Grand Designs Quotes

The noble person who has eaten of his lord's bounty should die in his lord's battles; to return to one's home dead and wrapped in a horse's hide is a happy fate. Am I the sort of people to bring to nought the grand designs of my country? ~ Zhou Yu

How, then, did it happen that this same France forty years later came to be crushed on the battlefield by a nation it outnumbered fivefold? Why should its noblemen be split up into factions, its bourgeoisie in revolt, its people overwhelmed by excessive taxation, its provinces lawless and plagued by roving gangs engaged in pillaging and crime, all authority flouted, the currency weakened, trade at a standstill, and poverty and violence rife everywhere? Why this collapse? What caused this reversal of fortune? It was mediocrity. The mediocrity of just a few kings, their vanity and self-importance, their frivolousness in the conduct of their affairs, their inability to attract talented advisors, their nonchalance, their presumptuousness, their failure to draw up grand designs or even to follow those already conceived. ~ Maurice Druon

One must recently have lived on or close to a college campus to have a vivid intimation of what has happened. It is there that we see how a number of energetic social innovators, plugging their grand designs, succeeded over the years in capturing the liberal intellectual imagination. And since ideas rule the world, the ideologues, having won over the intellectual class, simply walked in and started to run things. Run just about everything. There never was an age of conformity quite like this one, or a camaraderie quite like the Liberals'. ~ William F. Buckley, Jr.

Great and glorious events which dazzle the beholder are represented by politicians as the outcome of grand designs whereas they are usually products of temperaments and passions. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

In the hands of politicians grand designs achieve nothing but new forms of the old misery ... ~ John Le Carre

All thrones should be made of ice, I think.

Sit on that numb arse, sinking down and down, with the puddle of dissolution getting ever wider around you. Sit, dear ruler, and tell me all your grand designs. ~ Steven Erikson

He was an awkward mixture of strong moral impulse and restless aesthetic curiosity, and yet he would have made a most ineffective reformer and a very indifferent artist. It seemed to him that the glow of happiness must be found either in action, of some immensely solid kind, on behalf of an idea, or in producing a masterpiece in one of the arts. ~ Henry James

I know lots of things you don't"
"Name five."
"The Grand Unification Theory, tax law, binary, the capital of Azerbailan, and how tractors work. ~ Daniel Nayeri

You are going to fail at a lot of things, so when you do, do it on such a grand scale that half the room gives you a standing ovation, and the other half gives you the middle finger. ~ Brittany Gibbons

When you don't cultivate your own sensuality, you won't have much to offer in your relationship(s) especially in the long-run. ~ Lebo Grand

Desperate times require desperate measures. What Lincoln and the Lobbyist for the Amendment and the Manager of the Amendment and himself, what they did to get this passed was not illegal. It was murky, but what they did was noble and grand. How they went about it was somewhat murky, but nothing they did was really illegal. ~ Steven Spielberg

I think if I'm serious about affecting people with music, I have to affect people on a human to human level, not on a grand social idea or political idea, it has to be a human being idea so it has to be what's inside a human being. ~ Ziggy Marley

Dear Friend, Just a line to show that I am alive & kicking and going grand. It's a treat. ~ Carl Sagan

With stuff this big, almost any way of looking at it can be true. We all talked like we were going to eventually reach some grand conclusion, some correct stance, but in fact it was different for everybody, impossible to pin down. Was childbirth traumatic or transcendent? Was pregnancy a time of wonder and awe or a kind of temporary disability? Were we supposed to fit our lives around our children or fit our children into our lives? My feelings changed every minute, depending on my mood and on the company I kept. It felt essential, though, to keep asking the question. ~ Meaghan O'Connell

Grand," I said. "Just grand. I get myself into the army, stand up in battles I have no business in, get nailed in the back by sorcery, accept an impossible assignment to be carried out in the middle of it all, and then, just to top things off, I have to go have a mystical fucking experience. This is just great. ~ Steven Brust

Bergeron's epitaph for the planet, i remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the grand canyon for the flying-saucer people to find was this:
WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT,
BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE CHEAP.
only he didn't say doggone. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

A forty and a blunt, that's all she really wants. ~ Grand Puba

Originally I was supposed to do Grand Prix, but I was under contract to 20th Century Fox at that time and Alex North was supposed to do Sand Pebbles, but he got sick, so Fox preempted me out of Grand Prix, and to my good fortune, I got to do Sand Pebbles. It was my first time working with Robert Wise and it was a great experience. ~ Jerry Goldsmith

I had an opportunity to meet Elvis, only once. It was at the MGM Grand. It was certainly not at the height of his career. No, it wasn't at the height of his career, but it was still a thrill to see him and meet him anyway. You know? ~ Lesley Gore

A market does not culminate in one grand blaze of glory. Neither does it end with a sudden reversal of form. A market can and does often cease to be a bull market long before prices generally begin to break. ~ Jesse Lauriston Livermore

Theory is relevant to you because it shows you a new, simpler, and more elegant side of computers, which we normally consider to be complicated machines. The best computer designs and applications are conceived with elegance in mind. A theoretical course can heighten your aesthetic sense and help you build more beautiful systems. ~ Michael Sipser

How deep and passionate your relationship will grow will depend on how in touch you are with your own sensuality. ~ Lebo Grand

Famous for his 'Maverick' Western series in the 1950s and 'The Rockford Files' in the '70s, and in movies like 'The Great Escape' and 'Grand Prix' in between, James Garner played amiable, independent characters for more than a half-century and never lost his comforting, enduring appeal. ~ Richard Corliss

What are you looking at?"

"I was thinking about becoming a lady of the night."

"What?"

"There's actually an ad looking for one. Can you believe it? It pays a grand a week."

