First Born Quotes

A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy, the smile that accepts a lover before words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first born babe, and assures it of a mother's love. ~ Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Since we nowadays think that all a man needs for acquisition of truth is to exert his brain more or less vigorously, and since we consider an ascetic approach to knowledge hardly sensible, we have lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity. Thomas says that unchastity's first-born daughter is blindness of the spirit. Only he who wants nothing for himself, who not subjectively 'interested,' can know the truth. On the other hand, an impure, selfishly corrupted will-to-pleasure destroys both resoluteness of spirit and the ability of the psyche to listen in silent attention to the language of reality. ~ Josef Pieper

Queen Rhiannon of the House of Gwalchmai fab Gwyar.
First Born Daughter of Queen Addiena. First Born White ... "
"So," she cut him off before the litany of his mother's titles
forced her to stab herself in the neck ~ G.A. Aiken

I became a mother before becoming sick, but i never expected sickness to take away my independent mothering, so i plant trees to sooth my soul from the aching pains of losing the maternal ability to mother another child. My first born will be my only treasure, the one who knew who i was before the mess entered our lives and also the one who adapted with me to a reality we weren't certain of oh and lots of plants and plants and plants. ~ Nikki Rowe

People used to say my son looked like a Mexican Biggie. And when he was first born, memories of Biggie ... you know, we didn't always have the greatest days. For at least half the length of our marriage we were separated, so everyday was definitely not a good day. ~ Faith Evans

It was not unusual to be called Son of God in ancient Judaism. God calls David his son: "today I have begotten you" (Psalms 2:7). He even calls Israel his "first-born son" (Exodus 4:22). But in every case, Son of God is meant as a title, not a description. Paul's view of Jesus as the literal son of God is without precedence in second Temple Judaism. ~ Reza Aslan

The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion who have handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first-born of any, Nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children. In the Old Testament, the first-born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest, ~ Bob Marshall

He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him - the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were - large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy. ~ Charlotte Bronte

When joy and prayer are married, their first born child is gratitude. ~ Charles Spurgeon

When we were first born, Spirit was our predominate guide, but as we 'matured,' our society quickly cured us of that.

I learned later in my studies that any negative moaning I have about my life is only an affirmation of weakness and makes all those around me not want to be there.

Life is nothing more than a dance with God; we just need to follow His lead and quit stepping on His toes.

We must be able to release the things we hold dearest in order to truly have.

I believe you must know the feeling of hunger before you can truly taste and enjoy food, you can only recognize authenticity by experiencing fraud, and you can only experience true love after enduring heartache. Your level of awareness will increase as you experience the rawness of life on your path to becoming more.

God never gives you more than you can handle. He is perfect in His teaching.

Know that what comes around goes around, and what you're unable to forgive and let go will stay around.

We need to control what we think, what we say, and how we feel. It's our thoughts that produce our words, and our words lead to our actions. Our actions over time become habits, which form our character. Our character is what unfolds into our reality.

Life is not about a future someone, it's about 'becoming' someone and enjoying every step along the way. There's no need to wait - significance is available right now.

If you had to ~ Doug Burnett

Noah the first-born, tall and strange, walking always with a wondering look on his face, calm and puzzled. He had never been angry in his life. He looked in wonder at angry people, wonder and uneasiness, as normal people look at the insane. ~ John Steinbeck

True blues ain't no new news about who's been abused
For the blues is as old as my stolen soul
I sang the blues when the missionaries came
Passing out bibles in Jesus' name
I sang the blues in the hull of the ship
Beneath the sting of the slavemaster's whip
I sang the blues when the ship anchored the dark
My family being sold on a slave block
I sang the blues being torn from my first born
And hung my head and cried when my wife took his life
And then committed suicide.
I sang the blues on the slavemaster's plantation helping
Him build his free nation
I sang the blues in the cottonfield, hustlin' to make the daily yield
I sang the blues when he forced my woman to beg
Lord knows how I wished he was dead
I sang the blues on the run, ducking the dogs and dodging the gun
I sang the blues hanging from the tree in a desperate attempt to break free
I sang the blues when the sun went down, cursing the master when he wasn't around
I sang the blues in all these wars dying for some unknown cause
I sang the blues in a high tone, low moan, loud groan, soft grunt, hard funk
I sang the blues in land sea and air, about who when why and where
I sang the blues in church on sunday, slaving on monday, misused on tuesday, abused on wednesday, accused on thursday, fried alive on friday, and died on saturday.
Sho nuff singing the blues
I sang the blues in the summer, fall winter ~ Jalal Mansur Nuriddin

you're my first born child, and the person who first showed me the miracle of this love a mother has for her child. ~ Elizabeth Noble

