The existing principle of selfish interest and competition has been carried to its extreme point; and, in its progress, has isolated the heart of man, blunted the edge of his finest sensibilities, and annihilated all his most generous impulses and sympathies.
Why is it that aggression in the name of God shocks secular liberal sensibilities, whereas the act of killing in the name of the secular nation, or of democracy, does not?
Steel your sensibilities, so that life shall hurt you as little as possible.
I was like many another who starts an intrigue timidly. Once into it, I had to go on, and therefore I had to harden my sensibilities.
Twere better to be born a stone Of ruder shape, and feeling none, Than with a tenderness like mine And sensibilities so fine! Ah, hapless wretch! condemn'd to dwell Forever in my native shell, Ordained to move when others please, Not for my own content or ease; But toss'd and buffeted about, Now in the water and now out.
When people are not sure about their future, when their economies are suffering, when their personal fortunes are flagging, we have often in this country turned to nativism and xenophobia and racism and anti-immigrant sensibilities and passions to express our sense of outrage at what we can't control - and to forge a kind of fitful solidarity that turns out to be rather insular - we look inward and not outward.
Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. . . . The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' place and inquiring if he himself would buy under the circumstances. But such men never would be prosperous merchants.
Not everything you hear about yourself can be considered good publicity. And if you have delicate sensibilities, the currycomb of public imagination frequently rubs your vanities the wrong way.
The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally.
Fiction stretches our sensibilities and our understanding, as mere information never can.
Very often I suspend my musical sensibilities to enjoy music as a fan.
I don't think that you can say by any stretch of the imagination that all Wisconsin or Brooklyn-based poets write in a particular way. Similar sensibilities can spring up next to each other in the flower bed, or across oceans.
I'm not just interested in the thoughts I have, but also in others' thoughts, and why not carry those forward? That's why American fiction can be so thin. All these fears, like not seeming to be original - I mean, hell, most stuff isn't. The question is whether you can articulate your thoughts for the moment in which you're living, which is a different time. Say them in a newer way. There are new events, and language changes - sensibilities change. We are writing in and of the time we're in. Oh, it's a weird time.
The more prose I wrote, the more the pendulum swung back toward the middle, merging some poetic sensibilities with the more fundamental elements of creative prose.
When I get my feelings hurt, or when things scare me, or freak out my sensibilities, or when my feathers get ruffled, it takes me aback, of course, but then I think, I'm grateful that I have a mind that can want more for people and want more for the planet. It's not that hard. It's really quite simple.
No one has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculties innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature.
The cure for tender sensibilities is to make more of our objects and less of our selves.
As a band, it's just me trying to please my own basement-hardcore sensibilities that I grew up with. It's not actually the future of anything, it's totally nostalgia.
The sensibilities and the emotions of Muslims must be taken into consideration in the context in which we live today.
Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities will always be the favorite beverage of the intellectual.