Quotes about Acquaintance

Whatever else seems pleasant at first apprehension, at length becomes dull by too long acquaintance. But the pleasures of a Garden are every day renewed. A Garden is the only complete delight the world affords, ever complying with our various and mutable Minds.

Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

I love the acquaintance of young people, because, in the first place, I don't like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then young men have more generous sentiments in every respect.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And days o' lang syne?

Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.

The most important single influence in the life of a person is another person. We may say to our children: Here is art, science, philosophy, mathematics, music, psychology, history, religion - and we may open innumerable doors along the corridors of living so that they will have a broad and even a minute acquaintance with the segments of life; but these introductions are not as important as knowing people whose characters and actions, personalities and words have grown after similar introductions and have become worthy of emulation.

Nothing can tell us so much about the general lawlessness of humanity as a perfect acquaintance with our own immoderate behavior. If we would think over our own impulses, we would recognize in our own souls the guiding principle of all vices which we reproach in other people; and if it is not in our very actions, it will be present at least in our impulses. There is no malice that self-love will not offer to our spirits so that we may exploit any occasion, and there are few people virtuous enough not to be tempted.

The mere process of growing old together will make the slightest acquaintance seem a bosom friend.

Western European civilization has witnessed a sort of atomizing process, in which the individual is more and more set free from his natural setting in family and neighborhood, and becomes a sort of replaceable unit in the social machine. His nearest neighbors may not even know his name. He is free to move from place to place, from job to job, from acquaintance to acquaintance, and - if he has attained a high degree of emancipation - from wife to wife. He is in every context a more and more anonymous and replaceable part, the perfect incarnation of the rationalist conception of man. Wherever western civilization has spread in the past one hundred years, it has carried this atomizing process with it. Its characteristic product in Calcutta, Shanghai, or Johannesburg, is the modern city into which myriads of human beings, loosened from their old ties in village or tribe or caste, like grains of sand fretted by water from an ancient block of sandstone, are ceaselessly churned around in the whirlpool of the city - anonymous, identical, replaceable units. In such a situation, it is natural that men should long for some sort of real community, for men cannot be human without it. It is especially natural that Christians should reach out after that part of Christian doctrine which speaks of the true, God-given community, the Church of Jesus Christ. We have witnessed the appalling results of trying to go back to some sort of primitive collectivity based on the total control of the individual, down t o the depths of his spirit, by an all-powerful group. Yet we know that we cannot condemn this solution to the problem of man's loneliness if we have no other to offer. It is natural that men should ask with a greater eagerness than ever before, such questions as these: "Is there in truth a family of God on earth to which I can belong, a place where all men can be truly at home? If so, where is it to be found, what are its marks, and how is it related to, and distinguished from, the known communities of family, nation, and culture? What are its boundaries, its structure, its terms of membership? And how comes it that those who claim to be the spokesmen of that one holy fellowship are themselves at war with one another as to the fundamentals of its nature, and unable to agree to live together in unity and concord?" The breakdown of Christendom has forced such questions as these to the front. I think that there is no more urgent theological task than to try to give them plain and credible answers.

Time was when all the parts of the subject were dissevered, when algebra, geometry, and arithmetic either lived apart or kept up cold relations of acquaintance confined to occasional calls upon one another; but that is now at an end; they are drawn together and are constantly becoming more and more intimately related and connected by a thousand fresh ties, and we may confidently look forward to a time when they shall form but one body with one soul.

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

I only desire sincere relations with the worthiest of my acquaintance, that they may give me an opportunity once in a year to speak the truth.

When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one.

It is expedient to have acquaintance with those who have looked into the world, who know men, understand business, and can give you good intelligence and good advice when they are wanted.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

PAST, n. That part of Eternity with some small fraction of which we have a slight and regrettable acquaintance. [T]he Past is the Future of yesterday, the Future is the Past of to-morrow. They are one - the knowledge and the dream.

EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

Acquaintance: a person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

Acquaintance: a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.