cause

The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetryadministers to the effect byacting on the cause.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

He stood at bold defiance with his prince; Held up the buckler of the people's cause Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws.

—Dryden,John

We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery† Our cause is just, our union is perfect.

—Dickinson,John

'Then, gentlemen,'said Redgauntlet, clasping his hands together as the words burst from him,'the cause is lost for ever!'

—Scott, Sir Walter

Historians spend their lives and lavish ink Explaining how great commonwealths collapse From great defects of policyöperhaps The cause is sometimes simpler than they think. † Have more states perished, then, For having shackled the enquiring mind, Than those who, in their folly not less blind, Trusted the servile womb to breed free men?

—Hope, A(lec) D(erwent)

Aux colonies, l'infrastructure e¤  conomique est e¤  galement une superstructure. La cause est conse¤  quence: on est riche parce que blanc, on est blanc parce que riche. In the colonies the economic substructure is also a superstructure. The cause is the consequence; you are rich because you are white, you are white because you are rich.

—Fanon, Frantz Omar

A cause may be inconvenient, but it's magnificent. It's like champagne orhigh heels, and onemust be prepared to suffer for it.

—Bennett, (Enoch) Arnold

   The cause of plagues is sin, if you look to it well; and the cause of sin are plays; therefore the cause of plagues are plays.

—White,Thomas

How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!

—Goldsmith, Oliver

   Nor one feeling of vengeance presumed to defile The cause, or the men, or the Emerald Isle.

—Drennan,William

The world is in flames today for a cause that interests Russia first and foremost; a cause that is essentially the cause of the Slavs, and which is of no concern to France or to England.

—Witte, Sergei Yulevich

Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle, Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them?

—Clough, Arthur Hugh

and Ireally hopeno white person ever has causetowrite about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy

—Giovanni,Nikki in full Yolande CorneliaGiovanni,Jr

Nature is but a name for an effect, Whose cause is God.

—Cowper,William

Are we to be the Don Quixotes of Europeöto go about fighting foreverycausewhere we find that someonehas been wronged?

—Cobden, Richard

I have none of the infirmities of old age, and have lost several I had in my youth. The grand cause is, the good pleasure of God, who does whatever pleases him. The chief means are:1. My constantly rising at four, for about fifty years. 2. My generally preaching at five in the morning; one of the most healthy exercises in the world. 3. My never travelling less, by sea or land, than four thousand five hundred miles in a year.

—Wesley,John

NempeAmor nihil aliud est, quam Laeititia concomitante idea causae externae; et Odium nihil aliud est, quamTristitia concomitante idea causae externae. Love is nothing else than pleasure accompanied by the idea of anexternal cause; and hatepainaccompanied by the idea of an external cause.

—Spinoza, Baruch also known as Benedict de Spinoza

Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.

—Book of Common Prayer

'I'll be judge, I'll be jury,'said cunning old Fury; 'I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.'

—Dodgson

The student must remember, for his consolation†that his failures are almost as important to the cause of scienceand tothosewhofollow himinthesameroad, as his successes. It is much to know what we cannot do in any given directionöthe first step, indeed, toward the accomplishment of what we can do.

—Agassiz, (Jean) Louis (Rodolphe)

Ihave justcausetomakea pitiful defence of poor poetry, which from almost the highest estimation of learning is 790

—Shute, Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway

A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or unjustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. 444

—Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson

Southerners can never resist a losing cause.

—Mitchell, Margaret

No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

—Faulkner,William Harrison

Humanbeings, intheirgenerous endeavour to construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a First Cause, have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power of a lower moral quality than their own.

—Hardy,Thomas

   We have no other notion of cause and effect, but that of certain objects, which have been always conjoined together, and whichinall past instanceshavebeenfound inseparable.

—Humboldt, Alexander, Baron von

Obstinacy in a bad cause, is but constancy in a good.

—Browne, SirThomas

'Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause,öand of obstinacy in a bad one.

—Sterne, Laurence

Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre. The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

—Pascal, Blaise

We were obsessed by the feeling that this was the supreme cause of our time. The cause of poets and of writers.The cause of freedom. And that unlessthe cause of anti-Fascism was won, unless Fascism was defeated, we would be unable to exist as writers.

—Spender, Sir Stephen Harold

It takes up no falling cause; fights no uphill battle; advocatesnogreat principle; holdsout a helping hand to no oppressed or obscure individual. It is 'ever strong upon the stronger side'.

—Hazlitt,William

Of all those young women Not one has enquired the cause of the world Nor the modus of lunar eclipses Nor whether there be any patch left of us After we cross the infernal ripples.

—Pound, Ezra Loomis

It gave me a great notion of the credit of our present government and administration, to find people press as eagerly to pay moneyas they would to receive it; and, at the same time, a due respect for that body of men who have found out so pleasing an expedient for carrying on the common cause, that they have turned a tax into a diversion.

—Stein, Gertrude

But ruffian stern, and soldier good, The noble and the slave, From various cause the same wild road, On the same bloody morning, trode, To that dark innöthe Grave!

—Scott, Sir Walter