Sobs, heavy, hoarse and loud, shook the chairs, and great tears fell through his fingers on the floor - just such tears, sir, as you dropped into the coffin where lay your first-born son; such tears, woman, as you shed when you heard the cries of your dying babe; for, sir, he was a man, and you are but another man; and, woman, though dressed in silk and jewels, you are but a woman, and, in life's great straits and mighty griefs, ye feel but one sorrow! ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Gravity's Rainbow"

Come on with me through ruined liplock
Across Tangian deserts we'll flock
Madcap Medusa flank my foghorn
We'll change four seasons with our first born.

All ships of sense on hyper ocean
All kinds of chaos still in motion
My culture vulture such a dab hand
I'll steal you from the year 4000

Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
I'll always be there
Uh-oh my future love
I'll always be there
For you, my future love

Your tears leave trails of Tick fall blur room
Autonoma the room is bloom groom
Those crippled lines that I can't get to
You'd slip through time but I won't let you

Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
I'll always be there
Uh-oh my future love
I'll always be there
For you, my future love

Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
I'll always be there
Uh-oh my future love
I'll always be there
For you, my future love

Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
Come with me, come with me
We'll travel to infinity
I'll always be there
Uh-oh my future love
I'll always be there
For you, my future love< ~ The Klaxons

I grabbed the case and gave it a cuddle. "My darling! Thank you. Come on in and have a coffee. Or a tea. Or my first-born child. You choose." "Well ... ""No, you must. You saved Vanessa's life." "Vanessa?""My violin. Come on, come in. I'll get out the proper stuff that actually comes from real beans." She took a hesitant step forward. "Are you sure you need any more caffeine?" I frowned. "Why do people always ask that?
Merrow, JL. Slam! (Kindle Locations 570-576). ~ J.L. Merrow

Freedom [is] the first-born daughter of science ~ Thomas Jefferson

Maria, lonely prostitute on a street of pain,
You, at least, hail me and speak to me
While a thousand others ignore my face.
You offer me an hour of love,
And your fees are not as costly as most.
You are the madonna of the lonely,
The first-born daughter in a world of pain.
You do not turn fat men aside,
Or trample on the stuttering, shy ones,
You are the meadow where desperate men
Can find a moment's comfort.

Men have paid more to their wives
To know a bit of peace
And could not walk away without the guilt
That masquerades as love.
You do not bind them, lovely Maria, you comfort them
And bid them return.
Your body is more Christian than the Bishop's
Whose gloved hand cannot feel the dropping of my blood.
Your passion is as genuine as most,
Your caring as real!

But you, Maria, sacred whore on the endless pavement of pain,
You, whose virginity each man may make his own
Without paying ought but your fee,
You who know nothing of virgin births and immaculate conceptions,
You who touch man's flesh and caress a stranger,
Who warm his bed to bring his aching skin alive,
You make more sense than stock markets and football games
Where sad men beg for virility.
You offer yourself for a fee--and who offers himself for less?

At times you are cruel and demanding--harsh and insensitive,
At times you are shrewd and dece ~ James Kavanaugh

You can only have one first born child. You may love all your children deeply and with passion, but there is something unique about the first born. ~ Raymond E. Feist

But that was where his excitement began to melt into cold anxiety. His dad had been the Gryffindor Seeker, the youngest one in Hogwarts history. The best he, James, could hope for was to match that record. That's what everyone would expect of him, the first-born son of the famous hero. He remembered the story, told to him dozens of times (although never by his own dad) of how the young Harry Potter had won his first Golden Snitch by virtually jumping off his broom, catching the golden ball in his mouth and nearly swallowing it. The tellers of the tale would always laugh uproariously, delightedly, and if Dad was there, he'd smile sheepishly as they clapped him on the back. When James was four, he found that famed Snitch in a shoe box in the bottom of the dining room hutch. His mum told him it'd been a gift to Dad from the old school headmaster. The tiny wings no longer worked, and the golden ball had a thin coat of dust and tarnish on it, but James was mesmerized by it. It was the first Snitch he had ever seen close up. It seemed both smaller and larger than he'd imagined, and the weight of it in his small hand was surprising. This is the famous Snitch, James thought reverently, the one from the story, the one caught by my dad. He asked his dad if he could keep it, stored in the shoebox when he wasn't playing with it, in his room. His dad agreed easily, happily, and James moved the shoebox from the bottom of the hutch to a spot under the head of his bed, next to his toy broom. ~ G. Norman Lippert

