Nimble Quotes

Salem"

In salem seasick spindrift drifts or skips
to the canvas flapping on the seaward panes
until the knitting sailor stabs at ships
nosing like sheep of Morpheus through his brain's
asylum. Seaman, seaman, how the draft
lashes the oily slick about your head,
beating up whitecaps! Seaman, Charon's raft
dumps its damned goods into the harbor-bed,--
There sewage sickens the rebellious seas.
Remember, seaman, Salem fisherman
Once hung their nimble fleets on the Great Banks.
Where was it that New England bred the men
who quartered the Leviathan's fat flanks
and fought the British Lion to his knees? ~ Robert Lowell

Here when the labouring fish does at the foot arrive, And finds that by his strength but vainly he doth strive; His tail takes in his teeth, and bending like a bow, That's to the compass drawn, aloft himself doth throw: Then springing at his height, as doth a little wand, That, bended end to end, and flerted from the hand, Far off itself doth cast. so does the salmon vaut. And if at first he fail, his second sommersault He instantly assays and from his nimble ring, Still yarking never leaves, Until himself he fling Above the streamful top of the surrounded heap. ~ Michael Drayton

The nimble lie
Is like the second-hand upon a clock;
We see it fly; while the hour-hand of truth
Seems to stand still, and yet it moves unseen,
And wins, at last, for the clock will not strike
Till it has reached the goal. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It seems to me that Sotheby's is very much like the British monarchy: an old and apparently very venerable institution which is in fact very nimble on its feet, an institution invested with a great deal more self-interest than the public image would suggest. ~ Robert Lacey

A single glass of champagne imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The nerves are braced; the imagination is stirred, the wits become more nimble. ~ Winston Churchill

We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble. ~ Emily Dickinson

I loved the show Lost, in part because the writers were so nimble in how they would take things from previous episodes, that probably weren't created with any intent towards a larger narrative, and they would get woven into narratives in a really elegant and exciting way. ~ Ed Helms

A leader ... is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. ~ Nelson Mandela

Books, books, books! I had found the secret of a garret room Piled high with cases in my father's name; Piled high, packed large,
where, creeping in and out Among the giant fossils of my past, Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs Of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there At this or that box, pulling through the gap, In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, The first book first. And how I felt it beat Under my pillow, in the morning's dark, An hour before the sun would let me read! My books! ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

It's a great time for independent media because technology reduces the entry barrier. It makes it a phenomenal time for media in general. It's David versus Goliath, and David is always a little smarter, more nimble, more fast. ~ Sasa Vucinic

By definition, entrepreneurship is vulnerable. It's all about the ability to handle and manage uncertainty. People are constantly changing, budgets change, boards change, and competition means you have to stay nimble and innovative. You have to create a vision and live up to that vision. There is no vision without vulnerability. ~ Brene Brown

For me, I think the bigger something is, the more difficult it is to make it nimble and fleet afoot. ~ Cate Blanchett

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack go under the limbo stick. ~ Chubby Checker

I am very pleased with the progress of the new CBS Corporation. The Company's rapid pace of change and innovative approach to emerging business opportunities can be seen in the many strategic announcements we have made over these past few months. The more focused and more nimble organization we sought to create has become a reality and that aggressive spirit of excellence and innovation will continue to benefit shareholders for many years to come. ~ Sumner Redstone

If I've got food and water, as long as I can exercise my mind and keep it nimble, then I'll be okay. ~ Rob Walton

A driver had been sent to meet us. He was gray-haired, short, and nimble and introduced himself. I am Patrick and so is every fourth man in Ireland, and the ones in between are named Sean or Mick or Finn, and I'll be driving you. ~ Sharon Creech

Kids are more nimble than wise ... ~ Nancy Gibbs

There is the opportunity to do more and better if you're smaller and more nimble. ~ Marc Andreessen

You have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead. ~ William Shakespeare

I want all of him – the large hands with scars that excited me, his nimble grace, how I feel when he touches me, his strangeness, his thoughts, his hair, how he looks at me, his stubbled jaw, the way his eyes crinkles when he laughs, his unexpectedness and familiarity, every secret I've yet to discover, mundane details of his life I've yet to take for granted, even the traits that I dislike and I know in time, had we the time, would make me hate him, his arrogance and conceit, his faithlessness, his maddeningly cryptic remarks – I want it all.

