Rags Quotes

“The tragedy of power like mine is that there is no way down. There can only be extinction. Dust to dust rags to rags fear to fear. ”

“Rags-to-riches story? I've heard that gospel before, no thanks. I find no greater inspiration than the riches-to-rags story of redemption, the story of God leaving His golden throne to pursue a wretch like me.”

“Principles? Principles won’t do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags—rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief.”

“Memory in the mind of man can adapt to the worst conditions. I'll give you an example, an analogy of sorts: Each night I sop rags with beer and lay them out in careful strips. With rags soaked in beer I tease cockroaches from a crack in the baseboard. By morning they're good and drunk and I pop them into a baggy, then take them outside and throw the little buggers away.”

“Here all great emotions decay: here only little, dry emotions may rattle!Do you not smell already the slaughter-houses and cook-shops of the spirit? Does this city not reek of the fumes of slaughtered spirit?Do you not see the souls hanging like dirty, limp rags? – And they also make newspapers from these rags!Have you not heard how the spirit has here become a play with words? It vomits our repulsive verbal swill! – And they also make newspapers from this verbal swill.They pursue one another and do not know where. They inflame one another, and do not know why. They rattle their tins, they jingle their gold.They are cold and seek warmth in distilled waters; they are inflamed and seek coolness in frozen spirits; they are all ill and diseased with public opinion.All lusts and vices are at home here; but there are virtuous people here, too, there are many adroit, useful virtues.”

“There is no scandal like rags nor any crime so shameful as poverty.”

“Rags will never make fine clothing”

“We must all make do with the rags of love we find flapping on the scarecrow of humanity.”

“A clown on a throne is still a clown. A king in rags is still a king.”