When you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children, ~ Bob Marshall

The sleep that flits on baby's eyes - does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes.
The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps - does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning - the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps.
The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs - does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love - the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I wish, when I was first born, the first thing I said was "Quote" so the last thing I said before I died would be "Unquote. ~ Steven Wright

My name is Ferrum. I was the first, born of the forges, when mankind first began to experiment with iron. I rose from their imagination, from their ambition to conquer the world with a metal that could slice through bronze like paper. I was there when the world started to shift, when humans took their first steps out of the Dark Ages into civilization. For many years, I thought I was alone. But mankind is never satisfied. Others came, risen from these dreams of a new world ... Then, with the invention of computers, the gremlins came, and the bugs. Given life by the fear of monsters lurking in machines, these were more chaotic than the other fey, violent and destructive. They spread to every part of the world. As technology became a driving force in every country, powerful new fey rose into existence. Virus. Glitch. And Machina, the most powerful of all. ~ Julie Kagawa

Hey, where are you going?" His voice, confused yet curious, called after me. "Hey. Why didn't your mother name you Maybe, or We'll see, or What's-Your-Number? That way, we could call our first born Absolutely. ~ Linda Kage

I have lifted my plane ... for perhaps a thousand flights and I have never felt her wheels glide from the Earth into the air without knowing the uncertainty and the exhilaration of first-born adventure. ~ Beryl Markham

Every parent craves for a child, and once their wishes come true, they feel that it's not possible for them to love anyone more that the first born. But the fact is, after you have the second issue, the feeling is, how can I not love the kid? ~ Kajol

The Elder is called Dee, first-born, of the Yarbrough lineage, whose landname is VaWaco. ~ Mary Doria Russell

Fortunately the essence of this revelation did not escape Mary despite the angel's obscure speech, and, much surprised, she asked him, So Jesus is my son and the son of the Lord, Woman, what are you saying, show some respect for rank and precedence, what you must say is the son of the Lord and me, Of the Lord and of you, No, of the Lord and of you, You're confusing me, just answer my question, is Jesus our son, You mean to say the Lord's son because you only served to bear the child, So the Lord didn't choose me, Don't be absurd ( ... ) Is there any real proof that it was the Lord's seed which engendered my first-born, Well, it's a delicate matter, and what you're demanding is nothing less than a paternity test which in these mixed unions, no matter how many analyses, tests, and globule counts one carries out, can never give conclusive results. ~ Jose Saramago

She, the first-born daughter of water, faced
darkness and smiled. Took mystery as her
lover and raised light as her child. Man that
shit was wild. You should have seen how
they ran. She woke up in an alley with a gun
in her hand. Tupac in lotus form, Ennis' blood
on his hands. ~ Saul Williams

I might screw up, I might embarrass you, I might yell at you, but I will never, ever stop loving you. You're my first born. The first time I held you ... I fell in love so hard it cracked my bones. ~ Kristin Hannah

In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. ~ Herman Melville

Stephen ... you know how, when a baby is first born, it just cries at the sheer horror of being alive? ~ Bryan Lee O'Malley

On pillow after pillow lies
The wild white hair and staring eyes;
Jaws stand open; necks are stretched
With every tendon sharply sketched;
A bearded mouth talks silently
To someone no one else can see.

Sixty years ago they smiled
At lover, husband, first-born child.

Smiles are for youth. For old age come
Death's terror and delirium.

- Heads in the Women's Ward ~ Philip Larkin

After deliberating my options for a split second, I rolled my chair over to watch him tattoo the guy he had hunched over, working on an old pirate ship right smack on the middle of the man's brawny shoulder.

I didn't say a word as I watched him, not wanting to distract him from the man who had been all too excited to request Slim's work an hour before.

But my friend Slim had other thoughts. His green eyes flashed up at me. "What was that about?"

"Huh?" I played stupid.

Slim pulled the gun off the customer's skin, dabbing at the beaded blood before continuing with a shake of his head. "Since when are you guys BFFs?"

