Pliable Quotes

The main trouble with avant-garde art and literature, from the point of view of fascists and Stalinists, is not that they are too critical, but that they are too "innocent," that it is too difficult to inject effective propaganda, that kitsch is more pliable to this end. ~ Clement Greenberg

And thus much concerning Pliable. ~ John Bunyan

Every institution places its ultimate weight on preserving its own life. That is why the Church emphasizes loving God over loving one's neighbor ... The push for justice on the other hand might be at the center of the Gospel but it also attacks the balance of power in the society. Since the rich always exploit the poor, to give the poor power, dignity and humanity makes them less pliable, less cooperative. ~ John Shelby Spong

Fear grid-irons your broken, suffering heart with strength, encasing it with a protective, tough shell. One that soon becomes a prison that will emaciate the unused, enclosed heart inside if left to its own accord. But renewed hope gently unwraps the hard cast, and replaces it with a more resilient, pliable layer, protective, strong, but permeable so as to let love soak in and nurture the malnourished, dying heart inside. ~ Connie Kerbs

The rigid cause themselves to be broken; the pliable cause themselves to be bound. ~ Xun Zi

I had been gullible, naive, soft, pliable. That's why I got taken advantage of. To survive, you have to have a tough skin. ~ Tia Carrere

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, to yielding. ~ Bette Davis

The inversion of external compulsion into the compulsion of conscience ... produces the machine-like assiduity and pliable allegiance required by the new rationality. ~ Max Horkheimer

Feet gauge the pliable tracts of snowy hoodlum
Amidst the pacing sobs of our night sky
I watch you go, I watch them come
Within the life span of an iridescent sigh;
I watch the tracks bereft of a human hand,
I watch them trite in thy laconic land,
I watch them silent from where I stand,
I watch them marking a bloodied rand,
I watch the tracks bereft of a human hand,
I watch them silent from where I stand. ~ Ashfaq Saraf

That's how the Germans are ... The aristocrats at the top hard as glass, cold as ice, servants of the King, the working masses willing, pliable, sentimental, susceptible to brutality, the middle class educated and cowardly to the point of servility. ~ Alfred Doblin

In nature this animal would have nothing to do with you. "Natural horsemanship" is just words. It's not natural at all. There's an abundance of trust that must be developed for you. Imagine if humans were that pliable. ~ Buck Brannaman

What a school of politeness is such a contemplation of the past! To take everything objectively, to be angry at nothing, to love nothing, to understand everything
makes one gentle and pliable. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would subjugate me by his inate strength. And every man - I know this very well - as soon as he falls in love becomes weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself into the woman's hands, kneels down before her. The only man whom I could love permanently would be he before whom I should have to kneel. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

Humankind's greatest gift is that we are indeterminate beings. Unlike the tough and leathery seed of an acorn, which will grow into a magnificent oak tree, none of us has a predetermined final configuration of our ultimate essence. Our mental temperament is pliable. We make conscious and subconscious choices that govern who we become. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Hardin, as he sat at the foot of the table, speculated idly as to just what it was that made physical scientists such poor administrators. It might be merely that they were too used to inflexible fact and far too unused to pliable people. ~ Isaac Asimov

Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascinated he was. He was beginning to feel that the decorative carving demanded by Tom was too easy. Zigzags, lozenges, dogtooth, spirals and plain roll moldings bored him, and even these leaves were rather stiff and repetitive. He wanted to curve natural-looking foliage, pliable and irregular, and copy the different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch. ~ Ken Follett

Strength through adversity. The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. It is pounded and struck repeatedly before it's plunged back into the molten fire. The fire gives it power and flexibility, and the blows give it strength. Those two things make the metal pliable and able to withstand every battle it's called upon to fight. (Savitar) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Fisher outlines the different hormones and personalities for me. Those with lots of dopamine, she says, are likely to be "Explorers," optimistic risk takers. Serotonin breeds "Builders," who tend to be calm and organized and work well in groups. Those brimming with testosterone she calls "Directors." Two thirds of them are men. They're analytical, logical, and often musical. (They sound suspiciously like Numerati to me.) In the fourth group, their brains coursing with estrogen, are the negotiators. They're verbal and intuitive, and have good people skills. You'd think they'd be built for relationships. But sometimes, Fisher says, "they're so pliable that they turn into placaters. You don't know who they are. ~ Stephen Baker

