Top 58 Fain Quotes
#1. Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.
Joseph Addison
#2. The ox longs for the gaudy trappings of the horse; the lazy pack-horse would fain plough. [We envy the position of others, dissatisfied with our own.]
Horace
#3. Criticism discloses that which it would fain conceal, but conceals that which it professes to disclose; it is therefore, read by the discerning, not to discover the merits of an author, but the motives of his critic.
Charles Caleb Colton
#4. What we mean by sentimentalism is that state in which a man speaks deep and true sentiments not because he feels them strongly, but because he perceives that they are beautiful, and that it is touching and fine to say them,-things which he fain would feel, and fancies that he does feel.
Frederick William Robertson
#5. We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.
Joseph Addison
#6. Fain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilization were to be based on the gruesome glory of war.
Okakura Kakuzo
#7. There is a kind of gaping admiration that would fain roll Shakespeare and Bacon into one, to have a bigger thing to gape at; and a class of men who cannot edit one author without disparaging all others.
Robert Louis Stevenson
#8. Hadrian snorted at his misplaced humor. "Not giving up yet, Hauk. Besides, you know how much I love to live dangerously. Why else would I share a domicile with Jayne? Risking her wrath is what I do for fun." "You need to find a new hobby, my friend."
-Hadrian & Fain
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#9. For him who fain would teach the world The world holds hate in fee- For Socrates, the hemlock cup; For Christ, Gethsemane.
Don Marquis
#11. Often on earth the gentlest heart is fain To feed and banquet on another's woe.
Petrarch
#12. The new friends whom we make after attaining a certain age and by whom we would fain replace those whom we have lost, are to our old friends what glass eyes, false teeth and wooden legs are to real eyes, natrual teeth and legs of flesh and bone.
Nicolas Chamfort
#13. Affectation discovers sooner what one is than it makes known what one would fain appear to be.
Stanislaw Leszczynski
#14. Today ... the bluebirds, old and young, have revisited their box, as if they would fain repeat the summer without intervention of winter, if Nature would let them.
Henry David Thoreau
#15. As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have; but, in their stead, / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, / Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not (5.3.25-28).
William Shakespeare
#16. Soon comes the day all shall be free. Even you, and even me. Soon comes the day all shall die. Surely you, but never I.
Padan Fain
Robert Jordan
#17. For the trouble with the real folk of Faerie is that they do not always look like what they are; and they put on the pride and beauty that we would fain wear ourselves.
J.R.R. Tolkien
#18. I'm surprised your mother never turned you in."
"She tried once. Nyk put the fear of the gods into her."
-Galene & Fain
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#19. Tony got up from his desk and crouched down beside her. She was instantly aware of the smell of him, a mixture of shampoo and his own fain, animal scent.
Val McDermid
#21. Time flies apace-we would fain believe that everything flies forward with it.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#22. The corpse's hand reached up and grabbed Shaisam by the throat. He gasped, thrashing, as the corpse opened its eye.
"There's an odd thing about disease I once heard, Fain," Matrim Cauthon whispered. "Once you catch a disease and survive, you can't get it again.
Robert Jordan
#23. Until you have heard the whippoowill, either nearby or in the fain - distance, you have not experienced summer night.
Henry Hough
#24. Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue,
I mean good-nature,
are of daily use; they are the bread of mankind and staff of life.
John Dryden
#25. I would fain grow old learning many things.
Plato
#26. There are faults we would fain pardon.
Horace
#27. When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#28. The Republican party is not inflamed, as some would fain have the country believe, against the South. Its borders are wide enough for all truly loyal men to find within them peace and repose from the din and discord of angry faction.
Hiram Rhodes Revels
#29. Even death itself sometimes fails to bring the dignity and serenity which one would fain associate with old age.
Jane Addams
#30. Every man at time of Death,
Would fain set forth some saying that may live
After his death and better humankind;
For death gives life's last word a power to live,
And, lie the stone-cut epitaph, remain
After the vanished voice, and speak to men.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
#31. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
Henry David Thoreau
#32. I believe that the devil has destroyed many good books of the church, as, aforetime, he killed and crushed many holy persons, the memory of whom has now passed away; but the Bible he was fain to leave subsisting.