I'd learned over the last month how chatty all the guys were, well, specifically Slim and Blake. If I answered his question just remotely weird, I'd bet my first born Slim would jump to some kind of crazy conclusion that I wanted no part of. So I went with the truth. "I heard him fart last night. It kind of broke the ice."

The little whistle he let out told me that was good enough. He snorted and raised an eyebrow before getting back to work. "That'll do it. ~ Mariana Zapata

Every morning, when people are getting up in the tent, the babies are crying, people are pushing each other at the taps outside and some children are already pulling the crusts of porridge off the pots we ate from last night, my first-born brother and I clean our shoes. Our grandmother makes us sit on our mats with our legs straight out so she can look carefully at our shoes to make sure we have done it properly. No other children in the tent have real school shoes. When we three look at them it's as if we are in a real house again, with no war, no away. ~ Nadine Gordimer

My first-born. All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread. Can you beat that?Eight children and that's all I remember. ~ Toni Morrison

My hopes were all dead
struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which had been my master's
which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr Rochester's arms
it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted
confidence destroyed! ~ Charlotte Bronte

Homer's Hymn to Venus

Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862; dated 1818.

Verses 1-55, with some omissions.

Muse, sing the deeds of golden Aphrodite,
Who wakens with her smile the lulled delight
Of sweet desire, taming the eternal kings
Of Heaven, and men, and all the living things
That fleet along the air, or whom the sea,
Or earth, with her maternal ministry,
Nourish innumerable, thy delight
All seek ... O crowned Aphrodite!
Three spirits canst thou not deceive or quell: -
Minerva, child of Jove, who loves too well
Fierce war and mingling combat, and the fame
Of glorious deeds, to heed thy gentle flame.
Diana ... golden-shafted queen,
Is tamed not by thy smiles; the shadows green
Of the wild woods, the bow, the...
And piercing cries amid the swift pursuit
Of beasts among waste mountains, - such delight
Is hers, and men who know and do the right.
Nor Saturn's first-born daughter, Vesta chaste,
Whom Neptune and Apollo wooed the last,
Such was the will of aegis-bearing Jove;
But sternly she refused the ills of Love,
And by her mighty Father's head she swore
An oath not unperformed, that evermore
A virgin she would live mid deities
Divine: her father, for such gentle ties
Renounced, gave glorious gifts - thus in his hall
She sits and feeds luxuriously. O'er all
In every fane, her honours first ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Abortion is not allowed
because apparently it is against the law of god.
Yes, that butter-wouldn't-melt deity
who ordered babies to be slaughtered,
killed all the first-born in Egypt
And caused an entire human race to drown.

From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god"
(Scourges of an imaginary god) ~ A.J. Beirens

Heads in the Women's Ward
On pillow after pillow lies
The wild white hair and staring eyes;
Jaws stand open; necks are stretched
With every tendon sharply sketched;
A bearded mouth talks silently
To someone no one else can see.
Sixty years ago they smiled
At lover, husband, first-born child.
Smiles are for youth. For old age come
Death's terror and delirium. ~ Philip Larkin

She is an angel, how bad could it be?"
"Ask the first born of Israel when the Pharaoh pissed off Moses. Ask the salty residents of Sodom. Ask anyone who was not Noah or a fish once the Flood rolled in. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
And sweet thyme true,
Primrose, first born child of Ver,
Merry Spring-time's harbinger. ~ Francis Beaumont

I won't forgive this wrong done to me and my house, whoever it was that killed my boys, I shall put a curse on their house that they will have no first born son to inherit. Whoever took my son will lose his son. He will spend his life longing for an heir. He will bury his first born and long for him, for I cannot even bury mine. ~ Philippa Gregory

Course. Your first-born - Cain and Abel. ~ John Steinbeck

I run a charity. If my name pops up in your call ID, chances are I'm about to ask you for something - money, free ad space, your first born. So it is probably no surprise that people often don't take my calls. ~ Nancy Lublin

Most dreams die a slow death. They're conceived in a moment of passion, with the prospect of endless possibility, but often languish and are not pursued with the same heartfelt intensity as when first born. Slowly, subtly, a dream becomes elusive and ephemeral. People who've lost their own dreams become pessimists and cynics. They feel like the time and devotion spent on chasing their dreams were wasted. The emotional scars last forever. ~ Dean Karnazes