But I want it all to myself. I don't want to share. ~ Ava Zavora

To have some account of my thoughts, manners, acquaintance and actions, when the hour arrives in which time is more nimble than memory, is the reason which induces me to keep a journal: a journal in which I must confess my every thought, must open my whole heart! ~ Fanny Burney

When the mind is totally present, it is relaxed, nimble, and sensitive. It feels lighter and clearer. It notices everything, but it is not distracted by anything. It is the feeling of knowing exactly where you are and what you are doing. ~ Sakyong Mipham

We're dumber and less cognitively nimble if we're not around other people - and, now, other machines. ~ Clive Thompson

Alertness is a requirement of the writing life, staying nimble on your feet, open to the stories that will rise up and flower around you while you are walking your dog on the beach or taking the kids to soccer practice. The great stories often make their approach with misdirection, camouflage, or smoke screens to hide their passage through your life. ~ Pat Conroy

Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,- who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Help each user personally. Sure that won't scale to a very large size, but when a startup is just starting out, it really helps you have an advantage as a small and nimble company. ~ John Collison

You have to be very nimble and very open minded. Your success is going to be very dependent on how your adapt. ~ Jeremy Stoppelman

It is not the stongest person who wins in life, but it is the most nimble, flexible, and adaptive person who wins in life. ~ Debasish Mridha

Those who were adept and brave fellows I have made military commanders. Those who were quick and nimble I have made herders of horses. Those who were not adept I have given a small whip and sent to be shepherds ~ Genghis Khan

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. ~ Izaak Walton

Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigor of the traveller. ~ William Shakespeare

And Trurl began to catch atoms, peeling their electrons and mixing their protons with such nimble speed, that his fingers were a blur, and he stirred the subatomic dough, stuck all the electrons back in, then on to the next molecule. ~ Stanisław Lem

It was then that I made the discovery that his talk created reverberations, that the echo took a long time to reach one's ears. I began to compare it with French talk in which I had been enveloped for so long. The latter seemed more like the play of light on an alabaster vase, something reflective, nimble, dancing, liquid, evanescent, whereas the other, the Katsimbalistic language, was opaque, cloudy, pregnant with resonances which could only be understood long afterwards, when the reverberations announced the collision with thoughts, people, objects located in distant parts of the earth. The Frenchman puts walls about his talk, as he does about his garden: he puts limits about everything in order to feel at home. At bottom he lacks confidence in his fellow-man; he is skeptical because he doesn't believe in the innate goodness of human beings. He has become a realist because it is safe and practical. The Greek, on the other hand, is an adventurer: he is reckless and adaptable, he makes friends easily. The walls which you see in Greece, when they are not of Turkish or Venetian origin, go back to the Cyclopean age. Of my own experience I would say that there is no more direct, approachable, easy man to deal with than the Greek. He becomes a friend immediately: he goes out to you. With the Frenchman friendship is a long and laborious process: it may take a lifetime to make a friend of him. He is best in acquaintanceship where there is little to risk and where there are no afterm ~ Henry Miller

Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don't embrace the status quo. Find new ways to see. Never expect a silver bullet. Get your hands dirty. Listen with empathy and overcommunicate with transparency. Tell your story, refusing to let others define you. Use authentic experiences to inspire. Stick to your values, they are your foundation. Hold people accountable, but give them the tools to succeed. Make the tough choices; it's how you execute that counts. Be decisive in times of crisis. Be nimble. Find truth in trials and lessons in mistakes. Be responsible for what you see, hear, and do. Believe. ~ Howard Schultz

This sound, which like all music--indeed, like all pleasure--I had been numbly unresponsive to for months, pierced my heart like a dagger, and in a flood of swift recollection I thought of all the joys the house had known: the children who had rushed through its rooms, the festivals, the love and work, the honestly earned slumber, the voices and the nimble commotion, the perennial tribe of cats and dogs and birds, "laughter and ability and Sighing, And Frocks and Curls." All this I realized was more than I could ever abandon, even as what I had set out so deliberately to do was more than I could inflict on those memories, and upon those, so close to me, with whom the memories were bound. And just as powerfully I realized I could not commit this desecration on myself. ~ William Styron

When the first light dawned on the earth, and the birds awoke, and the brave river was heard rippling confidently seaward, and the nimble early rising wind rustled the oak leaves about our tent, all people, having reinforced their bodies and their souls with sleep, and cast aside doubt and fear, were invited to unattempted adventures. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the wastes of space - none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep still a couple of minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle. In that cases I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for I am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature - lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once when she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the flight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful. ~ Mark Twain

