"We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World."
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Tails quotes
Tails
212 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Tails quotes (page 2 of 11)
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"It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed but ... most people just don't get it - I must be a very bad explainer"
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"A person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn't ever going to grow dim or doubtful."
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"It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips."
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"Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That’s an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life."
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"The humour of Dostoievsky is the humour of a barloafer who ties a kettle to a dog's tail."
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"I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother — why, its brother gave you that scar."
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"Speak of a wolf and you see his tail!"
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"Foxes are all tail, and women all tongue."
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"With little wit and ease to suit them, They whirl in narrow circling trails, Like kittens playing with their tails."
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"The story [Henny-Penny] has the best opening in all literature-"The sky is falling," cried Henny-Penny, "and a piece of it fell on my tail."
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"What I respect in people more than anything is work ethic. And Justin Timberlake's got that. He works his tail off, and he knows his stuff."
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"The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated."
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"Rationalism crashes in the tails."
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"I get Head and Tail like a quarter... in that order."
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"I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail."
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"My dad was a great competitor in his own way. He would never let us win at anything, and we had to work our tails off to beat him."
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"A poor degenerate from the ape, Whose hands are four, whose tail's a limb, I contemplate my flaccid shape And know I may not rival him Save with my mind."
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"He had learned that close-held secrets could often be cracked by going all the way to the top and there making himself unbearably unpleasant. He knew that such twisting of the tiger's tail was dangerous, for he understood the psychopathology of great power."
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"It's impossible to have a coin with only one side. You can't have heads without tails. Innovation is like that. Initiative is like that. Art is like that. You can't have success unless you're prepared to have failure. As soon as you say, 'failure is not an option,' you've just said, 'innovation is not an option.'"
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