All the women that are first born daughters in my family are named Mary, but we've all been given nicknames. I don't know how or why that started, but I'm nicknamed after my great-grandmother, who was Mamie. No one ever calls me Mary, except only if my husband is very serious about something. ~ Mamie Gummer

It almost sounds sensible when you say it," Prince First-Born Splendor said. "Even though I know better. ~ Michael Swanwick

Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC [Project for the New American Century] Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. ~ Cindy Sheehan

Whores, instead of claiming what's rightfully yours. Pierced a hole in my heart from all the pain you caused, with no direction you left your first born lost. ~ Ja Rule

How could I not fall in love with him," she asked. And on the tail end of her words, her bedroom door flew open and closed just as fast.

Jen bent over, panting heavily as she looked up at Sally.

"Hey Sally girl. Who we falling in love with?" Jen asked breathlessly.

"Jen, what's wrong?" Sally paused and then decided on a better question. "What have you done now?"

Jen stood up and took two deep breaths. Seeming to have regained her wind, she spoke quickly.

"First off, I've changed my mind. I don't want you to name your first born after me."

Sally interrupted. "Thank goodness for that," she muttered.

"I want you to name your entire freaking litter after me," Jen growled. "Do you know what I've been through?" Jen's arms were flinging around as she glared at Sally. "I did that little strip tease to try and keep things from escalating with the rest of the pack and Decebel was beyond pissed. I had to sneak out of the gathering room and make a run for it. I've been running through the freaking forest trying to throw him off by changing back and forth so that I could place my clothes that I carried in my freaking muzzle. CARRIED IN MY MUZZLE SALLY! I put them in different places to throw off him off my scent." Jen went over to Sally's window and was trying to judge the danger of using it as an exit. ~ Quinn Loftis

This is overdue. Quite a bit, I'm afraid. I apologize. We moved to Topeka when I was very small, and Mother accidentally packed it up with the linens. I have traveled a long way to return it, and I know the fine must be large, but I have no money. As it is a book of fairy tales, I thought payment of a first-born child would be acceptable. I always loved the library. I'm sure she'll be happy there. ~ Ellen Klages

Charley looked over at him. "About how much you and Jesse have in common."

Jesse said, "Why don't you tell it, Bob; if you remember."

Bob inched forward in his chair. "Well, if you'll pardon my saying so, it is interesting, the many ways you and I overlap and whatnot. You begin with my daddy, J.T. Ford. J stands for James! And T is Thomas, meaning 'twin.' Your daddy was a pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church; my daddy was part-time pastor of a church at Excelsior Springs. You're the youngest of the three James boys; I'm the youngest of the five Ford boys. You had twins as sons, I had twins as sisters. Frank is four and a half years older than you, which incidentally is the difference between Charley and me, the two outlaws in the Ford clan. Between us is another brother, Wilbur here (with six letters in his name); between Frank and you was a brother, Robert, also with six letters. Robert died in infancy, as most everyone knows, and he was named after your father, Robert, who was remembered by your brother's first-born, another Robert. Robert, of course, is my Christian name. My uncle, Robert Austin Ford, has a son named Jesse James Ford. You have blue eyes; I have blue eyes. You're five feet eight inches tall; I'm five feet eight inches tall. We're both hot-tempered and impulsive and devil-may-care. Smith and Wesson is our preferred make of revolver. There's the same number of letters and syllables in our names; I mean, Jesse James and Robert Ford. Oh m ~ Ron Hansen

The only thing that was sharper and that scarred more was the selfish actions of those you loved when they made it crystal clear that they cared more for themselves than they did for you. Especially when it was someone you trusted to always put you first. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Relatively many autists are first-born children. There is also a pretty widespread conviction that the parents of autists are somehow different - for instance, many of them are very serious people or people who are themselves under some sort of strain. ~ Nikolaas Tinbergen

You should name a variable using the same care with which you name a first-born child. ~ Robert C. Martin

What shall I do, singer and first-born, in a
world where the deepest black is grey,
and inspiration is kept in a thermos?
with all this immensity
in a measured world? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

The Greek city-states politicised citizen and subject, creating institutions that were way ahead of anything in China or India. The politicians of antiquity exercised a political and military, if not economic, hegemony on the culture as a whole. The idea of democracy was first born and practised here. ~ Tariq Ali

