Spoil Quotes

The one experience that he had never had he was not going to spoil now. He probably would. You spoiled everything. But perhaps he wouldn't ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I reminded myself of a leftover piece of meat that was starting to spoil. ~ Barbara Honigmann

It takes a while to spoil a world, but it can be done. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

You have to really respect what your kids are doing with their kids and how they're raising them. You can't push your way into areas where you shouldn't be saying anything. You have to always remember they're not your own kids. Play with them, love them, spoil them to death - then hand them back. ~ Billy Crystal

God doesn't make us rich so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children, or so we can insulate ourselves form needing God's provision. God gives us abundant material blessing so that we can give it away, and give it generously. ~ Randy Alcorn

If what you found was made from pure matter, it will never spoil. And you can come back one day. If it was just one moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you will find nothing on your return. But you would have seen an explosion of light. And that alone would already be worth the journey. ~ Paulo Coelho

All of this seemed equally trifling to him now. And when he thought again about the world of free people, the difference between it and the miseries and joys of this place seemed minimal. If three tiny fragments of tea leaf chanced to fall into a prisoner's battered cup, he relished them. In Leningrad during the interval at the opera a woman sipped champagne with the same pleasure. Their sufferings were also comparable. Both the prisoner and the woman had painful shoes. Hers were narrow evening shoes which she took off during the performance. The prisoner suffered from what they wore in the camp, section of tyres into which you thrust your foot wrapped in rags and fastened with string. The woman at the opera knew that somewhere in the world there were millions of beings transformed into gaunt animals, their faces blackened by the polar winds. But this did not stop her drinking her glass of wine amid the glittering of the great mirrors. The prisoner knew that a warm and brilliant life was lived elsewhere in tranquility but this did not spoil his pleasure as he chewed those fragments of tea leaf.... ~ Andrei Makine

You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it - low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion - and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Let us worship on, pray on, praise on, and read on. Let us contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, and resist manfully every effort to spoil Scriptural worship. Let us strive earnestly to hand down the light of Gospel worship to our children's children. Yet a little time and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Blessed in that day will be those, and those only, who are found true worshippers, worshippers in spirit and truth! ~ J.C. Ryle

You'll spoil me.
Yes, that's my plan., he adds, deadly serious, and leaves me stunned. He really means that. No objection! ~ M Eror

One cannot create happiness with beautiful objects, but one can spoil quite a lot of happiness with bad ones ~ Finn Juhl

Books only spoil the originality of genius. Very well for those who can't think for themselves - But when one has made up one's opinions, there is no use in reading. ~ Maria Edgeworth

A dream conceived from the inside-out eventually becomes reality. But a dream desired from the outside-in is subject to spoil and tragedy. ~ T.F. Hodge

Lady Sylvia McCordle: Mr Weissman
Tell us about the film you're going to make.
Morris Weissman: Oh, sure. It's called "Charlie Chan In London". It's a detective story.
Mabel Nesbitt: Set in London?
Morris Weissman: Well, not really. Most of it takes place at a shooting party in a country house. Sort of like this one, actually. Murder in the middle of the night, a lot of guests for the weekend, everyone's a suspect. You know, that sort of thing.
Constance: How horrid. And who turns out to have done it?
Morris Weissman: Oh, I couldn't tell you that. It would spoil it for you.
Constance: Oh, but none of us will see it. ~ Julian Fellowes

How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villa ~ William Shakespeare

ABOUT SENTIMENTALITY IN LITERATURE:
"Sentimental fiction is a kind of pablum: Excessive amounts can spoil the appetite for reality, or at least for more fibrous forms of art. One reason, surely, why readers throw down books when they don't contain sufficiently "likable" characters is that their tolerance for any sort of moral challenge - for being asked, say, to sympathize with homeless little boys who are godless and truculent and a bit smelling - has been eroded by too many fairy tales masquerading as adult literature."~ wrote Zoe Heller for Bookends in the Sunday's NY Times Book Review interview ~ Alice Simpson

Even if just once, the inner intent spoils towards someone, as in 'I will put him in his place', it is a statement made with God as your witness, so how can it go to waste? There is no problem if the inner intent does not spoil. Everything will become silent. Everything will stop. ~ Dada Bhagwan

People derived too much pleasure from seeing their fellow man morally humiliated to spoil that pleasure by hearing out an explanation. ~ Milan Kundera