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. ~ Mark Twain

Her curious fingers paused before dipping below the soft hair. When she encountered the feminine folds, she gasped.
Dorian stopped breathing.
She tested that place lightly, finding a place that quivered and pulsed at the apex of that pliable skin. Awe speared Dorian as her feminine muscles clenched in the exact rhythm his own loins did. He could see them working through the skin unique to her sex. Her hips rolled with instinct little movements, her breaths catching on sighs of appreciation.
If Dorian was a lesser man, unused to patience, torment, and agony, he would have released his seed then and there. But he grappled his orgasm back down, thinking of her hands on his repulsive flesh, letting the fear throw ice into the flames.
Then she parted the inner cleft, dipped inside, and let out a moan that could have aroused Eros, himself. Her finger came away glistening as she pulled it back toward the nub that seemed to demand more attention than anywhere else. Where she swiped the moisture across it, her muscles all tensed, and she threw her head back onto the counterpane, letting loose a sound so visceral Dorian's will snapped. ~ Kerrigan Byrne

Art, I subsequently realised, is like that. It softens by association and implication. It renders the hard pliable. It creates gaps, gaping holes really, in possibility. ~ Andrew Miller

Humans are similar to plasticine. Society is the pattern, but a pattern has the characteristics of being inflexible, hard, and unbreakable, while plasticine has the characteristics of being pliable, soft, metamorphic, and expandable. The current situation clearly shows us how the mass of plasticine no longer fits into that narrow social pattern. ~ Paola Sanjinez

It will relax her, make her pliable. Women love having their feet rubbed."
"Most women beg me to rub somewhere other than their feet."
"They like their toes nibbled," Aiden said. "And suckled."
"Rub feet, suckle toes. Got it."
"Do it slowly, the strokes steady. Then move up her legs. Use her muscles as a guide. Not hard strokes - you want to soothe, not press."
"How long before I can massage her pussy?"
"Gods, level threes are impatient. The trick is to go slowly. By the time you've reached her ass, she's sighing with pleasure, but you don't stop there. You do her entire back and arms while she's longing for you to get to her pussy. Make her wait."
"Now that I can get into. Holding back, making her beg."
He saw Nella again, squirming on the sheets, her red hair tangled on the pillow, her hips lifting toward him. Please, Rio, she'd say.
Not yet, baby, he'd respond. I want you good and wet before I get there.
She'd whimper with disappointment, then he'd lift his strap and smack her sweet little backside.
Rio sighed and made the image dissolve. "Massage. Slowly. I'm not sure my programming will let me."
"Like this." Aiden moved his ale glass and pressed his hand to the table, thumb and last two fingers on the surface, the other two fingers held loosely. "Glide across her skin, pressing a little. Long strokes, following the curve of her leg." He moved his hand across the table, slowly and sensually, his ow ~ Allyson James

Many foam rollers are too large and too hard to navigate around bony prominences, joints, or delicate tissue junctions into which the grippy, pliable Roll Model Balls can easily navigate. ~ Jill Miller

Adam saw those brown
eyes widen, the pouty lips soften, and then they were kissing. Gaston's mouth
was pliable and submissive under his. Adam was enamored by the taste of those
lips as he deepened the kiss and their tongues touched. Then without warning,
Adam was thrown back. His whole body warmed to the point of sweating, and in
his mind's eye he traveled through the dark forest, into the castle ruins and
to that magical mirror. The images swirled faster and faster until the glass
cracked. It splintered halfway through the mirror, and then the entire object
burst into a thousand glittering pieces. Adam was thrust back into his body and
stared up at Gaston's worried expression.
"What the bloody hell was that?"
"True love's kiss…" Adam whispered. Belle hadn't broken the curse on the mirror, so that's why it still worked, but Gaston had
just freed Adam. He felt the lingering anger and abilities of the beast falling
away. His fingers uncurled as if the claws had been ripped out from his
fingers. That urge to hunt and rip things apart dissolved. Adam felt … human.
The curse was truly broken. Adam could find a real happy ending in Gaston's
arms now that the beast was gone. ~ James Cox

It is my judgment that any man or woman can do more to conform to the laws of God in one year in this life than they could do in ten years when they are dead. The spirit can only repent and change, and then the battle has to go forward with the flesh afterwards. It is much easier to overcome and serve the Lord when both flesh and spirit are combined as one. This is the time when men are more pliable and susceptible. We will find when we are dead every desire, every feeling will be greatly intensified. When clay is pliable it is much easier to change than when it gets hard and sets. ~ Melvin J. Ballard