Martin Luther
#33. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals, and would fain have meat.
William Shakespeare
#34. Milton saw not, and Beethoven heard not, but the sense of beauty was upon them, and they fain must speak.
John Ruskin
#35. I would fain keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness. I
Henry David Thoreau
#36. Oh, friend, forget not, when you fain would note
In me a beauty that was never mine,
How first you knew me in a book I wrote,
How first you loved me for a written line ...
Edna St. Vincent Millay
#37. The philosopher who would fain extinguish his passions resembles the chemist who would like to let his furnace go out.
Nicolas Chamfort
#38. I'm just glad you're all right. And if you want to date, I promise I won't gut the little ... Male."
She laughed at that. " I can wait until you're ready. I don't want you in jail for it."
Fain smiled. "Very well I'm told ninety is a prime dating age for a human female.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#39. When he pressed his lips to hers, she was not surprised. It happened the way the sun rose, the way a flower blossomed, the way fain fell from the sky, the way the dead stopped breathing. Naturally. Inevitably.
Lauren Kate
#40. The subject had reference to secret sin and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#41. Fain would I kiss my Julia's dainty leg, Which is as white and hairless as an egg.
Robert Herrick
#43. I'll accompany you too, fair lady," said Reven. "I would fain meet your grandmother."
"You would what?" said Elfwyn.
"He means he'd like to," said Jinx. Some of the books in Simon's house used old-fashioned words like that.
Sage Blackwood
#44. The unknown characters of writing seem to be endowed with an evil of life of their own as though sentient, and fain would wrest themselves forth from the parchment and wreak mischief on whomsoever gazes upon them.
E. Hoffmann Price
#45. I fain would follow love, if that could be;
I needs must follow death, who calls for me;
Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.
Alfred Tennyson
#46. But the churchmen fain would kill their church, As the churches have kill'd their Christ.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
#47. There is more good in contentment, than there is in the thing that you would fain have to cure your discontent ...
Jeremiah Burroughs
#48. Fain would I wed a fair young man that night and day could please me, When my mind or body grieved that had the power to ease me. Maids are full of longing thoughtsthat breed a bloodless sickness, And that, oft I hear men say, is only cured by quickness.
Thomas Campion
#49. Where's Hauk?"
"I'm right here."
"Not you, Fain. My wingman."
"He's in the hallway. You know how he is about explosives."
"Yeah, I do, which is why I asked. Send him on a bullshit and long errand across the station. We don't want Grandma freaking out on us."
-Darling & Fain
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#50. Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;
I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.
Walter Raleigh
#51. All that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would fain leave it outside.
Henri Bergson
#52. The flesh would fain be indulged upon the account of grace: and every word that is spoken of mercy, it stands ready to catch at, and to pervert to its own corrupt aims and purposes. To apply mercy, then, to a sin not vigorously mortified, is to fulfil the end of the flesh pon the gospel.
John Owen
#53. I would fain coin wisdom, - mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs, sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. Would that I could denounce and banish from the language of men - as base money - the words by which they cheat and are cheated!
Joseph Joubert
#54. We priests are the surgeons of souls, and it is our duty to deliver them of shameful secrets they would fain conceal, with hands careful to neither wound no pollute.
Jules Amedee Barbey D'Aurevilly
#55. Ryn smirked at Fain. "That's my mom. Now you know why I'm still single."
Hermione passed an irritated glare at her son.
He gave her a charming wink. "Just like you, Mom. Independently owned and operated.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#56. A warning light flashed. Fain cursed. "Ah now you've gone and broke the damn ship, Dagan. Can't we let you do anything?" Caillen
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#57. Fain would I glide down a gentle river, but I am carried away by a torrent.
Baron De Montesquieu
#58. She felt ... less. She felt tamped down. Dim. More faint. Feint. Feigned. Fain.
Patrick Rothfuss