I realized then what had happened.
She had turned us
all of us, except for Mouse
into great, gaunt, long-legged hounds.
Wonderful!" Lea said, pirouetting upon one toe, laughing. "Come, children!" And she leapt off into the jungle, nimble and swift as a doe.
A bunch of us dogs stood around for a moment, just sort of staring at one another.
And Mouse said, in what sounded to me like perfectly understandable English, "That bitch. ~ Jim Butcher

I love you as a guitar loves those playful nimble hands. Without your touch, the strings of my heart can't play the amazing songs of my life. ~ Debasish Mridha

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder, In the most terrible and nimble stroke Of quick, cross lightning. ~ William Shakespeare

But the sun was shining, and some of the people in the world had been left alive, and it was doubtful whether the ridiculousness of man would ever completely succeed in destroying the world - or, in fact, the basic equanimity of the least and commonest flower: for would its kind not come up again in the spring? come up, if necessary, among, between, or out of - beastly inconvenient - the smashed corpses lying in strict composure, in that hush infallible and sincere?
And was not this something to be thankful for?
And in the meantime, while people did live they would be grand, would be glorious and brave, would have nimble hearts that would beat and beat. They would even get up nonsense, through wars, through divorce, through evictions and jiltings and taxes.
And, in the meantime, she was going to have another baby.
The weather was bidding her bon voyage. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

They were two human primates carrying another primate. One was the master of the earth, or at least believed himself to be, and the other was a nimble dweller in trees, a cousin of the master of the earth. Both species, the human and the monkey, were in the presence of another life form, which was older and more powerful than either of them, and was a dweller in blood. ~ Richard Preston

In Fleet Street, in Fleet Street, the People are so fleetThey barely touch the cobble-stones with their nimble feet! ~ Eleanor Farjeon

Faith, if the truth were known, I was begot
After some gluttonous dinner; some stirring dish
Was my first father. When deep healths went round,
And ladies' cheeks were painted red with wine,
Their tongues as short and nimble as their heels,
Uttering words sweet and thick, and when they rose
Were marrily disposed to fall again:
Oh, damnation met
The sin of feasts, drunken adultery!
I feel it swell me; my revenge is just:
I was begot in impudent wine and lust
( ... )
As for my brother, the duke's only son,
Whose birth is more beholding to report
Than mine, and yet perhaps as falsely sown,
I'll loose my days upon him, hate all I. ~ Thomas Middleton

Does it need to be so tight?" Nathaniel objected as Silas retied the cravat in a complicated series of knots, his gloved fingers moving with nimble certainty over the fabric.
"I'm afraid so, if you wish to remain fashionable," Silas replied. "And we don't want a repeat of the incident with Lady Gwendolyn."
Nathaniel scoffed. "How was I supposed to know tying it that way meant that I intended to proposition her? I have better things to do then learn secret signals with handkerchiefs and neckcloths."
"Had you listened to me, I would have told you, and spared you from getting champagne thrown in your face---though I heard several people say afterward that that was their favorite part of the dinner. ~ Margaret Rogerson

A well-spun tale can transport listeners away from their humdrum lives and return them with an enlarged sense of the world. (Peter Nimble) ~ Jonathan Auxier

Future companies will be smaller and more nimble. ~ Peter Diamandis

Nuit Blanche"

A music coaxed from humming strings would please;
Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadences
Across a sunset wall where some Marquise
Picks a pale rose amid strange silences.


Ghostly and vaporous her gown sweeps by
The twilight dusking wall, I hear her feet
Delaying on the gravel, and a sigh,
Briefly permitted, touches the air like sleet


And it is dark, I hear her feet no more.
A red moon leers beyond the lily-tank.
A drunken moon ogling a sycamore,
Running long fingers down its shining flank.


A lurching moon, as nimble as a clown,
Cuddling the flowers and trees which burn like glass.
Red, kissing lips, I feel you on my gown -
Kiss me, red lips, and then pass - pass.