Rigor mortis was caused by a natural build-up of calcium in the muscles; living bodies used that calcium for various things, but in dead bodies it just built up and built up until the muscles grew rigid. In a day or so she'd be loose again from decay, but for now we had to knead the calcium out by hand, stroking and pressing and rubbing the flesh until it was soft and pliable. ~ Dan Wells

A pine tree's branches are pliable, so they will flex downward rather than snap under the weight of accumulating snow. This is Strength through Flexibility. ~ Ernest Cadorin

Human behavior is incredibly pliable, plastic. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

Outside Styx's apartment was not the first time Rochester and I had met, or would it be the last. We first encountered each other at Haworth House in Yorkshire when my mind was young and the barrier between reality and make-believe had not yet hardened into the shell that cocoons us in adult life. The barrier was soft, pliable and, for a moment, thanks to the kindness of a stranger and the power of a good storytelling voice, I made the short journey
and returned. ~ Jasper Fforde

And then he saw her burning eyes. They gazed at him calmly and he saw in them benediction.
He fell to his knees before her, pressing his face to her purple-velvet-clad-belly. "Séraphine, Séraphine, Séraphine. O most beloved of women, most fiery of saints, never leave me, please. I'll erect columns of white marble to you, build gardens of delight for you, cause ships to sail and warriors to rise for you, if you'll only remain by my side."
She smiled down at him and cupped his cheeks. "Valentine, do you love me?"
Ah, God, it was like a shot to the gut.
He squeezed tight his eyes. To come so close and lose her because of this. "If I were able I would love you as no man has ever loved a woman since the beginning of time."
She knelt then to face him and whispered, "But you are able."
He clutched her. He wouldn't let her go, no, not even when she realized... "Séraphine, my darling, burning one, do you not remember? I told you, so long ago now, that I lacked that part. I cannot-"
"But you can, Valentine." She touched a finger to his cheek and then showed it to him.
He blinked.
Her finger was wet. His eyes were wet.
She smiled at him, his burning Séraphine, and it was as if the night sky were ablaze. "You love me."
"I love you," he said in wonder, and felt his chest fill with warmth. "I love you."
"And I love you," she whispered, her hands cupping his face.
So he kissed her until she was limp and pliable and so very hot ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Being yielded to God's authority keeps us pliable and open-minded to a possible change of plans. ~ Beth Moore

Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one. ~ Edith Wharton

My sister Sarah, with all the advantages of youth, was, strangely enough, less pliable. She did full justice to Pesca's excellent qualities of heart; but she could not accept him implicitly, as my mother accepted him, for my sake. Her insular notions of propriety rose in perpetual revolt against Pesca's constitutional contempt for appearances; and she was always more or less undisguisedly astonished at her mother's familiarity with the eccentric little foreigner. I have observed, not only in my sister's case, but in the instances of others, that we of the young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our elders. I constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? Has the great advance in education taken rather too long a stride; and are we in these modern days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought up? ~ Wilkie Collins

The young mind is pliable and imitates, but in more advanced states grows rigid and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression. ~ Joshua Reynolds

I love him, and I love us together more than I love myself. I will do what you ask, but if," Kara swallowed hard, " ... if I lose him, I'll join him in death." Vena resisted the urge to stroke the fine mass of dark curls away from the heart-shaped face that gazed at her so fiercely. The woman who faced her, proudly announcing her ability to choose, was no longer the winsome, pliable girl of the garden. ~ Anna LaForge

When I referred to mass hypnosis and education, this brainwashing is the foundation. The impressionable and pliable subconscious is oftentimes a receptacle of ideas, reactions, memories, feelings and perceptions. Call it cultural conditioning and following orders or the people next door, or those people on the reality show. People vote for reality show celebrities. The emperor is wearing no clothes. Millions are triggered, buttons are pushed, and people react. Read the news, or be the news. ~ Stephen Poplin

I think that the massive, overarching, interconnected systems of technology tend to make us a little insecure, somewhat pliable, and susceptible to half-beliefs. ~ Don DeLillo

Think what great love Christ has showed unto us, and how little we have deserved, and this will make our hearts to melt and be as pliable as wax before the sun. ~ Richard Sibbes