Unbelief was the first sin, and pride was the first-born of it. ~ Stephen Charnock

physicists were almost all either first-born sons or eldest sons. Theoretical physicists averaged the highest verbal IQ's among all scientists studied, clustering around 170, almost 20 percent higher than the experimentalists.524 Theoreticians also averaged the highest spatial IQ's, experimentalists ranking second. ~ Richard Rhodes

God sent the Egyptians ten plagues that became increasingly harder, one after the other, starting with blood, and ending with the death of the first born. Similarly, debt sometimes starts with charging just a couple of extra dollars to our credit cards when we want something we can't afford to pay cash for. Before long, it might turn into a second mortgage on our house. Debt can kill our future and take our house with it. ~ Celso Cukierkorn

I didn't grow up wealthy. We couldn't even afford spaghetti sauce when I was first born, but my mom and dad worked really hard and came from the bottom up. ~ Charlie Puth

A very interesting scene appears in the Bible right after the ten plagues. The Egyptians had enslaved the Jews and mistreated them, then they were punished severely, having their economy devastated and life as they had known it taken away from them by the effects of the ten plagues. But as the Jews were about to leave Egypt, the Egyptians gave the Jews all of their jewelry. Remember, these were people who had just lost their first born children. This was an amazing gesture of blessing from the ones who had cursed you. It would have been very easy for the Egyptians to have fallen into the "victim mode". Instead it was much more empowering for the Egyptians to take this as an experience never to be repeated. ~ Celso Cukierkorn

The smile that flickers on a baby's lips when he sleeps- does anyone know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I will do anything for Guillermo del Toro, if he asked me. I would give him my first-born child. ~ Robert Kazinsky

When the time came that His first-born, the Saviour, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came Himself and favoured that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. ~ Brigham Young

Look at the two of us, barely out of childhood and already we're too old-fashioned for this changing world. Is it possible to be born old? Because I certainly feel it sometimes. How can we hope to stand against unstoppable progress; how can we possibly win a war against the forces of science?"
Oskan snorted.
"Which question do you want me to answer first? Born old? Yes, right now I feel ninety. And as for the rest, we're not fighting progress or science, they're both ideas that belong to people. Ideas that should help us to understand the beauty of our world and improve the lives of everything that lives in it. But the Empire has kidnapped them, and progress of its sort means sweeping aside everything that isn't new, whether good or bad. And to the Empire science is just a means of creating more efficient ways of killing people. ~ Stuart Hill

We love, simply because we're loved. God's love comes first, and ours is just a response. We didn't trigger it - He did. ~ Susan May Warren

When I first started playing golf, I was heavily into softball and basketball. ~ Paula Creamer

They proved that it was possible to produce beauty in life by surrounding life with
beauty. They discovered that symmetrical bodies were built by souls continuously in the presence of
symmetrical bodies; that noble thoughts were produced by minds surrounded by examples of mental
nobility. Conversely, if a man were forced to look upon an ignoble or asymmetrical structure it would
arouse within him a sense of ignobility which would provoke him to commit ignoble deeds. If an illproportioned building were erected in the midst of a city there would be ill-proportioned children born in
that community; and men and women, gazing upon the asymmetrical structure, would live inharmonious
lives. Thoughtful men of antiquity realized that their great philosophers were the natural products of the
aesthetic ideals of architecture, music, and art established as the standards of the cultural systems of the time. ~ Manly P. Hall

To be rich or well-born was a crime: men were prosecuted for holding or for refusing office: merit of any kind meant certain ruin. Nor were the Informers more hated for their crimes than for their prizes: some carried off a priesthood or the consulship as their spoil, others won offices and influence in the imperial household: the hatred and fear they inspired worked universal havoc. Slaves were bribed against their masters, freedmen against their patrons, and, if a man had no enemies, he was ruined by his friends. ~ Tacitus

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one. ~ Taylor Swift

THE CREATIVITY IS JUST SOMETHING THAT, I DON'T KNOW, YOU WORK VERY HARD AT, BUT PART OF YOU SAYS THAT YOU WERE BORN WITH IT. IT'S A CRAFT LIKE EVERY OTHER, YOU HAVE TO KEEP SHARP AND YOU HAVE TO BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS. ~ Jon Bon Jovi

Buses come and go. People get off and walk quickly, maybe because of the cold. Others board slowly, not wanting to get home, to work, or to school. But no one shows any anger or enthusiasm; they're not happy or sad, just poor souls mechanically carrying out the mission that the universe assigned on the day they were born. ~ Paulo Coelho

