Aught 6 Quotes

All Mad"

'He is mad as a hare, poor fellow,
And should be in chains,' you say,
I haven't a doubt of your statement,
But who isn't mad, I pray?
Why, the world is a great asylum,
And the people are all insane,
Gone daft with pleasure or folly,
Or crazed with passion and pain.

The infant who shrieks at a shadow,
The child with his Santa Claus faith,
The woman who worships Dame Fashion,
Each man with his notions of death,
The miser who hoards up his earnings,
The spendthrift who wastes them too soon,
The scholar grown blind in his delving,
The lover who stares at the moon.

The poet who thinks life a paean,
The cynic who thinks it a fraud,
The youth who goes seeking for pleasure,
The preacher who dares talk of God,
All priests with their creeds and their croaking,
All doubters who dare to deny,
The gay who find aught to wake laughter,
The sad who find aught worth a sigh,
Whoever is downcast or solemn,
Whoever is gleeful and gay,
Are only the dupes of delusions -
We are all of us - all of us mad. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I swear to thee, friend, and may God Almighty bear me witness. For the sake of your love to me, never shall those that are yours go wanting, while I have aught to give. ~ Diana Gabaldon

For common instinct of our race declares
That body of itself exists: unless
This primal faith, deep-founded, fail us not,
Naught will there be whereunto to appeal
On things occult when seeking aught to prove
By reasonings of mind. ~ Lucretius

How terribly hard and almost impossible it is to tell the truth. More than anything else, the artist in us prevents us from telling aught as it really happened. We deal with the truth as the cook deals with meat and vegetables. ~ Eric Hoffer

My lady," Maege Mormont said to her one morning as they rode through a steady rain, "you seem so somber. Is aught amiss?" My lord husband is dead, as is my father. Two of my sons have been murdered, my daughter has been given to a faithless dwarf to bear his vile children, my other daughter is vanished and likely dead, and my last son and my only brother are both angry with me. What could possibly be amiss? ~ George R R Martin

I have heard a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They have n't got life enough in them ... Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Life is too short for any vain regretting ... Between the swift sun's rising and its setting, we have no time for useless tears or fretting, life is too short ... Time is the best avenger if we wait, the years speed by, and on their wings bear healing, life is too short for aught but high endeavor-too short for spite, but long enough for love. And love lives on forever and forever. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The author of the quaint old English classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, teaches us how to do this. Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love; and mean Himself, and none of His goods. And thereto, look thee loath to think on aught but God Himself. So that nought work in thy wit, nor in thy will, but only God Himself. This is the work of the soul that most pleaseth God. ~ A.W. Tozer

He'll behave. He has a mien and manners of a prince."
"Oh, like you?"
"I resent your tone."
"I'm not sure you can control him."
"Has he ever aught but the gentlest of creatures? Would you deny your namesake the chance to bear witness to our victorious celebration? And, of course, to the vision of you and Kestrel: side by side, Herrani and Valorian, a love for the ages. The stuff of songs, Arin! How you'll get married, and make babies
"
"Gods, Roshar, shut up. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Take heed lest passion sway Thy judgement to do aught, which else free will Would not admit. ~ John Milton

The fact is, that life is too short to be occupied by aught but the present - hope and remembrance are equally a waste of time. ~ Letitia Elizabeth Landon

If I am using a sable, it may start off as an eight or seven, but it's a double aught by the time I'm done. I hate brights ... they have no use. You might as well buy a filbert and take the scissors and cut off half of what you paid for. ~ Nelson Shanks

I wish I could remember the first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me;
If bright or dim the season it might be;
Summer or winter for aught I can say.
So, unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was i to see and to forsee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom, yet, for many a May. ~ Christina Rossetti

If aught be worse than failure from overstress of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success. ~ Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

If aught can teach us aught, Affliction's looks,
Making us pry into ourselves so, near,
Teach us to know ourselves, beyond all books,
Or all the learned schools that ever were. ~ Sir John Davies

'T is sweeter for thee despairing Than aught in the world beside,-Jessy! ~ Robert Burns

Ay me! For aught that I could every read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth,
But either it was different in blood- ~ William Shakespeare

Elizabeth," Jamie began gruffly, "there is aught I would speak of with you."
She lifted an eyebrow at his lordly tone. "Go ahead."
"It may take me a few hours to accustom myself to these possible future ways, but that does not mean I am weak or stupid."
Hours? She smiled. "I know that Jamie."
"Nor does that mean I have ceased being your lord. You will obey me in all things, as always."
"Of course, Jamie," she said meekly.
"And should you demand knowledge about this or that, I would give it to you because you required it, not because I thought you didn't know the answer already."
"Of course,"Jamie said arrogantly. "There would be no other reason to question you." Elizabeth suppressed her smile and was thankful that she was riding behind him so he didn't see the twinkle in her eyes. Heavens what an ego her husband had. ~ Lynn Kurland

Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God. ~ John Henry Newman

If a man's at odds to know his own mind it's because he hasn't got aught but his mind to know it with. ~ Cormac McCarthy

Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope? ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

There 's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 't is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is 't to leave betimes? Hamlet. V.2 ~ William Shakespeare

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. ~ Kahlil Gibran

How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire, that look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question?