Hard edges make truth and by necessity, truth is unbending. Unlike truth's absolutism, justice is a qualitative substance; it is not an absolute tenet. Justice must be pliable in order to meet the needs of more than one person or one group. Justice goes against separation; it is a form of human superglue. Justice is what binds us as people. No human is capable of measuring out or dispensing unqualified justice. Justice naturally seeks conciliation and demands compromise. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

God, you're beautiful," he growled while his cock throbbed with need.
"Ye keep telling me that and ye'll have me believing it," she said with the sexiest, most breathless voice he'd ever heard.
His fingers sank into her supple flesh. Her breasts were so full, so pliable, he craved to have his mouth on them, craved to suckle her nipples and listen to every soft moan. "You'd best believe me, because whenever you're near, I feel like a caveman."
"A wild beast?"
He nearly roared. "The wildest imaginable. ~ Amy Jarecki

Change makes you pliable. ~ Sunday Adelaja

You cannot expect stone to be as pliable as clay. ~ Anne Bronte

When life begins we are tender and weak When life ends we are stiff and rigid All things, including the grass and trees, are soft and pliable in life and dry in brittle in death So the soft and supple are the companion of life While the stiff and unyielding are the companions of death An army that cannot yield will be defeated A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind Thus by Nature's own decree the hard and strong are defeated while the soft and gentle are triumphant ~ Laozi

Evil should not be, Detective Vera. Truly never can be. But in defining it as such, an inherent human bond with negativity confirms its very existence. Its mere acknowledgement cancels its credibility. Evil is nothing - the lack of anything of substance - made concrete as a balance to everything else. Evil is not, yet it is a part of
each human, because humans welcome its participation in their lives. They speak of it in anger or disgust, fear or even wonder - the most appropriate response - giving it a stronger foundation with every passing thought it distorts. Though within their pliable minds, they welcome it with the glee of the ignorant, nurturing the unthinkable, thinking the unimaginable, imagining the most horrid, abysmal designs, embellishing them with an insidious veracity until evil is as substantial a reality as their next breath. I strive for something else, beyond evil's claustrophobic clutches. I strive to transcend evil by becoming pure nothing. I strive as my followers strived." He paused, his ideology a cancer, spreading… "I am, yet I strive to not be. Do you understand, comrade?" His tone suggested fellowship, disciples of the same obscene religion. ... ~ John Claude Smith

The old sound was alcoholic. The tradition was finally broken. The music is sex and drugs and happy. And happy is the joke the music understands best. Ultra sonic sounds on records to cause frontal lobotomies. Hey, don't be afraid. You'd better take drugs and learn to love PLASTIC. All diffrent kinds of plastic- pliable, rigid, colored, colorful, nonattached plastic. - Lou Reed (1965-1968) ~ Legs McNeil

Harry's asleep within a few short minutes, body now warm and pliable, and as Louis holds him, he doesn't dare fall asleep because he doesn't trust himself to dream. ~ Velvetoscar

How resilient was the body, to return to its prior form so quickly! Yet the mind was formed of a less pliable substance. The emptiness in her thoughts would not be so easily filled. Instead there was a hollowness among them-a place she had reserved for future joys which now would never arrive. ~ Galen Beckett

Younger managers learn quickly that, whatever the public protestations to the contrary, bosses generally want pliable and agreeable subordinates, especially during periods of crisis. Clique leaders want dependable, loyal allies. Thos who regularly raise objections to what a boss or a clique leader really desires run the risk of being considered problems themselves and of being labeled "outspoken," or "nonconstructive," or "doomsayers," "naysayers," or "crepehangers. ~ Robert Jackall

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. ~ Charles Bukowski

Jesus knew that many of his listeners believed the old wineskin (or way of doing things) was good enough. They were comfortable with their beliefs and practices, but Jesus hadn't come to patch up old religious traditions. He was offering a new garment, a new wineskin, a way of life that didn't abolish the old ways, but fulfilled them.

