Two things I do value a lot, intimacy and the capacity for joy, didn't seem to be on anyone else's list. I felt like the stranger in a strange land, and decided I'd better not marry the natives.
Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.
Schon ist der Friede! Ein lieblicher Knabe / Liegt er gelagert am ruhigen Bach.... / Aber der Krieg auch hat seine Ehre, / Der Beweger des Menschensgeschicks=--Beautiful is Peace! A lovely boy lies he reclining by a quiet rill. But war too has its honour, the promoter as it is of the destiny of man.
That's what a man wants in a wife, mostly: he wants to make sure o' one fool as'll tell him he's wise. But there's some men can do wi'out that--they think so much o' themselves a'ready--an' that's how it is there's old bachelors.
"There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."
Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure; Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.
Are you telling me that even though it’s changing every second, the sky is always a perfect sky?
Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?
When I hear Mozart, I understand what it is to be a human being; when I hear Beethoven, I understand what it is to be Beethoven; but when I hear Bach, understand what it is to be the Universe.
It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost ...
Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love.
That she won the game startled me cold. The way she won, the pattern of her thought on the chessboard, charmed me warm again and then some.
That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.
A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.
"Do you know what I learned from you? I learned what is possible, and now I must hold out for what I thought we had. I want to be very close to someone I respect and admire and have somebody who feels the same way about me. That or nothing. I realized that what I'm looking for is not what you're looking for. You don't want what I want." "What do you think I want?" I asked. "Exactly what you have. Many women you know a little and don't care very much about. Superficial flirtations, mutual use, no chance of love. That's my idea of hell. Hell is a place, a time, a consciousness, Richard, in which there is no love. Horrible! Leave me out of it."
The world's crazy, when it comes to beauty.
Maidens' bairns and bachelors' wives are aye weel bred.
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
One of the basic tenets of Zen Buddhism is that there is no way to characterize what Zen is. No matter what verbal space you try to enclose Zen in, it resists, and spills over...
Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again?
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
Sooner I'd try to change history than turn political, than try convincing others to write letters or to vote or to march or to do something they didn't already feel like doing.
The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?
"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours."
We're different, we're the same. You thought you'd never find a word to say to a woman who didn't fly airplanes. I couldn't imagine myself spending time with a man who didn't love music. Could it be it's not as important to be alike as it is to be curious? Because we're different, we can have the fun of exchanging worlds, giving our loves and excitements to each other. You can learn music, I can learn flying. And that's only the beginning. I think it would go on for us as long as we live.
Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days.
FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN: #14 Low Blows: Let's say a man and woman are watching a boxing match on TV. One of the boxers is felled by a low blow. The woman says "Oh, gee. That must hurt." The man doubles over and actually FEELS the pain. Dressing Up: A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail. A man will dress up for: weddings, funerals. Speaking of weddings, when reminiscing about weddings, women talk about "the ceremony". Men laugh about "the bachelor</p> party". David Letterman: Men think David Letterman is the funniest man on the face of the Earth. Women think he is a mean, semi-dorky guy who always has a bad haircut.
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of. -- Burt Bacharach</p>
Confirmed bachelor: A man who goes through life without a hitch.
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich; Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich. Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head; We buried him today because As far as we can tell, he's dead. -- PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty Sue Bach and written by the local doggeral catcher; "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele
BS: You remind me of a man. B: What man? BS: The man with the power. B: What power? BS: The power of voodoo. B: Voodoo? BS: You do. B: Do what? BS: Remind me of a man. B: What man? BS: The man with the power... -- Cary Grant, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer"
Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom." The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!" But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!" And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure. But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour. -- Richard Bach</p>
"Home, Sweet Home" must surely have been written by a bachelor. -- Samuel Butler
Some bachelors want a meaningful overnight relationship.
African violet: Such worth is rare Apple blossom: Preference
Bay leaf: I change but in death
Camelia: Reflected loveliness
Chrysanthemum, red: I love
Chrysanthemum, white: Truth
Chrysanthemum, other: Slighted love
Clover: Be mine
Crocus: Abuse not
Daffodil: Innocence
Forget-me-not: True love
Fuchsia: Fast
Gardenia: Secret, untold love
Honeysuckle: Bonds of love
Ivy: Friendship, fidelity, marriage
Jasmine: Amiablity, transports of joy, sensuality
Leaves (dead): Melancholy
Lilac: Youthful innocence
Lilly: Purity, sweetness
Lilly of the valley: Return of happiness
Magnolia: Dignity, perseverance
* An upside-down blossom reverses the meaning.
You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. -- R. Bach, "Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul"
-- Nicolas Chamfort
This door is baroquen, please wiggle Handel. (If I wiggle Handel, will it wiggle Bach?) -- Found on a door in the MSU music building
A man who chases women and never Mrs. one.