Music, you are pitiless to-night.
And I so old, so cold, so languorously white. ~ Amy Lowell

Specificity refers to the ability of any medicine to discriminate between its intended target and its host. Killing a cancer cell in a test tube is not a particularly difficult task: the chemical world is packed with malevolent poisons that, even in infinitesimal quantities, can dispatch a cancer cell within minutes. The trouble lies in finding a selective poison - a drug that will kill cancer without annihilating the patient. Systemic therapy without specificity is an indiscriminate bomb. For an anticancer poison to become a useful drug, Meyer knew, it needed to be a fantastically nimble knife: sharp enough to kill cancer yet selective enough to spare the patient. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee

NO DIVINE BOVINE ! The clumsy creature currently inhabiting the White House is a distinctly dangerous animal. Part boneheaded raging bully, part dastardly coward showing signs of advanced stage mad cow disease. Neither of good pedigree nor useful breeding stock, there is essentially very little of substance between the T (bone) and the RUMP, except of course for an abundance of methane and bullshit. It's high time brave matadors for you to enter the bullring, with nimble step and fleet of foot. Take good aim and bring down this marauding beast once and for all. Slay public enemy number one and we will salute you forever. A louder cheer you will not hear from Madrid to Mexico City, from Beijing to Brussels, from London to Lahore, from Toronto to Tehran and ten thousand cities in between. ~ Alex Morritt

The brain is like a muscle, he said, and memory training is a form of mental workout. Over time, like any form of exercise, it'll make the brain fitter, quicker, and more nimble. It's an idea that dates back to the very origins of memory training. Roman orators argued that the art of memory - the proper retention and ordering of knowledge - was a vital instrument for the invention of new ideas. ~ Joshua Foer

THE BEAR AND THE TRAVELLERS Two Travellers were on the road together, when a Bear suddenly appeared on the scene. Before he observed them, one made for a tree at the side of the road, and climbed up into the branches and hid there. The other was not so nimble as his companion; and, as he could not escape, he threw himself on the ground and pretended to be dead. The Bear came up and sniffed all round him, but he kept perfectly still and held his breath: for they say that a bear will not touch a dead body. The Bear took him for a corpse, and went away. When the coast was clear, the Traveller in the tree came down, and asked the other what it was the Bear had whispered to him when he put his mouth to his ear. The other replied, He told me never again to travel with a friend who deserts you at the first sign of danger. ~ Aesop

You are so terribly nimble, so clever. I distrust your cleverness. You make a wonderful pattern, everything is in its place, it looks convincingly clear, too clear. And meanwhile, where are you? Not on the clear surface of your ideas, but you have already sunk deeper, into darker regions, so that one only thinks one has been given all your thoughts, one only imagines you have emptied yourself in that clarity. But there are layers and layers
you're bottomless, unfathomable. Your clearness is deceptive. You are the thinker who arouses most confusion in me, most doubt, most disturbance. ~ Anais Nin

I have a rule: before I can throw anything out, I have to write down five possible uses for it. This stretches my mind and keeps it nimble - just like stretching exercises do for my body. ~ Anna Olson

His name was George F. Babbitt, and ... he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay. ~ Sinclair Lewis

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack sat on a candle stick, cause fire is the devil's only friend. ~ Don McLean

We seek to be as nimble as a startup. ~ Beth Comstock

This earthly body is slow and heavy in all its motions, listless and soon tired with action. But our heavenly bodies shall be as fire; as active and as nimble as our thoughts are. ~ John Wesley

His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.
His large head was pink, his brown hair thin and dry. His face was babyish in slumber, despite his wrinkles and the red spectacle-dents on the slopes of his nose. He was not fat but he was exceedingly well fed; his cheeks were pads, and the unroughened hand which lay helpless upon the khaki-colored blanket was slightly puffy. ~ Sinclair Lewis

I just think it's ridiculous to be dogmatic and be caught in the past. You have to be open, aware, nimble and flexible about changes in the world. ~ Joseph McGinty Nichol

Love's heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion'd doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. ~ William Shakespeare

Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don't need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision - a way to be more successful - they have to remain nimble enough to take it. ~ Eric Ries

I thus concluded, with the same awe of Jane Goodall discovering the chimpanzees' nimble use of tools to extract termites, it really wasn't so much the tragic event itself, but others having knowledge of it that prevented recovery. ~ Marisha Pessl

Life was not fair. If you wanted something you had to take it. Before someone else took it from you. Neatly dissected down to its essence, life was one long series of lily pad hoppings. The quick and the resourceful were able to adapt and survive; all others were simply crushed as a more nimble creature landed on the lily pad they had occupied for too long. ~ David Baldacci

With a ready tongue and rapier wit, Hamilton could wound people more than he realized, and he was so nimble in debate that even bright people sometimes felt embarrassingly tongue-tied in his presence. ~ Ron Chernow

