What a poem means is as much what it means to others as what it means to the author; and indeed, in the course of time a poet may become merely reader in respect to his own works, forgetting his original meaning.
Worry is evidence of an ill-controlled brain; it is merely a stupid waste of time in unpleasantness. If men and women practiced mental calisthenics as they do physical calisthenics, they would purge their brains of this foolishness.
In order to fight any issue, it is necessary to fight for something, not merely against something.
Space flights are merely an escape, a fleeing away from oneself, because it is easier to go to Mars or to the moon than it is to penetrate one's own being.
In order to become a success, a business doesn't just have to do well, it has to to better than its competitors. Being number one isn't just about bragging rights. Often it means the difference between prospering and merely hanging on.
You can't cross a sea by merely staring into the water.
[The] Hopi earth does contain my roots and I am, indeed, from that land. Because the roots are there, I will find them. But when I find them, [my father] said, I must rebuild myself as a Hopi. I am not merely a conduit, but a participant. I am not a victim, but a woman.
Conservation is not merely a question of morality, but a question of our own survival.
Are you genuine? Or just an actor? A representative? Or what it is that is represented?-In the end, you might merely be someone mimicking an actor. . . Second question of conscience.
Life is not to live merely, but to live well.
Darwinism is not merely a support for naturalistic philosophy: it is a product of naturalistic philosophy.
"It is finished" means that Jesus had accomplished all that God's mission had sent him to do. It did not merely mean that his life was over like, "I'm finished". It was a statement of achievement of purpose - God's purpose to deal with sin and guilt, to defeat all the powers of evil, to bring about the reconciliation of enemies, to defeat death itself, and to accomplish the reconciliation and liberation of the whole creation.
Oh, there you are, Albus,' he said. 'You've been a very long time. Upset stomach?' 'No, I was merely reading the Muggle magazines,' said Dumbledore. 'I do love knitting patterns.
Life is both pleasure and pain, is it not? But why should we cling to pleasure and avoid pain? Why not merely live with both? If you cling to pleasure what happens? You get attached, do you not?
The immature conscience is not its own master. It simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own; it merely conforms to the judgments of others. That is not real freedom, and it makes true love impossible, for if we are to love truly and freely, we must be able to give something that is truly our own to another. If our heart does not belong to us, asks Merton, how can we give it to another?
To be a leader in the Church has always required strength and faith beyond the merely human.
America is not just a democracy, it represents a certain culture of competitive mobility and personality aspirations, politics is not merely a clash of interests, but a clash of dreams.
Knowledge in not acquired from without but merely recollected from within. The recollection of knowledge from within is an electro-magnetic process of thinking Mind.
The Emperor is merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle!
A true shepherd leads the way. He does not merely point the way.