The thing is," Tom said, "I won't come."
"Just to spoil my fun? Or you think you're still too weak? ~ Victor J. Banis

You got a girl who's worth it ... you spoil her rotten. You let her know she's precious, not convince her of that shit, because it's not about convincing. It's about understanding it's just fuckin' true. ~ Kristen Ashley

Fir : it contains a great deal of air and fire with very little moisture and the earthy, so that, as its natural properties are of the lighter class, it is not heavy. Hence, its consistence being naturally stiff, it does not easily bend under the load, and keeps its straightness when used in the framework. But it contains so much heat that it generates and encourages decay, which spoils it; and it also kindles fire quickly because of the air in its body, which is so open that it takes in fire and so gives out a great flame. ~ Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

Some people coddle their own afflictions the way others spoil small pedigreed dogs with cans of pate. ~ Lionel Shriver

Nonsense!" said the Emperor - but in a kindly, sympathetic tone. "Do not, I beg of you, dampen today's sun with the showers of tomorrow. For before your head has time to spoil you can have it canned, and in that way it may be preserved indefinitely. ~ L. Frank Baum

If he displeases us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as well as from a thing that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel called on to make his life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he already bears, or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he spoils his life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire to spoil it further [...]. He may be to us an object of pity, perhaps of dislike, but not of anger or resentment; we shall not treat him like an enemy of society: the worst we shall think ourselves justified in doing is leaving him to himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman ~ Oscar Wilde

Dangerous principles impose upon our understanding, emasculate our spirits, and spoil our temper. ~ Jeremy Collier

That dress ... was a very, very good decision. I could write an entire poem on the virtues of your legs alone. You are a feast for the senses." I laughed. "I don't know about a feast. Maybe just an hors d'oeuvre." He took my hand and wrapped it around his arm. "Not an hors d'oeuvre. The dessert. And I plan to spoil my appetite. ~ Colleen Houck

Good when He gives, supremely good; Nor less when He denies: Afflictions, from His sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise. [ ... ]
That useless thoughts spoil all: that the mischief began there; but that we ought to reject them, as soon as we perceived their impertinence to the matter in hand, or our salvation; and return to our communion with GOD. ~ Brother Lawrence

The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual. ~ C.S. Lewis

Everybody is different. Some people like to share more. I just wouldn't want to spoil someone's opinion of me by them knowing me as a person instead of an artist. ~ Marina And The Diamonds

A better man wouldn't play this 'sweethearts' game with her when he knew very well it couldn't lead to more.

But he wasn't a better man. He was Colin Sandhurst, reckless, incorrigible rogue - and damn it, he couldn't resist. He wanted to amuse her, spoil her, feed her sweets and delicacies. Steal a kiss or two, when she wasn't expecting it. He wanted to be a besotted young buck squiring his girl around the fair.

In other words, he wanted to live honestly. Just for the day. ~ Tessa Dare

And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudged to death and hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fullness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renewed.
'Father, Thy word is passed, man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of Thy winged messengers,
To visit all Thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplored, unsought,
Happy for man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost;
Atonement for himself or offering meet,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring:
Behold Me then, Me for him, life for life
I offer, on Me let Thine anger fall;
Account Me man; I for his sake will leave
Thy bosom, and this glory next to Thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased, on Me let death wreak all his rage;
Under his gloomy power I shall not long
Lie vanquished; Thou hast given Me to possess
Life in Myself forever, by Thee I live,
Though now to death I yield, and am his due
All that of Me can die, yet that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave Me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor suffer My unspotted soul
Forever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil;
Death his death's wound shall then receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal ~ John Milton

Filial respect caused Grey to hesitate in passing ex post facto opinions on his mother's judgment, but after half an hour in the company of either Paul or Edgar, he could not escape a lurking suspicion that a just Providence, seeing the DeVanes so well endowed with physical beauty, had determined that there was no reason to spoil the work by adding intelligence to the mix. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Do not spoil the wonder with haste! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

God likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside of God, he has no one but himself to play with! But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself. This is his way of hiding from himself. He pretends that he is you and I and all the people in the world, all the animals, plants, all the rocks, and all the stars. In this way he has strange and wonderful adventures, some of which are terrible and frightening. But these are just like bad dreams, for when he wakes up they will disappear.