I felt most beautiful on the red carpet in Givenchy's sheer lace dress at a dinner hosted by Givenchy in honor of Marina Abramovich at the closing of her Museum of Modern Art retrospective, 'The Artist is Present', in 2010. It was the first time I had been dressed for an event, and everybody just fell in love with the dress. ~ Joan Smalls

Zarina gave her a sad smile. "I wish it could be. But, like Spencer, Tanner is constantly worried about hurting me or someone else who's important to him. That's why he's been living here on his own for the past two months. He thinks that's the only way to keep people safe."

Lillie let out a sound of frustration. "What is it with guys? Spencer's has said the exact same thing to me a dozen times. He thinks it'd be better for everyone if he goes to Alaska and lives alone in the wilderness. Are all men born with the same macho crap in their DNA? ~ Paige Tyler

How strange it all was. Wouldn't it be a lot less messy if everyone just stayed with the people they married in the first place? ~ Liane Moriarty

You can boil your life down to a single suitcase, if you desperately have to. Ask yourself what you really need, and it won't be what you imagine - you will easily toss aside unfinished work, and bills, and your daily calendar to make room for the pair of flannel pajamas you wear when it rains; and the stone your child gave you that is shaped like a heart; and the battered paperback you revisit every April because it was what you were reading the first time you fell in love. It turns out that what's important is not everything that you've accumulated all these years, but those few things you can carry with you. ~ Jodi Picoult

If we were building a consciousness detector, Searle would want it to ascertain that it was squirting biological neurotransmitters. American philosopher Daniel Dennett (born in 1942) would be more flexible on substrate, but might want to determine whether or not the system contained a model of itself and of its own performance. That view comes closer to my own, but at its core is still a philosophical assumption. ~ Ray Kurzweil

Dan was the first to speak, his words blurred by the roar of the cascading water. "Pools," he said. "What about the pools?" "Poos?" Amy said. "What poos?" Atticus asked. "Bird poos? It's called guano. Actually, it's pretty interesting how many different words there are for animal poos. Guano, dung, droppings, spoors, cow pies, buffalo chips ... One of my favorites is fewmets." Dan said, "But I didn't - " "Fewmets - that's from medieval times, the poo you find when an animal is being hunted on a quest." Atticus was on a roll again. "And did you know that otter poo is called spraints?" "Why do otters get their own word for poo?" Jake wondered. "I love otters, they're so playful," Amy said. "Spraints - what a funny word." "Enough with the poos!" Dan yelled. Then he looked at Atticus. "I mean, it's cool - especially about the spraints, I didn't know that before - but I didn't say poos. ~ Linda Sue Park

Writer's block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows. ~ Joseph Campbell

The moment you have a child, in an instant your life is not for you, and your life is completely, 100 percent dedicated to another human being, and they will always come first. It changes you forever. It changes your perspective, and it gives you a nice purpose and focus. ~ Angelina Jolie

Eddie Murphy was my guy for a long time. My first exposure to 'SNL' was his 'Best Of' VHS, and I would watch it over and over again. He was one of the few people on the show to play with the live elements and engage with the audience. ~ Taran Killam

Imagination is essential and it comes first, for without imagination we are aimless. ~ C. Northcote Parkinson

It's the first day of spring. That means this weekend I'll take down my Christmas lights. ~ David Letterman

The nineteenth century will ever be known as the one in which the influences of science were first fully realised in civilised communities; the scientific progress was so gigantic that it seems rash to predict that any of its successors can be more important in the life of any nation. ~ Norman Lockyer

If only he could take her, ease this endless ache ... but having lain with her once, he might want her even more afterward. In mathematics, one could take a finite figure and divide its content infinitely, with the result that even though the content was unchanged, the magnitude of its bounds went on forever. Potential infinity. It was the first time Cam had ever comprehended the concept in the form of a woman. ~ Lisa Kleypas

was too good to turn down, and so she and Berthe left for the States together. They'd suggested that Carol and Imogen might like to come too, but it would have been almost impossible for Carol to get a work visa, and besides, she was uneasy about raising her daughter in New York. It was Madame Fournier who found her the housekeeper's job in the Delissandes' holiday home in Hendaye, seven hundred kilometres away. There had been tears at their departure, but Imogen didn't remember them. She didn't remember the flight to Biarritz. No matter how hard she tried, her first clear memory was of the gates of the Villa Martine opening and of Denis Delissandes yelling at his sons. The sudden sound of a mobile ringtone startled her so much that she jumped and instinctively put her hand into her bag, before remembering that her phone was in its component parts and scattered around France. At the same time, a man walking out of a doorway took his own phone from his ~ Sheila O'Flanagan

