Strange Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

History unfolds itself by strange and unpredictable paths. We have little control over the future; and none at all over the past.

Winston Churchill

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,
And after in life's vase
Of glass set while I might survive,
But by a kind hand brought
Alive
To a strange place.

Henry David Thoreau

We talk eloquently about our commitment to the principles of Christianity, and yet our lives are saturated with the practices of paganism. We proclaim our devotion to democracy, but we sadly practice the very opposite of the democratic creed.... This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man's earthly pilgrimage.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

'T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.

Michel de Montaigne

Then a strange thing happened. She turned to him and smiled, and as he saw her smile every rag of anger and hurt vanity dropped form him - as though his very moods were but the outer ripples of her own, as though emotion rose no longer in his breast unless she saw fit to pull an omnipotent controlling thread.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Strange is this alien despotism of Sleep which takes two persons lying in each other's arms & separates them leagues, continents,asunder.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

World, world, O world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee/ Life would not yield to age.

William Shakespeare

Those locks of jet are turned to gray,
And she is strange and far away
That might have been mine own today — That might have been mine own, my dear,
Through many and many a happy year —
That might have sat beside me here.

He marveled at the strange blindness by which men, though they are so alert to what changes in themselves, impose on their friends an image chosen for them once and for all. He was being judged by what he had been. Just as dogs don't change character, men are dogs to one another.

This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

William Shakespeare

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

I don't deny," he said, "that there should be priests to remind men that they will one day die. I only say that at certain strange epochs it is necessary to have another kind of priests, called poets, actually to remind men that they are not dead yet.

G. K. Chesterton

The strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have been apparent to every one for hundreds of years, no one has left any adequate account of it. The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?

The very spot where grew the bread that formed my bones, I see. How strange, old field, on thee to tread, and feel I'm part of thee.

Abraham Lincoln

If you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange.

Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it. Why speak of time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action?

There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously alleviates the sorrow that men would otherwise feel for the death of friends.

Miguel de Cervantes

... do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of yet greater evils?... Then all but philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.

But nothing is so strange when one is in love (and what was this except being in love?) as the complete indifference of other people.

Classics which at home are drowsily read have a strange charm in a country inn, or in the transom of a merchant brig.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The nearer I come to the end of my days, the more I am enabled to see that strange thing, a life, and to see it whole.

Simone de Beauvoir

In the light, the earth remains our first and our last love. Our brothers are breathing under the same sky as we; justice is a living thing. Now is born that strange joy which helps one live and die, and which we shall never again postpone to a later time.

Women are so strange in their influence that they tempt you to misplaced kindness.

I was the all-American boy, the Eagle Scout. I remember I was at my girlfriend's apartment, and there were these strange publications like The Nation and The New Republic. I started looking at them and thought, "Gee, this is weird; people saying things against America?" It was an awakening. On the East Coast, I'd never even heard of conscientious objectors.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It was strange, how easily and quickly protection could cause destruction. Sometimes, Vasher wondered if the two weren't really the same thing. Protect a flower, destroy pests who wanted to feed on it. Protect a building, destroy the plants that could have grown in the soil. Protect a man. Live with the destruction he creates.

Brandon Sanderson