Now when God plays "hide" and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself! But that's the whole fun of it-just what he wanted to do. He doesn't want to find himself too quickly, for that would spoil the game. That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise, pretending not to be himself. But- when the game has gone on long enough, all of us will WAKE UP, stop pretending, and REMEMBER that we are all one single Self- the God who is all that there is and who lives forever and ever.
You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn't really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the ~ Alan W. Watts

To the victors belong the spoils. ~ Andrew Jackson

Clearly," Jason said, "you are not doing nothing. You are most definitely doing something. What it looks like you're doing is pouring packets of sugar on Lauren Moffat's head."

Shhh," I said. "It's snowing. But only on Lauren." I shook more sugar out of the packets. "'Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter,'" I called softly down to Lauren in my best Jimmy Stewart imitation. "'Merry Christmas, you old building and Loan.'"

Jason started cracking up, and I had to hush him as Becca saw my sugar supply running low and hastened to hand me more packets.

Stop laughing so loud," I said to Jason. "You'll spoil this beautiful moment for them." I sprinkled more sugar over the side of the balcony. "'Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. ~ Meg Cabot

My personal experience
people spoil there health in order to make money
then they
spend that money in order to recover their health
lives as if he is not going to die ever.. ~ Palash

A sense of responsibility would spoil her. She's too pretty. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Soldiers in arms! Defenders of our soil!
Who from destruction save us; who from spoil
Protect the sons of peace, who traffic or who toil;
Would I could duly praise you, that each deed
Your foe's might honor, and your friends might read. ~ George Crabbe

I do not spoil women ... I don't send them flowers and gifts ... I'm saving those gestures until I am an unpleasant old man who must resort to bribery to win a woman's synthetic affections. ~ George Sanders

Women ought not to know their own wit, because they will still be showing it, and so spoil it. ~ John Selden

I don't want to be pinned down to any position. My position is the lack of a position, but of course you can't even talk about it; the minute you talk you spoil the whole game-Marcel Duchamp ~ Alice Goldfarb Marquis

Spoil all the walls with sellotape marks. ~ Sachin Kundalkar

The way love can disregard fears, however, is an age-old wonder. No fear is able to spoil love's development or keep it from dreaming of its appointed hour. ~ Naguib Mahfouz

Anybody who thinks there's nothing wrong with this world needs to have his head examined. Just when things are going all right, without fail someone or something will come along and spoil everything. Somebody should write that down as a fundamental law of the Universe. The principle of perpetual disappointment. If there is a God who created this world, he should scrap it and try again. ~ Athol Fugard

We still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute. ~ Thomas Paine

[Calvin, who has the chicken pox, calls Susie on the telephone.]
Susie: Hello?
Calvin: Hi, Susie! It's me, Calvin! I was wondering if you'd like to come over and play.
Susie: Why, sure! Boy, I don't think you've ever invited me to ...
Calvin's Mom: Calvin, what are you doing?
Calvin: Nothing, Mom. Go away.
Calvin's Mom: You're contagious! You can't have anyone over to play!
Calvin: Shhhh! Shhhh! You'll spoil the whole thing! I was going to trick Susie into catching ... HEY! OW! LET GO!
Susie: [Hanging up the phone] Any chance of getting transferred, Dad? ~ Bill Watterson

We have certain demons who are motivated by the smell of food. They tend to get rather violent whenever they smell it. I personally wouldn't be caught eating anything because I would end up dead. You might not. But you'd still have to fight them, and since some of them are rather ugly and really, really smelly, it might spoil your appetite. Then again, maybe not. Doesn't spoil Noir's. I think it makes him hungrier, especially when he guts them. Sick, but true. (Asmodeus) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

And however one might sentimentalise it, this sex business was one of the most ancient, sordid connections and subjections. Poets who glorified it were mostly men. Women had always known there was something better, something higher. And now they knew it more definitely than ever. The beautiful pure freedom of a woman was infinitely more wonderful than any sexual love. The only unfortunate thing was that men lagged so far behind women in the matter. They insisted on the sex thing like dogs.