In a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at the back of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall. She trembled and twitched as I kissed the corner of her parted lips and the hot lobe of her ear. A cluster of stars palely glowed above us between the silhouettes of long thin leaves; that vibrant sky seemed as naked as she was under her light frock. I saw her face in the sky, strangely distinct, as if it emitted a faint radiance of its own. Her legs, her lovely live legs, were not too close together, and when my hand located what it sought, a dreamy and eerie expression, half-pleasure, half-pain, came over those childish features. She sat a little higher than I, and whenever in her solitary ecstasy she was led to kiss me, her head would bend with a sleepy, soft, drooping movement that was almost woeful, and her bare knees caught and compressed my wrist, and slackened again; and her quivering mouth, distorted by the acridity of some mysterious potion, with a sibilant intake of breath came near to my face. She would try to relieve the pain of love by first roughly rubbing her dry lips against mine; then my darling would draw away with a nervous toss of her hair, and then again come darkly near and let me feed on her open mouth, while with a generosity that was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

I wrote my first script, which was 50 pages, at age 15. It was about two brothers in love with the same nurse while they're convalescing in a Civil War hospital. ~ Cary Fukunaga

Do not think of him with Blay. Do not think of him with Blay. Do not think of him -
"I didn't know you were a sherry man."
"Huh?" Qhuinn glanced down at what he'd poured himself. Fuck. In the midst of the self-lecture, he'd picked up the wrong bottle. "Oh, you know… I'm good with it."
To prove the point, he tossed back the hooch - and nearly choked as the sweetness hit his throat.
He served himself another only so he didn't look like the kind of idiot who wouldn't know what he was dishing out into his own glass.
Okay, gag. The second was worse than the first.
From out of the corner of his eye, he watched Saxton settle in at the table, the brass lamp in front of him casting the most perfect glow over his face. Shiiiiiit, he looked like something out of a Ralph Lauren ad, with his buff-colored tweed jacket and his pointed pocket square and that button-down/sweater vest combo keeping his fucking liver cozy.
Meanwhile, Qhuinn was sporting hospital scrubs, bare feet. And sherry. ~ J.R. Ward

all those days I was walkin' on the streets, I kept thinkin' how special you got to be to get born. ~ Walter Mosley

The Beatles first appeared on our show on February 9, 1964, and I have never seen any scenes to compare with the bedlam that was occasioned by their debut. Broadway was jammed with people for almost eight blocks. They screamed, yelled, and stopped traffic. It was indescribable ... There has never been anything like it in show business, and the New York City police were very happy it didn't - and wouldn't - happen again. ~ Ed Sullivan

Zeroth law: You must play the game
First law: You can't win
Second law: You can't break even
Third law: You can't quit the game. ~ C.P. Snow

I didn't look to the shore much after this first long and memorable glimpse. I looked up at Heaven and her court of mythical creatures fixed forever in the all powerful and inscrutable stars. Ink black was the night beyond them, and they so like jewels that old poetry came back to me, the sound even of hymns sung only by men. ~ Anne Rice

We may make progress only by freeing ourselves from the rut of the past, but without this rut an orderly society would hardly be possible in the first place. ~ Robert Heilbroner

Good horror is written by people who understand that fear is one of the cardinal passageways into the core of humanity. Good horror is generally written by folks who grew up on horror; books, movies, etc. You can't simply decide to write - in any genre - if you don't first have an understanding of the topic and a strong mental backlog of reference. ~ Alistair Cross

Most of the different types of cells in our body die and are replaced every few weeks or months. However, neurons, the primary cell of the nervous system, do not multiply (for the most part) after we are born. That means that the majority of the neurons in your brain today are as old as you are. This longevity of the neurons partially accounts for why we feel pretty much the same on the inside at the age of 10 as we do at age 30 or 77. ~ Jill Bolte Taylor

Acknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world - water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution - if we tackle them with courage and foresight. ~ Jimmy Carter