He came to believe that this was the very sort of thing that happened when you let yourself get caught in one culture's insistence that love ought to be like this or that. The key for people like him, he ultimately concluded, in this as in most matters, was to be nimble. Your privilege as an immigrant was to pick and choose your inheritance, maintain what suited you and participate merely to the extent of your patience and interest. It was not in your nature to align with one side fully, and so you couldn't help but make a life that was both apart and among. You didn't make one choice and stick with it but, rather, hundreds of minor choices with which you created a unique path through the corridors of old traditions and the avenues of the new. And you cultivated this dividedness because you carried always the imprint of that first move -- the decision to leave home. Indeed, this initiating choice, more than anything, was your true inheritance. ~ Saher Alam

Oh, Draven. You're my hero too! If not for you, that mean old boar would have eaten me alive. (Simon)
Get off me, you nimble-pated gelding. (Draven) ~ Kinley MacGregor

When punk and new wave styles exploded in the late '70s, some established artists were nimble enough to respond to the changes around them. Some grumbled, "What am I supposed to do, forget how to play?", and continued to ride their dinosaurs into extinction, but others willingly adapted to the streamlining and back-to-basics urges of the times, without giving up all they had learned. Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel, for example, or former Yes keyboardist Trevor Horn, continued to produce vital, influential music through the '80s and '90s. Ian Anderson has continued to lead Jethro Tull out of the '60s and '70s and quietly through the decades, making high quality music and finding a large enough audience to continue recording and touring worldwide. ~ Neil Peart

I felt as if Delphi herself were calling out to me: Come and know me if you can! It takes a special kind of person to learn my secrets. Are you strong or nimble enough to fight through my crowds? Are you smart enough to find your way through my streets? Are you wise enough to deal with any peril or adventure I might choose to throw across your path? I am Delphi, and I dare you to conquer me!
And I am Helen of Sparta, I thought. I'm your match, just wait and see. ~ Esther M. Friesner

When you dance with a storm, Danny, you have to be nimble and strong and full of your own lightning. ~ Amy Parker

The assassin nodded. His eyes glinted in amusement, holding her gaze for a moment too long. And perhaps she saw his expression soften...but she didn't want to read too much into it. She gave him a little wave and turned to leave, her heart pounding strangely in her chest. She remembered the brush of his strong calloused hands, his long nimble fingers, and his arms trapping her against the railing, She thought of his full attention upon her, observing each small movement, every flaw and breath.

Tomorrow they would train again. Her stomach tightened at the thought. She hoped he didn't notice her response to his touch-but deep down inside, she knew he saw everything. ~ T.L. Shreffler

Rules such as "Write what you know," and "Show, don't tell," while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it. There is, in fact, only one rule in writing fiction: Whatever works, works. ~ Tom Robbins

The first day of spring, the vernal equinox - the season of renewal when the earth sheds its winter cloak, flowers bloom, and the heart feels as though everything is once again imaginable. The smell of fresh-cut grass, shagging fly balls, and scraping mud from baseball cleats. A brief contemplation and tear for those gone from the field, their easy laugh and nimble sprint no longer gracing the game. ~ Galen Watson

How many miles to Babylon? Three-score and ten. Can I get there by candle-light? Yes, there and back again. If your heels are nimble and light, You will get there by candle-light ~ Mira Grant

The boxers were banging away at each other. Go on, go on, go on, keep punching, Antonio, keep punching. I'm blasting away at the Cuban guy. He can't hurt me. I'm made of iron. His fists feel like friendly pats when he manages to land a punch, which he doesn't do too often, 'cause I'm fast on my feet, and I duck and weave. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. But I'm punching the hell out of him. I'm creaming the bastard, creaming the Cuban, creaming my old man... What?!... Creaming my boss,I mean. That son-of-a-bitch Mr. Hanson. For an instant he saw Janey at the receiving end of his fists. Again. He pushed the image from his mind. It was Mr. Hanson. It was the Cuban champion. And the crowd was cheering. They were on their feet and screaming. They love me. Yes, they love me. Yes they do. They really do." pg. 113. ~ Clark Zlotchew

Jordan Grafman, head of the cognitive neuroscience unit at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, explains that the constant shifting of our attention when we're online may make our brains more nimble when it comes to multitasking, but improving our ability to multitask actually hampers our ability to think deeply and creatively. ~ Nicholas Carr

Dame Fortune, like most others of the female sex, is generally most indulgent to the nimble-mettled blockheads. ~ Thomas Otway

This quiet Dust was Gentlemen and Ladies,
And Lads and Girls;
Was laughter and ability and sighing,
And frocks and curls.
This passive place a Summer's nimble mansion,
Where Bloom and Bees
Fulfilled their Oriental Circuit,
Then ceased like these. ~ Emily Dickinson

