Famous quotes containing the words western, front, world, war and/or interlude:
“So-called Western Civilization, as practised in half of Europe, some of Asia and a few parts of North America, is better than anything else available. Western civilization not only provides a bit of life, a pinch of liberty and the occasional pursuance of happiness, it’s also the only thing that’s ever tried to. Our civilization is the first in history to show even the slightest concern for average, undistinguished, none-too-commendable people like us.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“... I was crying partly because I felt that this was expected of me, partly from genuine repentance, but partly also because of a deeper grief which is peculiar to childhood and not easy to convey: a sense of desolate loneliness and helplessness, of being locked up not only in a hostile world but in a world of good and evil where the rules were such that it was actually not possible for me to keep them.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Superstition, bigotry and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life; they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“New York is full of people ... with a feeling for the tangential adventure, the risky adventure, the interlude that’s not likely to end in any double-ring ceremony.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)