The teaching illuminated my own need to remain pliable before God. I realize that I must have a softer housing for my growing faith, one that can flex and change as God is at work inside of me. All too often I find myself clinging to that which is comfortable and familiar, rather than embracing the challenges that emerge with change and growth. Sometimes I shy away from people who have strong views that differ from mine, even though sharing a great conversation... could temper both our viewpoints and deepen our relationship. Why do I run away from strong opinions and potential conflict? Am I too comfortable and unwilling to change? Such a realization highlights the need for the Spirit in my life not just to discern and distinguish, but also to illuminate and invite me to move forward into the fullness of life with him." -Scouting the Divine ~ Margaret Feinberg

The lumbering bagos and topheavy
four-wheelers form a moving slalom course for Hiro on his black
motorcycle.
All these beefy Caucasians with guns! Get enough of them together, looking for
the America they always believed they'd grow up in, and they glom together like
overcooked rice, form integral, starchy little units. With their power tools,
portable generators, weapons, four-wheel-drive vehicles, and personal computers,
they are like beavers hyped up on crystal meth, manic engineers without a
blueprint, chewing through the wilderness, building things and abandoning them,
altering the flow of mighty rivers and then moving on because the place ain't
what it used to be.
The byproduct of the lifestyle is polluted rivers, greenhouse effect, spouse
abuse, televangelists, and serial killers. But as long as you have that fourwheel-
drive vehicle and can keep driving north, you can sustain it, keep moving
just quickly enough to stay one step ahead of your own waste stream. In twenty
years, ten million white people will converge on the north pole and park their
bagos there. The low-grade waste heat of their thermodynamically intense
lifestyle will turn the crystalline icescape pliable and treacherous. It will
melt a hole through the polar icecap, and all that metal will sink to the
bottom, sucking the biomass down with it. ~ Neal Stephenson

What don't we realize is that we are a strange and forbidding species to wild animals. We fill them with fear. They avoid us as much as possible. It took centuries to still the fear in some pliable animals – domestication it's called – but most cannot get over their fear, and I doubt they ever will. When wild animals fight us, it is out of sheer desperation. They fight when they feel they have no other way out. ~ Yann Martel

You can't get big in hockey. You need to be pliable ... they've even taken fighting out of the game, so there's no more of those big huge guys who just fight. ~ Brett Hull

Probably you consider the body is not at all important. I've seen you eat, and you eat as if you were feeding a furnace. You may like the taste of food, but it is all so mechanical, so inattentive, the way you mix food on your plate. When you become aware of all this, your fingers, your eyes, your ears, your body all become sensitive, alive, responsive. This is comparatively easy. But what is more difficult is to free the mind from the mechanical habits of thought, feeling and action into which it has been driven by circumstances – by one's wife, one's children, one's job. The mind itself has lost its elasticity. The more subtle forms of observation escape it.

This means seeing yourself actually as you are without wanting to correct yourself or change what you see or escape from it – just to see yourself actually as you are, so that the mind doesn't fall back into another series of habits. When such a mind looks at a flower or the colour of a dress or a dead leaf falling from a tree, it is now capable of seeing the movement of that leaf as it falls and the colour of that flower vividly. So both outwardly and inwardly the mind becomes highly alive, pliable, alert; there is a sensitivity which makes the mind intelligent. Sensitivity, intelligence and freedom in action are the beauty of living. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Woman
How pliable she be
Ever-bending never-breaking
Woman ~ Spoken Silence

She was so pliable. He could do anything with her, arrange her as he pleased, and she would say yes. Not just yes. Oh yes! ~ Margaret Atwood

Because Islam in its original form was tough and hard, not weak and pliable. ~ Abu Bakar Bashir

Lord save us from off-handed, flabby-cheeked, brittle-boned, weak-kneed, thin-skinned, pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate, ossified, three-karat Christianity. ~ Billy Sunday

The heart must be kept tender and pliable; otherwise agnosticism converts to skepticism. In such a case, the value of apologetics is voided, for apologetics is aimed at persuading doubters, not at refuting the defiant. He who demands a kind of proof that the nature of the case renders impossible, is determined that no possible evidence shall convince him. ~ Edward John Carnell

Founders Day tradition dictated a peck on the cheek, but Travis had never been a follower. He lowered his head and took advantage of her surprise. Her lips were soft as a rose petal and just as pliable. He'd meant it to be a quick, comforting brushing of lips, but then she responded. Just the faintest movement. The yielding lit a fire in his belly that wouldn't be extinguished anytime soon. He went back for seconds. I've missed you so much. He took her face in his hands, wanted to thread his fingers through that long thick hair and pull her closer. But then two palms planted into his chest and pushed hard. Her eyes spat sparks. She dragged the back of her hand across her lips as if wiping the kiss away. Won't be as easy as that, darlin'. ~ Denise Hunter

God was in control, and I was just pliable enough to say yes to wherever He would lead. ~ Gloria Gaynor

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable. ~ Mark Twain