#strain

Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire. (The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.)" (Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme, 1738) ↗

— Voltaire

#dullness #restraint #writing #secret

I have been thinking ... that the social moulds civilization fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapes than the conventional shapes of the constellations have to the real star-patterns. I am called Mrs. Richard Phillotson, living a calm wedded life with my counterpart of that name. But I am not really Mrs. Richard Phillotson, but a woman tossed about, all alone, with aberrant passions, and unaccountable antipathies… ↗

— Thomas Hardy

#social-constraints #nature

Inasmuch as society cannot go on without discipline of some kind, men were constrained, in the absence of any other form of discipline, to turn to discipline of the military type. ↗

— Irving Babbitt

#any #cannot #constrained #discipline #form

For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality. ↗

— Lascelles Abercrombie

#displays #expression #first #individuality #natural

If you are a rich person straining every sinew to keep every last pound in your pocket, there comes a point when you realize you are not just escaping the clutches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You are passing a greater burden on to people poorer than yourself, and depriving even poorer people of your support. ↗

— Clive Anderson

#chancellor #clutches #comes #depriving #escaping

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws. ↗

— Francis Bacon

#constructions #hard #inferences #judges #laws

After the revolution, it might very well remain necessary to place people where they could not do harm to others. But the one under restraint should be cut off from the rest of society as little as possible. ↗

— Barbara Deming

#could #cut #harm #little #might

Asean is obviously a very important association for us. Over the past 30 years Asean has made great strides in regional cooperation covering a number of areas, although recently it has been under strain because of the financial crisis and other challenges. ↗

— Hassanal Bolkiah

#areas #asean #association #because #been

Modernism released us from the constraints of everything that had gone before with a euphoric sense of freedom. ↗

— Arthur Erickson

#constraints #euphoric #everything #freedom #gone

I think people should have the legal right to hurt themselves without fearing that they're going to get locked up for doing so. But on a personal level, if someone I loved was hurting himself or herself in front of me, I would, of course, try to restrain them. ↗

— Chester Brown

#doing #fearing #front #get #going