And a woman had to yield. A man was like a child with his appetites. A woman had to yield him what he wanted, or like a child he would probably turn nasty and flounce away and spoil what was a very pleasant connection. But a woman could yield to a man without yielding her inner, free self. That the poets and talkers about sex did not seem to have taken sufficiently into account. A woman could take a man without really giving herself away. Certainly she could take him without giving herself into his power. Rather she could use this sex thing to have power over him. For she only had to hold herself back in sexual intercourse, and let him finish and expend himself without herself coming to the crisis: and then she could prolong the connection and achieve her orgasm and her crisis while he was merely her tool. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love. ~ Yann Martel

Greta's cedar hope chest
Is full of pamphlets
Glass shelves of romantic vignettes
A journal laced with sedimentary prose
Norma gathers and collects vintage photoplays
Hair combs valentines
Lillian allows the animals to scratch
And the leather crack
And the mail collect in the box as coatings peel
Agnes veiled cathedral dweller
Smiles with benevolent pain

But it's Katrina's fair
Tuesday morning
As she with caution unlatches the flat door
She alone cascades to the basement
Careful not to spoil her
Calico printed pinafore
Composite traits and mannerists
All others dissipate

Marguerite vigilant
She dwells upon frigid casements
Sarah's thoughts in high velocity
Accusations always pierce and pass
Clara abandons her passions for distastes
A Miss Lenora P. Sinclair
Early for coffee in the pool
"I'm resituating all your words"
Capital Space Colon Paragraph

Sylvia keeps beasts in jars labeled by
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family
Genus
Species

But it's Katrina's fair
Tuesday morning
As she with caution unlatches the flat door
She alone cascades to the basement
Careful not to spoil her
Calico printed pinafore
Composite traits and mannerists
All others dissipate

Down the way a silk design
This face is mine
Tis I, Ka ~ Natalie Merchant

Don't think about what you've left behind" The alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. "If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return. ~ Paulo Coelho

The greater the battle - the greater the spoils. ~ T.D. Jakes

I have played in every toilet but you still want to spoil it to prove I've made a big mistake ~ Muse

By George Eliot Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul: There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires That trample on the dead to seize their spoil, Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible As exhalations laden with slow death, And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys Breathes pallid pestilence. ~ George Eliot

So you realized that there were always women in tears, or a red-headed man, or something else to spoil your effects?"

"Yes, naturally. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish then to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture. ~ Plutarch

Sometimes a smile, a giggle can say more than words do; words are not that articulate. And if you use words where a smile is enough you will only spoil the game. ~ Osho

Even if it's not a style of architecture or period you like, a decorator has to have a feel for a house's personality and try not to fight against it. I like to get the juice out of a house and not spoil it. ~ Nancy Lancaster

It bothers me when people spoil the market. ~ Nicholas Negroponte

It is better just to get on with the business of living and minding your own business and maybe, if God likes the way you do things, he may just let you flower for a day or a night. But don't go pestering and begging and telling him all your stupid little sins, that way you will spoil his day. ~ Bryce Courtenay

Bertie stared at his mother. She spoils things, he thought. All she ever does is spoil things.
He had not started this conversation, and it was not his fault that they were now talking about Grey Owl. He sounded rather a nice man to Bertie. Any why should he not dress up in feathers and live in the forests if that was what he wanted to do? It was typical of his mother to try to spoil Grey Owl's fun. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Yes, love your family, and also love your friends. For some friends are truly family. Love the people in your life. Love them without measure. And don't worry about spoilage. Potatoes spoil, people don't spoil. ~ Steve Goodier

ToScottie March 11, 1939 p. 387- 388

And please do not leave good books half- finished, you spoil them for yourself...Don't be so lavish as to ruin masterpieces for yourself. There are not enough of them! ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

He had been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he could not break. ~ Thomas Hardy

You laugh at me when I say I want to be a lady, but I mean a true gentlewoman in mind and manners, and I try to do it as far as I know how. I can't explain exactly, but I want to be above the little meannesses and follies and faults that spoil so many women ~ Louisa May Alcott

Something just flashes into your mind, so exciting, and you must out with it. If you stop to think it over, you spoil it all. ~ L.M. Montgomery

But once a dead God, always a dead God, even resurrected. The Son must have the taste of death forever in his mouth. The Trinity must be tainted by it; there must be a certain stench at the right hand of God the Father. The horror must be real. Why would God wish that upon Himself? Why not leave death to mortals? Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect?
Love. That was his answer. ~ Yann Martel

1. That reason is a gift of God and that we should believe in its ability to comprehend the world.

2. That they have been wrong who undermined confidence in reason by enumerating the forces that want to usurp it: class struggle, libido, will to power.

3. That we should be aware that our being is enclosed within the circle of its perceptions, but not reduce reality to dreams and the phantoms of the mind.

4. That truth is a proof of freedom and that the sign of slavery is the lie.

5. That the proper attitude toward being is respect and that we must, therefore, avoid the company of people who debase being with their sarcasm, and praise nothingness.

