The Retort Courteous;... the Quip Modest;... the Reply Churlish;... the Reproof Valiant;... the Countercheck Quarrelsome;... the Lie with Circumstance;... the Lie Direct.
O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance allows
Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
Circumstances over which I have no control.
The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.
Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.
Fearful concatenation of circumstances.
I am the very slave of circumstance
And impulse,--borne away with every breath!
Circumstances alter cases.
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance.
Many a time a man cannot be such as he would be, if circumstances do not admit of it.
It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other,--a practice which has now passed into a proverb. It was also a practice with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in his studio, while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms.... Under these circumstances, they say that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one latchet too few. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks to his advice, began to criticise the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes, --a piece of advice which has equally passed into a proverbial saying.
It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.
There is a fine circumstance connected with the character of a Cynic,--that he must be beaten like an ass, and yet when beaten must love those who beat him, as the father, as the brother of all.
The ruling power within, when it is in its natural state, is so related to outer circumstances that it easily changes to accord with what can be done and what is given it to do.
Though we regard a novelist as a writer whose tade is the production of novels - in the plural - we must still take seriously those authors who have been limited, either by circumstances beyond their control, of which death is the least compromising, or by deliberate self-denial, to the production of a single novel
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.
It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence over us. The same wind that carries one vessel into port may blow another off shore.
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.
I wish I were either rich enough or poor enough to do a lot of things that are impossible in my present comfortable circumstances.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedomsâto choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
Cassius and Brutus were the more distinguished for that very circumstance that their portraits were absent. [Lat., Praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso, quod effigies eorum non videbantur.]
Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.