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Quotations and Examples to Use in the Argumentative Essay
Art, Artist, and Life :
• « Music is feeling, then, not sound; /And thus it is what I feel.” (Wallace Stevens: “Peter Quince at the Clavier”).
• “The theatre was changed/To something else. Its past was a souvenir/It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place./It has to face the men of the time and to meet/The women of the time.”(W.S: “Of Modern Poetry”).
• “It has to think about the war.”(W.S.: “Of Modern Poetry”).
• “It must/Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may/Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman combing.”(W.Stevens: “Of Modern Poetry”).
• The poet must do nothing than “help people to live their lives”; his imagination has the power to serve as “the light in the mind of others.”
• “The whole race is a poet that writes down/The eccentric propositions of its fate.”(W.Stevens: “Men Made Out of Words”).
• “There is no Frigate like a book/To take us lands away.”
• “If you touch the heart with one book, it can transform a life.”(By the political philosopher: Alan Bloom).
• Poetry is “The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty.”(By Edgar Allan Poe).
• “ “Classic.” A book which people praise and don’t read.”(By Mark Twain).
Beauty:
• “Beauty is momentary in the mind/ […] But in the flesh it is immortal.”(W.S.: “Peter Quince at the Clavier”).
• “The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.”(W.Stevens: “Peter Quince at the Clavier”).
• “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, /Alone, hall come fulfilment to our dreams/And our desires.”(W.Stevens: “Sunday Morning”).
• “Why do you imagine golden birds? /Do you not see how the blackbird/Walks around the feet.”(W.Stevens: “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”).
• Beauty may be reflected in nature, “thrown back from flowers/ […] As in those gardens.”(E.A.Poe: “Al Aaraaf”).
Nature:
• “All Nature Speaks.”(By E.A.Poe: “Al Aaraaf”).
• “Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, /In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else/In any balm or beauty of the earth, /Things to be cherished.”(W.Stevens: “Sunday Morning”).
• Nature “gives no orders […]; it knows nothing of vengeance or mercy. Before nature all men are free and equal.” (By the historian Walter P. Webb).
War and violence:
• “Life hasn’t much to offer except youth, […] and every man I’ve met who’s been to war, […] seems to have lost youth and faith in man.”(By F.S.Fitzgerald in a letter of 1917).
• War “could not have been committed by any animal other than man.”(From an article by Howard Zinn in “Violence in America”).
• “Four women are beaten to death every day in America by husbands or lovers.”(FBI statistics/from an article).
Modern Man and Modern Life:
• “We are the hollow men/We are the stuffed men/Headpiece filled with straw.”
• “Our dried voices […]/Are quiet and meaningless.”
• “Shape without form, shade without colour, /Paralysed force, gesture without motion.”
• “We grope together/And avoid speech.”
• “This is the dead land/This is cactus land.”(T.S.Eliot: “The Hollow Men”).
• “There will be time, […] To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.”
• “And time yet for a hundred indecisions, /And for a hundred visions and revisions.”
• “And indeed there will be time/To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”.”
• “And in short, I was afraid.”
• “It is impossible to say just what I mean!”(T.S.Eliot: “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock).
• “We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.”(Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Bein’ Earnest).
• “We should treat all the trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things with sincere and studied triviality.”(By Oscar Wilde).
• “Divorces are made in heaven.”(O.Wilde: The Importance of Bein’ Earnest).
• “It’s of awfully hard work doing nothing.”(O.Wilde: The Importance…).
• “The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man.”(O.Wilde: The Importance…).
Reverie and Solitude:
• “Life consists of propositions about life. The human/Reverie is a solitude in which/We compose these propositions.”(W.Stevens: “Men Made Out of Words”).
• “I have been happy, though in a dream. /I have been happy _and I love the theme:/Dreams! In their vivid colouring of life.” (E.A.Poe: “Dreams”).
• It “brings/To the delirious eye, more lovely things/Of Paradise and love.”(Edgar Allan Poe: “Dreams”).
Reading:
• “There is no Frigate like a book/To take us lands away/Nor any coursers like a page/Of prancing poetry.”
• “How frugal is the Chariot/That bears the human soul.”
• “A book or an idea has opened vistas for [students of mine].”(A.Bloom).
• “There are an infinite number of starting places to begin one’s quest for the truth […], a book or an idea that serves as an intellectual launching pad.”(A.Bloom).
• “If you touch the heart with one book, it can transform a life.”(By the political philosopher: Alan Bloom).
Smoking:
• “Heavy smokers and drinkers run a fifteen-time greater risk of developing cancer of the mouth and throat than non-smokers and non-drinkers.”(From an article).
Wealth:
• “Wealth serves “to belittle his own work”.”(By the critic Cioran).
• In his novels Our Mutual Friend and Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens represents money as a disease and a false god.
Television:
• “Wilkins gives studies that have reported a relationship between increased watching and decreased learning, between violence on T.V and aggressive behaviour.”(Adopted from TIME magazine October 11, 1982).
• “The danger of T.V lies not so much in the behaviour it produces as in the behaviour it prevents.”(A famous psychologist).
• “Television connects viewers to nothing except the idea of being connected to something.”(T.V critic: Michael Arlen).
Proverbs and Saying:
• The truth is rarely pure and never simple. (Truth always involves an ideology; it is complex).
• Idleness is the mother of all vices.
• Easy come, easy go.
• A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
• A friend in need is a friend indeed.
• A word to the wise is enough.
• After a storm comes calm.
• All is well that ends well.
• Birds of feather flock together.
• By the little is known the much.
• Charity begins at home.
• Envy never enriches any man.
• Forbidden fruit is sweetest.
• Four eyes see better than two.
• The sooner, the better.
• Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
• Ill gotten thrives not.
• He made a mountain out of a molehill.
• It is no use crying over spilt milk.
• Like father, like son.
• Long absent, soon forgotten.
• Necessity has no law.
• Necessity is the mother of invention.
• Old habits dye hard.
• Once bitten, twice shy.
• One conversation leads to an other.
• Poverty has no sin.
• Still waters run deep.
• Strike while the iron is hot.
• The end justifies the means.
• To add fuel to fire.
• Union is strength.
• Physician, heal yourself.
• The face is the index of the heart.
• Misfortunes never come single.
• Much ado about nothing.
Art, Artist, and Life :
• « Music is feeling, then, not sound; /And thus it is what I feel.” (Wallace Stevens: “Peter Quince at the Clavier”).
• “The theatre was changed/To something else. Its past was a souvenir/It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place./It has to face the men of the time and to meet/The women of the time.”(W.S: “Of Modern Poetry”).
• “It has to think about the war.”(W.S.: “Of Modern Poetry”).
• “It must/Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may/Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman combing.”(W.Stevens: “Of Modern Poetry”).
• The poet must do nothing than “help people to live their lives”; his imagination has the power to serve as “the light in the mind of others.”
• “The whole race is a poet that writes down/The eccentric propositions of its fate.”(W.Stevens: “Men Made Out of Words”).
• “There is no Frigate like a book/To take us lands away.”
• “If you touch the heart with one book, it can transform a life.”(By the political philosopher: Alan Bloom).
• Poetry is “The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty.”(By Edgar Allan Poe).
• “ “Classic.” A book which people praise and don’t read.”(By Mark Twain).
Beauty:
• “Beauty is momentary in the mind/ […] But in the flesh it is immortal.”(W.S.: “Peter Quince at the Clavier”).
• “The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.”(W.Stevens: “Peter Quince at the Clavier”).
• “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, /Alone, hall come fulfilment to our dreams/And our desires.”(W.Stevens: “Sunday Morning”).
• “Why do you imagine golden birds? /Do you not see how the blackbird/Walks around the feet.”(W.Stevens: “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”).
• Beauty may be reflected in nature, “thrown back from flowers/ […] As in those gardens.”(E.A.Poe: “Al Aaraaf”).
Nature:
• “All Nature Speaks.”(By E.A.Poe: “Al Aaraaf”).
• “Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, /In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else/In any balm or beauty of the earth, /Things to be cherished.”(W.Stevens: “Sunday Morning”).
• Nature “gives no orders […]; it knows nothing of vengeance or mercy. Before nature all men are free and equal.” (By the historian Walter P. Webb).
War and violence:
• “Life hasn’t much to offer except youth, […] and every man I’ve met who’s been to war, […] seems to have lost youth and faith in man.”(By F.S.Fitzgerald in a letter of 1917).
• War “could not have been committed by any animal other than man.”(From an article by Howard Zinn in “Violence in America”).
• “Four women are beaten to death every day in America by husbands or lovers.”(FBI statistics/from an article).
Modern Man and Modern Life:
• “We are the hollow men/We are the stuffed men/Headpiece filled with straw.”
• “Our dried voices […]/Are quiet and meaningless.”
• “Shape without form, shade without colour, /Paralysed force, gesture without motion.”
• “We grope together/And avoid speech.”
• “This is the dead land/This is cactus land.”(T.S.Eliot: “The Hollow Men”).
• “There will be time, […] To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.”
• “And time yet for a hundred indecisions, /And for a hundred visions and revisions.”
• “And indeed there will be time/To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”.”
• “And in short, I was afraid.”
• “It is impossible to say just what I mean!”(T.S.Eliot: “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock).
• “We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.”(Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Bein’ Earnest).
• “We should treat all the trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things with sincere and studied triviality.”(By Oscar Wilde).
• “Divorces are made in heaven.”(O.Wilde: The Importance of Bein’ Earnest).
• “It’s of awfully hard work doing nothing.”(O.Wilde: The Importance…).
• “The home seems to me to be the proper sphere for the man.”(O.Wilde: The Importance…).
Reverie and Solitude:
• “Life consists of propositions about life. The human/Reverie is a solitude in which/We compose these propositions.”(W.Stevens: “Men Made Out of Words”).
• “I have been happy, though in a dream. /I have been happy _and I love the theme:/Dreams! In their vivid colouring of life.” (E.A.Poe: “Dreams”).
• It “brings/To the delirious eye, more lovely things/Of Paradise and love.”(Edgar Allan Poe: “Dreams”).
Reading:
• “There is no Frigate like a book/To take us lands away/Nor any coursers like a page/Of prancing poetry.”
• “How frugal is the Chariot/That bears the human soul.”
• “A book or an idea has opened vistas for [students of mine].”(A.Bloom).
• “There are an infinite number of starting places to begin one’s quest for the truth […], a book or an idea that serves as an intellectual launching pad.”(A.Bloom).
• “If you touch the heart with one book, it can transform a life.”(By the political philosopher: Alan Bloom).
Smoking:
• “Heavy smokers and drinkers run a fifteen-time greater risk of developing cancer of the mouth and throat than non-smokers and non-drinkers.”(From an article).
Wealth:
• “Wealth serves “to belittle his own work”.”(By the critic Cioran).
• In his novels Our Mutual Friend and Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens represents money as a disease and a false god.
Television:
• “Wilkins gives studies that have reported a relationship between increased watching and decreased learning, between violence on T.V and aggressive behaviour.”(Adopted from TIME magazine October 11, 1982).
• “The danger of T.V lies not so much in the behaviour it produces as in the behaviour it prevents.”(A famous psychologist).
• “Television connects viewers to nothing except the idea of being connected to something.”(T.V critic: Michael Arlen).
Proverbs and Saying:
• The truth is rarely pure and never simple. (Truth always involves an ideology; it is complex).
• Idleness is the mother of all vices.
• Easy come, easy go.
• A drowning man will clutch at a straw.
• A friend in need is a friend indeed.
• A word to the wise is enough.
• After a storm comes calm.
• All is well that ends well.
• Birds of feather flock together.
• By the little is known the much.
• Charity begins at home.
• Envy never enriches any man.
• Forbidden fruit is sweetest.
• Four eyes see better than two.
• The sooner, the better.
• Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
• Ill gotten thrives not.
• He made a mountain out of a molehill.
• It is no use crying over spilt milk.
• Like father, like son.
• Long absent, soon forgotten.
• Necessity has no law.
• Necessity is the mother of invention.
• Old habits dye hard.
• Once bitten, twice shy.
• One conversation leads to an other.
• Poverty has no sin.
• Still waters run deep.
• Strike while the iron is hot.
• The end justifies the means.
• To add fuel to fire.
• Union is strength.
• Physician, heal yourself.
• The face is the index of the heart.
• Misfortunes never come single.
• Much ado about nothing.