What a world of gammon and spinnage it is, though, ain’t it! Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Miss Mowcher
The world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... A single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related. Plato
As I walked through the wilderness of this world. John Bunyan, The Pilgrims’ Progress
The name of the slough was Despond. ibid.
The world is bad enough may-be;
We do not comprehend it;
But in one fact can all agree
God won’t, and we can’t mend it. Arthur Hugh Clough, 1819-61, Dipsychus, 1865
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. T S Eliot, The Hollow Men
I’m just looking to find out more about the world. Professor Richard Feynman
You never had the guts to go out in the world and stake your own claim. Wall Street 1987 starring Michael Douglas & Charlie Sheen & Martin Sheen & Daryl Hannah & Terence Stamp & Hal Holbrook & John C McGinley & James Karen & Sean Young & James Spader et al, director Oliver Stone, son to father
We live on a world of wonders, a place of astonishing beauty and complexity. We have vast oceans. Incredible weather. Giant mountains and spectacular landscapes. Brian Cox, Wonders of the Solar System: Dead or Alive, BBC 2010
We live on a beautiful blue anomaly of a world. Brian Cox, Wonders of Life V: Home, BBC 2013
You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery. Norman Borlaug
Sob, heavy world,
Sob as you spin
Mantled in mist, remote from the happy. W H Auden 1907-1973
Let us consider for a little while how wonderfully we stand upon the world. Here it is that we are born and bred and live, and yet we view these things with an almost entire absence of wonder to ourselves respecting the way in which all this happens. Michael Faraday, Christmas Lecture 1854
Nor milder is the general lot
Because our spirits have forgot,
In action’s dizzying eddy whirled,
The something that infects the world. Matthew Arnold, Resignation
You don’t realise there is no world any more; it’s only corporations. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery 1997 starring Mike Myers & Elizabeth Hurley & Michael York & Robert Wagner & Seth Green & Mindy Sterling & Fabiana Udenio & Will Ferrell & Mimi Rogers & Joe Son & Paul Dillon & Charles Napier et al, director Jay Roach, Number Two to Dr Evil and Austin Powers [cf. Network 1976]
Stop the world, I want to get off. Anthony Newley & Leslie Bricusse, musical 1961
If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others? Voltaire, Candide
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. Ralph Waldo Emerson
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. Roald Dahl
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead, attributed, cited Donald Keys
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. Mark Twain
Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world. Marilyn Monroe
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. Oscar Wilde
It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect. Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place. Banksy
We live in a dark and romantic and quite tragic world. Karl Lagerfeld
We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it. Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House
Listen closely... the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it. Jack Kerouac
Hateful bitch of a world, it wouldn’t ever last. Jack Kerouac, Book of Sketches
In a fight between yourself and the world, always side with the world. Frank Zappa
The world doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do? Pablo Picasso
This curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used. Henry David Thoreau
It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial. The right condition for him is that in which his work in not only convenient but unavoidable. Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
This world that was our home for a brief spell never brought us anything but pain and grief; it’s a shame that not one of our problems was ever solved. We depart with a thousand regrets in our hearts. Omar Khayyam