I MEAN not to defend the scapes of any,
Or justify my vices being many;
For I confess, if that might merit favour,
Here I display my lewd and loose behaviour.
I loathe, yet after that I loathe, I run: 5
Oh, how the burthen irks, that we should shun.
I cannot rule myself but where Love please;
Am driven like a ship upon rough seas.
No one face likes me best, all faces move,
A hundred reasons make me ever love. 10
If any eye me with a modest look,
I blush, and by that blushful glance am took;
And she that's coy I like, for being no clown,
Methinks she would be nimble when she's down.
Though her sour looks a Sabine's brow resemble, 15
I think she'll do, but deeply can dissemble.
If she be learned, then for her skill I crave her;
If not, because she's simple I would have her.
Before Callimachus one prefers me far;
Seeing she likes my books, why should we jar? 20
Another rails at me, and that I write,
Yet would I lie with her, if that I might:
Trips she, it likes me well; plods she, what then?
She would be nimbler lying with a man.
And when one sweetly sings, then straight I long, 25
To quaver on her lips even in her song;
Or if one touch the lute with art and cunning,
Who would not love those hands for their swift running?
And her I like that with a majesty,
Folds up her arms, and makes low courtesy. 30
To leave myself, that am in l ~ Ovid

Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame. ~ William Shakespeare

He carded his fingers through Bach's gleaming hair. "You're like the sun," he whispered.

"What does that make you?" Bach asked, nuzzling his face into the cradle of Einion's hip and untying his stockings with work-nimble fingers.

"Common as earth."

"More like the moon." Bach sat back on his heels and looked up. His eyes were gravity, night-dark and huge. Einion felt himself about to fall in. "Moving tides with the force of your will, forever holding half of yourself away from the rest of creation, silent and still and seductively changeable. Maddening. Caught in a dance with the sun for all of time." (Einion and Bach from The Prophecy of Ydrys Vega ~ Bran Mydwynter

With rope-ladders learned I to reach many a window, with nimble legs did I climb high masts: to sit on high masts of perception seemed to me no small bliss; To flicker like small flames on high masts: a small light, certainly, but a great comfort to cast-away sailors and shipwrecked ones!
By diverse ways and wendings did I arrive at my truth; not by one ladder did I mount to the height where mine eye roveth into my remoteness. And unwillingly only did I ask my way - that was always counter to my taste! Rather did I question and test the ways themselves.
A testing and a questioning hath been all my travelling: and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning! That, however - is my taste: Neither a good nor a bad taste, but my taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy.
"This is now my way - where is yours?" Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way." For "the way" - it doth not exist! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Stars wide of belt often cultivated a gentlemanly grandeur, a groomed refinement that filtered through their fingertips - the dainty fidgets of Hardy's plump digits, Orson Welles performing magic tricks with nimble dexterity, Jackie Gleason lofting a teacup to his lips as if he were Lady Bracknell - or through a fine set of twinkle-toes. ~ James Wolcott

Akos was still in the bathroom. He had plugged the bathtub drain and turned on the faucets. Now he was undoing the straps of his armor with quick, nimble fingers.
"Don't tell me you don't need my help," he said to me. "I won't believe you."
I stepped out of sight of the living room and tried to lift my shirt over my head. I only made it up to my stomach before I had to stop for breath. Akos set his armor down and took the hem of my shirt from me. I laughed, softly, as he guided it over my head and down my arms and said, "This is awkward."
"Yes it is," he said. He kept his eyes on my face. He was blushing.
I had not allowed myself to imagine a situation like this, his fingers brushing my arms, the memory of his mouth on mine so close I could still feel it.
"I think I can handle the pants on my own," I said.
I didn't mind showing skin. I was far from frail, with thick thighs and a small chest, and it didn't concern me. This body had carried me through a hard life. It looked exactly the way it was supposed to. Still, when his eyes dropped--just for a moment--I stifled a nervous giggle. ~ Veronica Roth

We guard the edge of the world," Dawnstripe told him. "The other Clans sit cozy in their marshes and woods, fed by the river and sheltered by our moor. They never know the true taste of the wind or the scent of first snow. There's no Clan cat faster or more nimble than a WindClan cat. ~ Erin Hunter

The point is that instead of a monolithic brick of printed content - delivered more or less unchanged to all subscribers - social media offers news that is personalized and nimble. ~ Ryan Holmes