Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
They are more human and more brotherly towards one another, it seems to me, than we are. But perhaps that is merely because they feel themselves to be more unfortunate than us.
Thinking about the universe has now been handed over to specialists. The rest of us merely read about it.
I don't want to leave people thinking they've merely seen another actor using his same bag of tricks and fake charm.
At least the Pilgrim Fathers used to shoot Indians: the Pilgrim Children merely punch time clocks.
Since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, conservatives have succeeded by adhering to a platform that rests firmly on three legs: smaller government, faith and family, and a strong national defense. These three legs do not merely represent a political coalition; they are three necessary components of a strong and secure America.
The role of the intelligence - that part of us which affirms and denies and formulates opinions is merely to submit.
Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
With the brush we merely tint, while the imagination alone produces colour.
I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me.
The Constitution has never treated religion as merely another private opinion that government can order people to keep to themselves.
You can mark in desire the rising of the tide, as the appetite more and more invades the personality, appealing, as it does, not merely to the sensory side of the self, but to its ideal components as well.
Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.
He believes in romance. He isn't merely going through the mechanical movements of a man in an exciting situation. He is, vitally and positively squeezing the last drop of delight from living the best life he knows in the best way he can.
To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.
The architect, Peter Arens who is the monstrous carbuncle architect, not merely did his design which had won a public competition never get built but his practice suffered financially for some years.
Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.
The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.
Justice is merely incidental to law and order.
I feel some need to represent where I'm from. But ultimately, I think my only real responsibility is to - as much as possible - interrogate my own truths. This is to say not merely writing what I think is true, but using the writing to turn that alleged truth over and over, to stress-test it, in the aim of producing something readable.
The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were thought up only a little more than a century ago?
Why should American atrocities be merely unsettling, but a trip to Hanoi unconscionable?
We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it.
Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing 'mere' about symbols.
The more you stay with and/or complain about a toxic person, the more you're merely delaying doing the important inner work you need to do - to heal your wounds, expand your limiting beliefs, and show yourself far more love and respect.
I had to make my history quick because there would be no future, merely a gossamer world blown about on the zeitgeist, till zeitgeist, the wind of the times, is blasted away by kamikaze, the wind of God.
We are sometimes asked what the result would be if we put four +'s in one gene. To answer this my colleagues have recently put together not merely four but six +'s.
Inner city education must change. Our responsibility is not merely to provide access to knowledge; we must produce educated people.
No good writer ever merely cheered us up. But there's an unblinking stare into the darkness of things we have to go elsewhere to find. Jane Austen was made of strong stuff. She was too satiric for D. H. Lawrence's taste and too unforgiving for Kingsley Amis's, but you would still not call her hellish.
To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it that means there is nothing special about it. What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.
Nobody understood better than Mr. Lincoln the obvious truth that in politics it does not suffice merely to nominate candidates. Something must also be done to elect them.
With the possible exception of steampunk aficionados, many reasonable people must view my fascination with Victorian and Edwardian popular fiction - mysteries, fantasy, and adventure - as eccentric or merely antiquarian.
Too many sit at the banquet table of the gospel of Jesus Christ and merely nibble at the feast placed before them. They go through the motions - attending their meetings perhaps, glancing at scriptures, repeating familiar prayers - but their hearts are far away.
Democracy is only an experiment in government, and it has the obvious disadvantage of merely counting votes instead of weighing them.
There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.