6. That, even if we are accused of arrogance, it is the case that in the life of the mind a strict hierarchy is necessary.

7. That intellectuals in the twentieth century were afflicted with the habit of baratin, i.e., irresponsible jabber.

8. That in the hierarchy of human activities the arts stand higher than philosophy, and yet bad philosophy can spoil art.

9. That the objective truth exists; namely, out of two contrary assertions, one is true, one false, except in strictly defined cases when maintaining contradiction is legitimate.

10. That quite independently of the fate of religious denominations we should preserve a "philosophical faith," i.e., a belief in transcendence as a measure of humanity.

11. That time excludes an ~ Czesław Miłosz

Love is like a spice. It can sweeten your life - however, it can spoil it, too. ~ Confucius

Miss Burns needs air," the duke announced and before anyone could offer an opinion, he scooped her up in his arms and said, "I'm taking her inside."
And just like that, all the chill left the air. Catriona allowed herself the indulgence of resting her cheek against Bretton's chest, and as she lay there, listening to the steady beat of his heart, she could not help but think that this was where she was meant to be.
But then, of course, Lord Oakley had to spoil the whole thing. "You're taking her inside so she might get air?"
"Shut up," the duke said. ~ Julia Quinn

but how could you spoil a child - by neglect, yes, but not by love. You had to give them all the love you could, even though giving that much love could cause you pain and anguish and horror and, in the end, love could destroy you. ~ Kate Atkinson

Let us keep enough money to enjoy each breath we take, but definitely not too much, if we don't want to spoil the fragrance of our dreams and the poem of life. ~ Erik Pevernagie

Something not going well, Mr. Boxley?"
The novelist looked back at him in thunderous silence.
"I read your letter," said Stahr. The tone of the pleasant young headmaster was gone. He spoke as to an equal, but with a faint two-edged deference.
"I can't get what I write on paper," broke out Boxley. "You've all been very decent, but it's a sort of conspiracy. Those two hacks you've teamed me with listen to what I say, but they spoil it--they seem to have a vocabulary of about a hundred words."
"Why don't you write it yourself?" asked Stahr.
"I have. I sent you some."
"But it was just talk, back and forth," said Stahr mildly. "Interesting talk but nothing more."
Now it was all the two ghostly attendants could do to hold Boxley in the deep chair. He struggled to get up; he uttered a single quiet bark which had some relation to laughter but non to amusement, and said:
"I don't think you people read things. The men are duelling when the conversation takes place. At the end one of them falls into a well and has to be hauled up in a bucket."
He barked again and subsided.
Would you write that in a book of your own, Mr. Boxley?"
"What? Naturally not."
"You'd consider it too cheap."
"Movie standards are different," said Boxley, hedging.
"Do you ever go to them?"
"No--almost never."
"Isn't it because people are always duelling and falling down wells?"
Yes--and wearing strained facial expressions and talk ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Though you and I find ourselves surrounded by the lure of temporary pleasure, we must fasten our affections on the one who promises eternal treasure that will never spoil or fade. If your life or my life is going to count on earth, we must start by concentrating on heaven. For then, and only then, will you and I be free to take radical risk, knowing that what awaits us is radical reward. ~ David Platt

Never betray His principles for any reason whatsoever, and take great care not to spoil God's affairs by too much haste in them. ~ Vincent De Paul

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

How sad was it that grief had a shelf life, he thought. It's only fresh and raw for so long before it begins to spoil. And soon enough, it would be replaced by a newer, brighter heartache - the old one discarded and eventually forgotten. ~ T. Greenwood

And your doubt may become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become critical. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perplexed and embarrassed perhaps, or perhaps rebellious. But don't give in, insist on arguments and act this way, watchful and consistent, every single time, and the day will arrive when from a destroyer it will become one of your best workers
perhaps the cleverest of all that are building at your life. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

True love doesn't spoil. ~ Toba Beta

Anyone and everyone taking a writing class knows that the secret of good writing is to cut it back, pare it down, winnow, chop, hack, prune, and trim, remove every superfluous word, compress, compress, compress...