"Shit, for a grand a week, "I'll become a lady of the night. ~ L.A. Fiore

I love you," he said again. "I don't expect you to profess any grand feelings for me yet. So long as you give me time, I know I can learn to be worthy of you. ~ Elizabeth Camden

There are really only two ways to react to the extraordinary. The first is to ponder the grand purpose until all the fun is sucked away, the second is to enjoy it. ~ Victor LaValle

All too frequently the amateur will purchase a fine modern camera and proceed to use it for making the most elementary simple snapshots. This surely is like playing 'Chopsticks' on a concert grand piano. ~ Sam Haskins

I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also. ~ John McCain

It didn't feel like an exalted business - there was nothing grand about it. It hadn't felt noble and righteous, it felt rough and ugly and bloody and cruel. It was what was necessary, that was all. ~ Lev Grossman

Sensuality is measured by the level of your desire, not by the level of your indulgence. ~ Lebo Grand

The universe is full of echoes and shadows, the afterimages and last words of dead civilizations that have lost the struggle against entropy. Fading ripples in the cosmic background radiation, it is doubtful if most, or any, of these messages will ever be deciphered. Likewise, most of our thoughts and memories are destined to fade, to disappear, to be consumed by the very act of choosing and living. That is not a cause for sorrow, sweetheart. It is the fate of every species to disappear into the void that is the heat death of the universe. But long before then, the thoughts of any intelligent species worthy of the name will become as grand as the universe itself. ~ Ken Liu

Like no one else ... you share that part of my mind that associates itself mostly with ideal things and places ... The impression thinking about you gives me is very closely linked with that given me by a lonely hillside or a sunny afternoon ... or books that have meant more to me than I can explain ... This is grand, but still it isn't enough for this world ... The earthly and obvious part of me longs to see and touch you and realise you as tangible. ~ Vera Brittain

There may be rhetoric about the socially constructed nature of Western science, but wherever it matters, there is no alternative. There are no specifically Hindu or Taoist designs for mobile phones, faxes or televisions. There are no satellites based on feminist alternatives to quantum theory. Even that great public sceptic about the value of science, Prince Charles, never flies a helicopter burning homeopathically diluted petrol, that is, water with only a memory of benzine molecules, maintained by a schedule derived from reading tea leaves, and navigated by a crystal ball. ~ Simon Blackburn

Unless was a sword held carefully by the blade. A single slip and all the delicate designs could fall apart in a clatter of severed fingers. ~ Sean DeLauder

According to news reports, members of the sect believed in an assortment of pseudoreligious and paranormal ideas, including resurrection (obviously), astrology, and psychic powers. They were also avid watchers of paranormal shows on TV. This of course does not imply that watching The X-Files leads to suicide, just like millions of people playing Grand Theft Auto video games are not automatically turned into criminals on a rampage. ~ Massimo Pigliucci

Why did the Clinton Administration continue to liberalize export controls on sensitive technologies even after it learned that China had stolen designs? ~ Charles Bass

The particular aspect of history which both attracts and benefits its readers is the examination of causes and the capacity, which is the reward of this study, to decide in each case the best policy to follow. Now in all political situations we must understand that the principle factor which makes for success or failure is the form of a state's constitution: it is from this source, as if from a fountainhead, that all designs and plans of action not only originate but reach their fulfillment. ~ Polybius

Just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully nothing happens before-"
Lightning crackled overhead. The wind picked up with a vengeance. Worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.
"I had to say something," Hedge grumbled. He bellowed into his megaphone: "Everyone inside! The cow says moo! Off the skywalk!"
"I thought you said this thing was stable!" Jason shouted over the wind.
"Under normal circumstances," Hedge agreed, "which these aren't. ~ Rick Riordan

You see two people together. They're in a relationship. It's really power that holds those people together. And when the designs of power change, those people will separate and there's nothing they can do in the meantime about it. ~ Frederick Lenz

I am surprising myself [at] each show, and the delivered piano often surprises me. Sometimes the piano is so old that I don't have to prepare it, and sometimes I have a concert grand! ~ Volker Bertelmann

I've remembered that most of life is about small, essential connections, so unobtrusive, so elastic, that you scarcely realize they're actually holding you together. The big ones-the great, grand emotional bonds-those are the ones that break, the ones that fail you, the ones that give way and send you careening toward the foot of the bleak and jagged canyon. It's the tough, gnarled, unadorned ties that really do bind, that never let you fall all the way down into darkness. ~ Sharon Shinn

One-night stands are grand & all. But it hardly gives a man time to learn what a woman really likes." I lower my voice. "Like from the way you squealed when I fingered you from behind, I'm wondering how you'd feel if it was my cock taking you that way, hard and fast, my hips slamming into your sweet, freckled ass…. But of course, now we'll never know."

She stares at me, lips parted, cheeks flushed. "Yeah," she says faintly. "I guess so. ~ Heather R. Blair

The ship started a school of fliers that skipped along the wave tops like shining silver coins.
"These are the ghosts of treasures ost at sea," the cook went on, "the murder things, emeralds and diamonds and gold; the sins of men, committed for them, stick to them and make them haunt the ocean. Ah! It's a poor thing if a sailor will not make a grand tale about it."
Henry pointed to a great tortoise asleep on the surface. "And what is the tale of the turtles?" He asked.
"Nothing; only food ... ~ John Steinbeck

As if it were important, he strained his memory; beside the sofa there had been a large lamp with a round milk-white base encircled by a chain of painted roses, and beyond that, on the wall, neatly framed, was a series of water colors done by a forgotten aunt during her Grand Tour. But ~ John Edward Williams

As a country singer, there is only one place you dream of playing in your lifetime, and that is the Grand Ole Opry House. ~ Blake Shelton