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
Into the air; and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd! ~ William Shakespeare

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death. (moby dick chap 29 p123) ~ Herman Melville

I had requested all who might find aught meriting censure in my writings, to do me the favor of pointing it out to me, I may state that no objections worthy of remark have been alleged against what I then said on these questions except two, to which I will here briefly reply. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The one infinite is perfect , in simplicity , of itself, absolutely, nor can aught be greater or better, This is the one Whole, God , universal Nature , occupying all space, of whom naught but infinity can give the perfect image or semblance. ~ Giordano Bruno

Pounce had it easier than any of us. No one noticed a black cat in the street. He stopped here and there to sniff aught of interest. Wherever our Rat stopped, Pounce was there, close enough to see up the Rat's nose. I was so proud. Now there was a proper god, making himself useful!
Since my thought might be deemed blasphemy, I said silent prayers to the Goddess and to Mithros. I begged forgiveness and asked them not to misunderstand. Since I wasn't blasted where I stood, I guess they forgave me, or they hadn't heard my blasphemy. ~ Tamora Pierce

You swore to stay with me," he said. "When we made our oath, as parabatai. Our souls are knit. We are one person, James."
"We are two people," said Jem.
"Two people with a covenant between us."
Will knew he sounded like a child, but he could not help it.
"A covenant that says you must not go where I cannot come with you."
"Until death," Jem replied gently.
"Those are the words of the oath. 'Until
aught but death part thee and me.' Someday, Will, I will go where none can
follow me, and I think it will be sooner rather than later. ~ Cassandra Clare

She died without regaining consciousness and without pain they say, and whatever they mean by that since it has always seemed to me that the only painless death must be that which takes the intelligence by violent surprise and from the rear so to speak, since if death be anything at all beyond a brief and peculiar emotional state of the bereaved it must be a brief and likewise peculiar state of the subject as well. And if aught can be more painful to any intelligence above that of a child or an idiot than a slow and gradual confronting with that which over a long period of bewilderment and dread it has been taught to regard as an irrevocable and unplumable finality, I do not know it. ~ William Faulkner

In the Second Part of this Dialogue, that which hath already been shewn concerning the passive power of the universe is demonstrated for the active power of the efficient cause, set forth with arguments of which the first deriveth from the fact that divine power should not be otiose; particularly positing the effect thereof outside the substance thereof (if indeed aught can be outside it), and that it is no less otiose and invidious if it produce a finite effect than if it produce none. ~ Giordano Bruno

But independently of their money value, his works had made him a lasting name in literature. So probably Gallio was under the impression that his fame would rest upon the treatises on natural history which we gather from Seneca that he compiled, and which for aught we know may have contained a complete theory of evolution; but the treatises are all gone and Gallio has become immortal for the very last reason in the world that he expected, and for the very last reason that would have flattered his vanity. He has become immortal because he cared nothing about the most important movement with which he was ever brought into connection (I wish people who are in search of immortality would lay the lesson to heart and not make so much noise about important movements), and so, if Dr Skinner becomes immortal, it will probably be for some reason very different from the one which he so fondly imagined. ~ Samuel Butler

If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553). ~ Richard Baxter

Our Lord Jesus was not above letting folk minister to Him, for he knew how happy it makes one to do aught for another. It's the happiest work in earth. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins, lay on the King!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart's ease
Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!
And what have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony- save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?
O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Thinks thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose.
I am a king that find thee; and I know
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the ~ William Shakespeare

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing; that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;-and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me. ~ Laurence Sterne

When I Read the Book
When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.) ~ Walt Whitman

Nature allows
Destruction nor collapse of aught, until
Some outward force may shatter by a blow,
Or inward craft, entering its hollow cells,
Dissolve it down. ~ Lucretius

Not Chaos, not the darkest pit of lowest Erebus, nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out by help of dreams - can breed such fear and awe as fall upon us often when we look into our Minds, into the Mind of Man. ~ William Wordsworth

Nor aught so good but strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse. ~ William Shakespeare

Those true eyes Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise The sweet soul shining through them. ~ Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl Of Lytton

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us: ~ Kahlil Gibran

Happy those early days when I Shined in my Angel-infancy. Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And looking back (at that short space) Could see a glimpse of His bright face. When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity. ~ Henry Vaughan

MARTY - What? Wait one moment, Doc. What didst thou say?
Dost say my mother burneth hot for me?
DOC - Precisely thus.
MARTY - 'Tis heavy, by my troth.
DOC - There is the word, which thou dost use again:
'Tis heavy, all is heavy unto thee.
Why hath the future so much heaviness?
Hath aught disrupted something in the Earth,
Affecting its own pull of gravity? ~ Ian Doescher

Who is blameless? Only those that blame no one for aught that is, has been or may be. Only in creating hope, life, understanding, harmony, does one become blameless. For, as you understand, they that would be loved must show themselves lovely; they that would have friends must be a friend to others. For in the manner you treat others, you treat your Lord. Let that light which has aroused you be alive, awakened. Condemn no one. And as you come seeking, know, understand, as you create same in the lives of others so is it reflected in your own. ~ Edgar Cayce