Actually, when you think about it, not many novels in the Spare tradition are terribly cheerful. Jokes you can usually pluck out whole, by the roots, so if you're doing some heavy-duty prose-weeding, they're the first to go. And there's some stuff about the whole winnowing process I just don't get. Why does it always stop when the work in question has been reduced to sixty or seventy thousand words--entirely coincidentally, I'm sure, the minimum length for a publishable novel? I'm sure you could get it down to twenty or thirty if you tried hard enough. In fact, why stop at twenty or thirty? Why write at all? Why not just jot the plot and a couple of themes down on the back of an envelope and leave it at that? The truth is, there's nothing very utilitarian about fiction or its creation, and I suspect that people are desperate to make it sound manly, back-breaking labor because it's such a wussy thing to do in the first place. The obsession with austerity is an attempt to compensate, to make writing resemble a real job, like farming, or logging. (It's also why people who work in advertising put in twenty-hour days.) Go on, young writers--treat yourself to a joke, or an adverb! Spoil yourself! Readers won't mind! ~ Nick Hornby

I am hopeless, romantic, and I love to spoil my girlfriend ~ Orlando Bloom

Whatever the situation may be, in the recollection of death there is reward and merit. For even the man engrossed in the world benefits from it by acquiring an aversion to this world, since it spoils his contentment and the fullness of his pleasure; and everything which spoils for man his pleasures and his appetites is one of the means of deliverance. ~ Al-Ghazali

Birds know, better than humans, not to spoil the nest. ~ Carl Sagan

...if you're telling a good story,you must never spoil it with a truth ~ Gilles Kristian

I believe in the old warrior's credo that "to the victor go the spoils." ~ Pope Francis

You're trying to spoil me," she murmured, keeping her back to him to hide her reaction to the gift.
"I'm still seducing you." He kissed her shoulder, a smile curling his lips as he pressed them to her flesh.
"Hmm, so what are you after other than what you've had already?" She turned to him, her brow arching as he stared down at her, that sexy little half grin tilting his lips, his gray eyes swirling with whatever emotions he kept within himself.
Didn't he know he already had all of her?
"You - " He touched her nose with his index finger " - have no clue. Now, see how fast you can make me drool with one of those dresses. I'm betting I can hold out all of ten seconds."
"Think you can make it ten seconds, do you?" She fingered a bronze "almost there" dress. So soft and buttery she was certain she'd barely feel it against her flesh. It was short, the back low, the straps strappy, the bodice obviously snug, and low as well.
Seth looked at the dress and swallowed tightly. "Five seconds?" he said faintly.
Her lips twitched. "I'll get dressed."
She pulled the dress from the rack and bent to pick up the strappy high heels that went with it.
"You have matching panties," he said hoarsely. "They have a bow at the back too. ~ Lora Leigh

When people break off relationships, they break them both from the outside and from within. The external spoils because of circumstances, but the inner [inside] must not spoil. ~ Dada Bhagwan

There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be;
There are no hearts like English hearts,
Such hearts of oak as they be;
There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be:
There are no men like Englishmen,
So tall and bold as they be!
And these will strike for England,
And man and maid be free
To foil and spoil the tyrant
Beneath the greenwood tree. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tear It Down"

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of racoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within the body. ~ Jack Gilbert

A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians. ~ William Cullen Bryant

Don't let the poison of the past spoil a fruitful future. ~ A.D. Posey

If the outside [our outside circumstances] has become spoilt so be it, don't let the inside [our inner intent] spoil. If you don't have the money to pay off your debt, keep the intent pure within that you want to pay it off. Because you did not let the inner intent spoil, the time to pay off the debt will come. ~ Dada Bhagwan

A great number of those working for liberal causes are not only shy but borderline collusive. They want change to happen nicely, and it won't. They want decency to come about without anybody suffering or being embarrassed, and it won't. And most of all they want to give many of the enemies of open government the benefit of the doubt, and I don't. It's not just a difference of approach, it's a complete schism in our respective philosophy. You can't go about disclosure in the hope that it won't spoil anybody's dinner. ~ Julian Assange

I didn't want to spoil the mood. This was probably the longest Daemon and I had ever spoken without some statement earning him the finger. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

It is unnecessary to spoil your precious involvements with a person with some word. We cannot name and express every human relationship or feeling, and we confine our involvements by naming them. ~ M. T. Panchal

Love Jo all your days, if you choose, but don't let it spoil you, for it's wicked to throw away so many good gifts because you can't have the one you want. ~ Louisa May Alcott

God has given the great power to parents and teachers.They have a great power of creating and spoiling to a human being.They can make a child or they can spoil a child. Isn't right? ~ Kusum Manjeshri

On our hunger to control and know everything humans break and spoil ~ Tim Winton