"He was powerless because he had no precise……" — Vladimir Nabokov
"He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire. He could not even make himself stretch out his hand to switch on the light. The simple transition from intention to action seemed an unimaginable miracle."
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Vladimir Nabokov
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269 Quotes by Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov has 269 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times…
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I have never seen a more lucid, better balanced, mad mind than mine.
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The tiny madman in his padded cell.
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There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and…
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The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink…
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Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.
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Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.
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My loathings are simple: stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music.
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I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it…
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The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of…
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A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual.
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Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
See all 269 quotes by Vladimir Nabokov »
More Action Quotes
This quote is filed under Action Quotes,
one of 8,300 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
— Hannah Arendt
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Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then…
— Hannah Arendt
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Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.
— Hannah Arendt
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Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.
— Hannah Arendt
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All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
— Aristotle
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Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate…
— Aristotle
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Well begun is half done.
— Aristotle
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A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole…
— Aristotle
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Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
— Aristotle
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We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
— Aristotle
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Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for…
— Aristotle
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What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition…
— Aristotle
See all 8,300 Action Quotes »