If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
You mentioned your name as if I should recognize it, but beyond the obvious facts that you are a bachelor, a solicitor, a freemason, and an asthmatic, I know nothing whatever about you. -- Sherlock Holmes, "The Norwood Builder"
A bachelor is an unaltared male.
The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?
Women are always anxious to urge bachelors to matrimony; is it from charity, or revenge? -- Gustave Vapereau
A bachelor is a man who never made the same mistake once.
There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- J. S. Bach</p>
A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn
Why not? -- What? -- Why not? -- Why should I not send it? -- Why should I not dispatch it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I don't know why I shouldn't -- Well, then -- You will do me this favor. -- Why not? -- Why should you not do it? -- Why not? -- Strange! I shall do the same for you, when you want me to. Why not? Why should I not do it for you? Strange! Why not? -- I can't think why not. -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from a letter to his cousin Maria, "The Definitive Biography of PDQ Bach", Peter Schickele
"Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if..." "He was going to suck my blood!" "Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt if they don't live our way." ... "The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices." "When you look at it that way..." "Listen," he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do." -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele.
Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option.
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"
Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others. -- Oscar Wilde
A guy who is footloose and fiancee-free.
A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy for ever. -- Helen Rowland
After Prince Andrew's engagement to Natasha, Pierre without any apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before. Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had devoted himself with such ardor--all the zest of such a life vanished after the engagement of Andrew and Natasha and the death of Joseph Alexeevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same time. Only the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance with all Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities. And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the club again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch with the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the Countess Helene thought it necessary to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that she was right, and to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.
When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile, yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men. At balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was equally amiable to all, especially after supper. "Il est charmant; il n'a pas de sexe," * they said of him.
It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home.
"Then, I think," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie," drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, "I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson's shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight's end, he comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other fortnight's trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear Somebody's step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his own."
"Bachmatoff saw me home after the dinner and we crossed the Nicolai bridge. We were both a little drunk. He told me of his joy, the joyful feeling of having done a good action; he said that it was all thanks to myself that he could feel this satisfaction; and held forth about the foolishness of the theory that individual charity is useless.
Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking off her darling's bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant sight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protesting against her taking so much trouble for her--which last she only dared to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her own chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain for the fulfilment of Miss Pross's prediction.
"So Herbert and Clara say, but I don't think I shall, Biddy. I have so settled down in their home, that it's not at all likely. I am already quite an old bachelor."
"Poor Bachmatoff was much impressed--painfully so. He took me all the way home; not attempting to console me, but behaving with the greatest delicacy. On taking leave he pressed my hand warmly and asked permission to come and see me. I replied that if he came to me as a 'comforter,' so to speak (for he would be in that capacity whether he spoke to me in a soothing manner or only kept silence, as I pointed out to him), he would but remind me each time of my approaching death! He shrugged his shoulders, but quite agreed with me; and we parted better friends than I had expected.
In the "Metropolis" tavern he had some time since made acquaintance with a young official and had learnt that this very opulent bachelor was passionately fond of weapons. He used to buy pistols, revolvers, daggers, hang them on his wall and show them to acquaintances. He prided himself on them, and was quite a specialist on the mechanism of the revolver. Mitya, without stopping to think, went straight to him, and offered to pawn his pistols to him for ten roubles. The official, delighted, began trying to persuade him to sell them outright. But Mitya would not consent, so the young man gave him ten roubles, protesting that nothing would induce him to take interest. They parted friends.
The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy and some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who owned some splendid horses.
I formed an attachment to a beautiful and intelligent young girl of noble and lofty character, the daughter of people much respected. They were well-to-do people of influence and position. They always gave me a cordial and friendly reception. I fancied that the young lady looked on me with favor and my heart was aflame at such an idea. Later on I saw and fully realized that I perhaps was not so passionately in love with her at all, but only recognized the elevation of her mind and character, which I could not indeed have helped doing. I was prevented, however, from making her an offer at the time by my selfishness, I was loath to part with the allurements of my free and licentious bachelor life in the heyday of my youth, and with my pockets full of money. I did drop some hint as to my feelings however, though I put off taking any decisive step for a time. Then, all of a sudden, we were ordered off for two months to another district.
"'Dear me!' he said gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am sorry to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the propagation and spread of the red-heads as well as for their maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a bachelor.'
"'So much depends upon your uncle,' I said. 'And besides we have always been enemies, Bachmatoff; and as you are a generous sort of fellow, I thought you would not refuse my request because I was your enemy!' I added with irony.
"Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air.
Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and was slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a prosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous little garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let into the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of his prosperity were put away in it in bags.
"At the same time," he remarked after a pause, during which he had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, "you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, at all. The small matter in which I endeavoured to help the King of Bohemia, the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are outside the pale of the law. But in avoiding the sensational, I fear that you may have bordered on the trivial."