Home > Topic > birthright
1 " When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. If a writer can make people live there may be no great characters in his book, but it is possible that his book will remain as a whole; as an entity; as a novel. If the people the writer is making talk of old masters; of music; of modern painting; of letters; or of science then they should talk of those subjects in the novel. If they do not talk of these subjects and the writer makes them talk of them he is a faker, and if he talks about them himself to show how much he knows then he is showing off. No matter how good a phrase or a simile he may have if he puts it in where it is not absolutely necessary and irreplaceable he is spoiling his work for egotism. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over. For a writer to put his own intellectual musings, which he might sell for a low price as essays, into the mouths of artificially constructed characters which are more remunerative when issued as people in a novel is good economics, perhaps, but does not make literature. People in a novel, not skillfully constructed characters, must be projected from the writer’s assimilated experience, from his knowledge, from his head, from his heart and from all there is of him. If he ever has luck as well as seriousness and gets them out entire they will have more than one dimension and they will last a long time. A good writer should know as near everything as possible. Naturally he will not. A great enough writer seems to be born with knowledge. But he really is not; he has only been born with the ability to learn in a quicker ratio to the passage of time than other men and without conscious application, and with an intelligence to accept or reject what is already presented as knowledge. There are some things which cannot be learned quickly and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave. Every novel which is truly written contributes to the total of knowledge which is there at the disposal of the next writer who comes, but the next writer must pay, always, a certain nominal percentage in experience to be able to understand and assimilate what is available as his birthright and what he must, in turn, take his departure from. If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay. And this too remember; a serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl. "
― Ernest Hemingway , Death in the Afternoon
2 " The moment of writing is not an escape...it is only an insistence, through the imagination, upon human ecstasy, and a reminder that such ecstasy remains as much a birthright in this world as misery remains a condition of it. "
3 " Every novel which is truly written contributes to the total of knowledge which is there at the disposal of the next writer who comes, but the next writer must pay, always, a certain nominal percentage in experience to be able to understand and assimilate what is available as his birthright and what he must, in turn, take his departure from. If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay. And this too remember; a serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl. "
4 " You're not like other Wasps." " Aren't I?" Aagen smiled, but it was a painful smile. " No doubt you've killed my kinsmen by the score." " A few," Salma allowed." Well, next time you shed my kinden's blood, think on this: we are but men, no less nor more than other men, and we strive and feel joy and fail as men have always done. We live in the darkness that is the birthright of us all, that of hurt and ignorance, only sometimes... sometimes there comes the sun." He let the bowl fall from his fingers to the floor, watching it spin and settle, unbroken. "
5 " Someday, the realm of liberty and justice will encompass the planet. Freedom is not just the birthright of the few, it is the God-given right of all His children, in every country. It won't come by conquest. It will come, because freedom is right and freedom works. It will come, because cooperation and good will among free people will carry the day. "
― Ronald Reagan , The Quest for Peace, the Cause of Freedom
6 " Each person carries within their core the birthright of creative freedom, which, when organized and orchestrated, is the most awesome force on earth. "
― Bryant McGill , Voice of Reason
7 " Freedom is alone the unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independent of the will and co-action of every other… "
― Immanuel Kant
8 " If God is really my Father, I have rights, and He has responsibilities. I hereby claim my birthright to be protected, educated, and provided for! "
― Stefan Emunds
9 " I think reading is part of the birthright of the human being "
― LeVar Burton
10 " The recognition that human beings are specifically and deliberately responsible for whatever aberrances farm animals may embody, that their discordances reflect our, not their, primary disruption of natural rhythms, and that we owe them more rather than less for having stripped them of their birthright and earthrights has not entered into the environmentalist discussions that I've encountered to date. "
― Karen Davis
11 " If I should sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I am sure that for me there would be nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. "
― Henry David Thoreau , Life Without Principle
12 " Know that it is your birthright to awaken. Seeking Truth is the ultimate quest of every moral citizen. Truth is felt first in the heart, and then the mind. The voice of your conscience comes from your heart, not your mind. The voice of reason comes from your mind, not your heart. Your mind is simply there to reason with your heart. Always listen to your heart first. Those who look for Truth through the mind before the heart will never find Truth. When you come close to Truth, the first sign will be an inner sense of liberation. Truth will NEVER imprison you. Only the repression of your conscience will. This is what is meant by 'THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE'. "
― , Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
13 " Thus Arthur achieved the adventure of the sword that day and entered into his birthright of royalty. Wherefore, may God grant His Grace unto you all that ye too may likewise succeed in your undertakings. For any man may be a king in that life in which he is placed if so he may draw forth the sword of success from out of the iron of circumstance. Wherefore when your time of assay cometh, I do hope it may be with you as it was with Arthur that day, and that ye too may achieve success with entire satisfaction unto yourself and to your great glory and perfect happiness. "
― Howard Pyle
14 " Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuitions for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of World Book and Childcraft. Think of checks written for family photos. Think of credit cards charged for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth. Think of your mother, who had no father. And your grandmother, who was abandoned by her father. And your grandfather, who was left behind by his father. And think of how Prince's daughter was now drafted into those solemn ranks and deprived of her birthright — that vessel which was her father, which brimmed with twenty-five years of love and was the investment of her grandparents and was to be her legacy. "
― Ta-Nehisi Coates
15 " I will never accept life for what it is. I don't need an easy life. My road was meant to be hard because anything worth having in this world will take me to the very edge of myself. I will overcome everything I have ever gone through and will make my future the one God intended me to have. I will pick up the pieces of this pain and sculpt it into art. I am not ordinary and never was. I walk into my birthright as a queen with her head held high. I was born to do this! "
― Shannon L. Alder
16 " There is no greater moment in life than that when we discover the unique design which has shaped our lives from the moment of birth, save one:The instant we recognize destiny, accept it and then begin to create the rest of our own lives within it using the power of free will.When this threshold has been crossed, nothing can stop our inevitable journey into the highest good for ourselves and all around us.This is healing.This is actualization.This is integration.This is joy.And it is the birthright of every incarnated soul on this planet. "
― Jacob Nordby
17 " You need only one thing in the world. It is not money. It is not fame. It is not even food. All you need in the world is hope. As long as you have that, you have everything. This is your birthright that you should never lose. If you keep hope, all your other necessities will come soon enough. "
― Ilchi Lee , Brain Wave Vibration: Getting Back Into the Rhythm of a Happy, Healthy Life
18 " The captain’s eyes betrayed what his countenance must conceal: the anguish of an ancient being who must honour his birthright by living beyond those whom he would have given much to keep. "
― Michelle Franklin , Khantara: Vol 1
19 " Claiming our birthright means living in beauty inwardly regardless of our outer circumstances. It means cultivating the qualities coded in our hearts. "
20 " The stars have not dealt me the worst they could do:My pleasures are plenty, my troubles are two.But oh, my two troubles they reave me of rest,The brains in my head and the heart in my breast.Oh, grant me the ease that is granted so free,The birthright of multitudes, give it to me,That relish their victuals and rest on their bedWith flint in the bosom and guts in the head. "
― A.E. Housman , A Shropshire Lad