Saturday, August
25, 1888. 5:21 P.M., and all over. ~ Richard Brautigan

Alas, it is too true. I visited him this morning and found him en deshabille, clasping his brown. He seized on me and demanded a rhyme to some word which I have forgot. So I left him."
"Can no one convince Philippe that he is not a poet?" asked De Bergeret plaintively.
De Vangrisse shook his head. ~ Georgette Heyer

I, answering in the end, began: 'Alas,
how many yearning thoughts, what great desire,
have lead them through such sorrow to their fate? ~ Dante Alighieri

The flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books. ~ Stephane Mallarme

All things considered, science is the best means of understanding almost everything around us. It works well on the human scale and stands as a stark counter-point to beliefs that by their very nature refute the notion of evidence. And I would be the last person to attack people encouraging the rest of us to use our ability to be rational, thereby defending the value and the necessity of science. But I will lift a querying hand when the notion of 'science' is held to be immutable, because 'science' as such does not exist. Science is a process to be sure, a way of thinking, but what science is above all is that which scientists do, and alas, scientists are people, too. As potentially fallible, irrational, biased, greedy, in short, as flawed, as the rest of us. So, by all means defend science as a process. But don't confuse it with the very human endeavor of science as a profession. Because they're not the same thing. And this is why when some guy in a white lab-coat says 'you can trust me, I'm a scientist,' best take it with a big bucket of salt, and then say 'Fine, now show me the evidence and more to the point, show me how you got to it. ~ Steven Erikson