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sluggish QUOTES

sluggish QUOTES

1 " How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. "

― Winston S. Churchill , The River War

2 " Come boy, and pour for me a cup
Of old Falernian. Fill it up
With wine, strong, sparkling, bright, and clear;
Our host decrees no water here.
Let dullards drink the Nymph's pale brew,
The sluggish thin their blood with dew.
For such pale stuff we have no use;
For us the purple grape's rich juice.
Begone, ye chilling water sprite;
Here burning Bacchus rules tonight! "

― Catullus , Selections from Catullus (Cambridge Latin Texts)

3 " SPRING POEM

It is spring, my decision, the earth
ferments like rising bread
or refuse, we are burning
last year's weeds, the smoke
flares from the road, the clumped stalks
glow like sluggish phoenixes / it wasn't
only my fault / birdsongs burst from
the feathered pods of their bodies, dandelions
whirl their blades upwards, from beneath
this decaying board a snake
sidewinds, chained hide
smelling of reptile sex / the hens
roll in the dust, squinting with bliss, frogbodies
bloat like bladders, contract, string
the pond with living jelly
eyes, can I be this
ruthless? I plunge
my hands and arms into the dirt,
swim among stones and cutworms,
come up rank as a fox,

restless. Nights, while seedlings
dig near my head

I dream of reconciliations
with those I have hurt
unbearably, we move still
touching over the greening fields, the future
wounds folded like seeds
in our tender fingers, days
I go for vicious walks past the charred
roadbed over the bashed stubble
admiring the view, avoiding
those I have not hurt

yet, apocalypse coiled in my tongue,
it is spring, I am searching
for the word:
finished
finished

so I can begin over
again, some year
I will take this word too far. "

― Margaret Atwood , You are Happy

4 " Formerly I believed books were made like this: a poet came, lightly opened his lips, and the inspired fool burst into song – if you please! But it seems, before they can launch a song, poets must tramp for days with callused feet, and the sluggish fish of the imagination flounders softly in the slush of the heart. And while, with twittering rhymes, they boil a broth of loves and nightingales, the tongueless street merely writhes for lack of something to shout or say "

― Vladimir Mayakovsky , The Bedbug and Selected Poetry

5 " Count yourself fortunate." He made an elegant sweep of his hand toward the sun. " Daylight does not make them turn to ash, but they become bloody damn infants, whinging on about irritated eyes and sluggish limbs and so forth. "

6 " He was not a scholar – his brain seemed too sluggish or too dreamy to grasp the things demanded of it – but he was never happier than when left alone among books, and would spend hours turning the pages of atlases, novels or tales from history, alive to the alternative versions of himself they seemed to proffer. "

7 " Scriptural doctrine contains not abstruse speculation or philosophic reasoning, but very simple matters able to be understood by the most sluggish mind. "

― Baruch Spinoza , Theological-Political Treatise

8 " I avoid that bleak first hour of the working day during which my still sluggish senses and body make every chore a penance. I find that in arriving later, the work which I do perform is of a much higher quality. "

― John Kennedy Toole , A Confederacy of Dunces

9 " So the hours are pretty good then?' he resumed.
The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths.
Yeah,' he said, 'but now you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy. "

― Douglas Adams , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)

10 " But no matter how ferociously pitiable is the dried up graveyard, the sand and barrenness and the sluggish little stream have their own persistent individual damnation. The world is at least so constructed that its treasures may be damned each in a different manner and degree. "

― Mary MacLane , I Await the Devil's Coming

11 " The more I thought about the reasons behind my insecurities, the more I realized that my issues with my appearance had nothing to do with reality. I didn’t feel fat because I was sluggish or unable to move my body with ease. I felt fat because I didn’t fit the mold of what society has taught me a woman should look like. "

― Jenn Sadai , Cottage Cheese Thighs

12 " We are so sluggish in our mentality that we think the world's problems are not our business, that they have to be resolved by the United Nations or by substituting new leaders for the old. "

― J. Krishnamurti , The First and Last Freedom

13 " I don't want to see anyone. I lie in the bedroom with the curtains drawn and nothingness washing over me like a sluggish wave. Whatever is happening to me is my own fault. I have done something wrong, something so huge I can't even see it, something that's drowning me. I am inadequate and stupid, without worth. I might as well be dead. "

― Margaret Atwood , Cat's Eye

14 " Don't use drowsy EYES to look at what Christ used a passionate BLOOD to do for you. Don't use a sluggish LEG to walk towards what Christ used a compassionate FLESH to build for you "

― Israelmore Ayivor

15 " Red stimulates and excites your nerves, pulse rate and blood circulation, and lends energy to your entire system. When you are fatigued, lethargic or sluggish for any reason, red has an energizing influence. "

― , The First Element: Secrets to Maximizing Your Energy

16 " The evil that is in Man comes of sluggish minds...for sluggards cannot think, and will not...Send upon us thy flames that we may be burnt of dead thoughts, even as we burn dead grass...make us see. "

― Richard Llewellyn , How Green Was My Valley

17 " A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return. "

― Sun Tzu , The Art of War

18 " The more I thought about the reasons behind my insecurities, the more I realized that my issues with my appearance had nothing to do with reality. I didn’t feel fat because I was sluggish or unable to move my body with ease. I felt fat because I didn’t fit the mold of what society has taught me a woman should look
like. "

― Jenn Sadai , Cottage Cheese Thighs

19 " They too, knew this beautiful and harrowing landscape; they'd had the same experience of looking up from their books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not their home. "

― Donna Tartt , The Secret History

20 " But the dull and stupid masses will continue in their sluggish bustle. "