accident

It was manifest to me that there was something in the Roman Catholic religion which made the priests very dear to the people; for I doubt whether in any village in England, had such an accident happened to the rector, all the people would have roused themselves at midnight to wreak their vengeance on the assailant.

—Trollope, Anthony

His dominance is not that of one chosen as best fitted torule†but it issovereignty basedontheaccidentofsex.

—Gilman and Charlotte Perkins Stetson

Till I, high in the tower of my time Among familiar ruins, began to cry For accident, sickness, justice, war and crime, Because all died, because I had to die. The snow fell, the trees stood, the promise kept, And a child I slept.

—Nemerov, Howard

Un poe'  me n'est jamais acheve¤  öc'est toujours un accident qui le termine, c'est-a'  -dire qui le donne au public. A poem is never finished; it is always an accident that puts a stop to it, that gives it to the public.

—Vale¤  ry, Paul

I read about writers' lives with the fascination of one slowing down to get a good look at an automobile accident.

—Gibbons, Kaye

Body-line was not an incident, it was not an accident, it was not a temporary aberration. It was the violence and ferocity of our age expressing itself in cricket.

—James, C(yril) L(ionel) R(obert)

Nothing is accidental in the universeöthis is one of my Laws of Physicsöexceptthe entire universeitself, which is Pure Accident, pure divinity.

—Myles na Gopaleen

Our banking system grew byaccident; and wherever something happens byaccident, it becomes a religion.

—Wriston,Walter Bigelow

The greatest pleasure I know, is to do good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.

—Lamb, Charles

The best poem is that whose worked-upon unmagical passages come closest, in texture and intensity, to those moments of magical accident.

—Thomas, Dylan Marlais

   The moving accident is not my trade; To freeze the blood I have no ready arts: 'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade, To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

—Wordsworth,William

Four spectres haunt the pooröold age, accident, sickness, and unemployment.We are going to exorcise them.We are going to drive hunger from the hearth.We meantobanishtheworkhousefromthehorizonofevery workman in the land.

—Lloyd George (of Dwyfor), David, 1st Earl

'I ought to say,'explained Pooh as they walked down to theshore of the island,'that it isn't just anordinary sort of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an Accident. It all depends.' 'Depends on what?' 'On whether I'm on the top of it or underneath it.'

—Milne, A(lan) A(lexander)