Soft Negative Imperative

Famous quotes containing the words soft, negative and/or imperative:

    “Gaze not on swans, in whose soft breast,
    A full-hatched beauty seems to nest
    Nor snow, which falling from the sky
    Hovers in its virginity.”
    —Henry Noel, British poet, and William Strode, British poet. Beauty Extolled (attributed to Noel and to Strode)

    “The idealist’s programme of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.”
    —Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)

    “To me Americanism means ... an imperative duty to be nobler than the rest of the world.”
    —Meyer London (1871–1926)