Familiar

Famous quotes containing the word familiar:

    I heard the bells, on Christmas Day,
    Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat
    Of peace on earth, good will to men.
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)

    We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one individual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.
    —Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. “Strong and Sensitive Cats,” Atlantic Monthly (July 1994)

    If the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)