Mark Twain
Writer, Humorist
"Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it."
Smell quotes
Smell
1.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Omar Khayyam
Poet, Mathematician, Astronomer
"We are thinking about bad only those who are worse than we are, and those who are better than us ... I'm just not up to us ... One does not follow it than smell roses. Another of the bitter herbs will produce honey. Give bread to one - will remember forever. Another life donation - do not understand."
William Wordsworth
Poet
"The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly."
Richard Pryor
Comedian, Actor
"I'm not addicted to cocaine. I just like the way it smells."
Julio Cortazar
Novelist, Short Story Writer
"But what is memory if not the language of feeling, a dictionary of faces and days and smells which repeat themselves like the verbs and adjectives in a speech, sneaking in behind the thing itself,into the pure present, making us sad or teaching us vicariously."
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Smell quotes (page 1 of 57)
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"I have visited sweatshops, factories, and crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it. The foundation of society is laid upon a basis of . . . individualism, conquest and exploitation . . . A social order such as this, built upon such wrong and basic principles, is bound to retard the development of all. The output of a cotton mill or a coal mine is considered of greater importance than the production of healthy, happy-hearted and free human beings. We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name."
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"The world has changed. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, For none now live who remember it."
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"Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days."
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"The time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel."
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""Humanism" is to be human, to think, to analyze, and to probe. To respond and to be stimulated by all living things - beasts, fowl, and fishes. To respond through touch, sight, smell, and sound to all things in nature - both organic and inorganic-to colors, shapes, and textures - to not only look at a blade of grass but to really see a blade of grass. These things, to me, are what life and living are all about. I would call it "Humanism.""
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"There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories - Ghost Stories, or more shame for us - round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it."
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"Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I'm on a horse."
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"Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds."
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"...imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic."
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"I like New York because you're kind of forced to smell everybody else's funk. So it keeps you biologically attached to the world around you."
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"I love the smell of book ink in the morning."
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"A faint smell of lilac filled the air. There was always lilac in this part of town. Where there were grandmothers, there was always lilac."
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"Remember, gentlemen, what a Roman emperor said: The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet."
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"We should all just smell well and enjoy ourselves more."
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"I love the smell of the universe in the morning."
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"But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, "Courage, dear heart," and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan's, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face."
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"The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways."
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"She who is centered in the Tao can go where she wishes, without danger. She perceives the universal harmony, even amid great pain, because she has found peace in her heart. Music or the smell of good cooking may make people stop and enjoy. But words that point to the Tao seem monotonous and without flavor. When you look for it, there is nothing to see. When you listen for it, there is nothing to hear. When you use it, it is inexhaustible."
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"Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time: and not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections, not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time."
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"I love the scents of winter! For me, it's all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce."
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