Turn

A turn is a change of direction or orientation.

Quotes

• For a moment hope, bright and cruel as a knife, presented itself to me. It took every ounce of strength I had to turn away.
  • C. L. Anderson, Bitter Angels (2009), Chapter 7

• Everything passes away — suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?
  • Mikhail Bulgakov, The White Guard

• An inadvertent step may crush the snail
  That crawls at evening in the public path.
  But he that has humanity, forewarned,
  Will turn aside and let the reptile live.
  • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI.

• Hopes have precarious life.
  They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off
  In vigorous growth and turned to rottenness.
  • George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book III

• Because I do not hope to turn again
  Because I do not hope
  Because I do not hope to turn
  Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
  I no longer strive to strive towards such things
  (Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
  Why should I mourn
  The vanished power of the usual reign?
  • T. S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday", part 1

• Although I do not hope to turn again
  Although I do not hope
  Although I do not hope to turn
  • T.S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday", part 6

• As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways!
  • Ezekiel 13:11 NIV

• Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
  • Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (1986), Chapter 5 : The Politics of Hope

• The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
  Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
  Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
  Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.
  • Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1120), Stanza 16; FitzGerald's translation

• Without asking anybody’s advice
  I turned myself insane.
  • Suman Pokhrel, Before Making Decision

• μετανοήσατε οὖν καὶ ἐπιστρέψατε πρὸς τὸ ἐξαλειφθῆναι ὑμῶν τὰς ἁμαρτίας.
  • Repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out.
    • Peter in Acts 3:19 NET Bible

• To everything (turn, turn, turn)
  There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
  And a time for every purpose under heaven.
  • Pete Seeger, in "Turn! Turn! Turn!" (1954).

• One's thoughts turn towards Hope.
  • Leonardo da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci