Mortar Board Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Mortar Board. Here they are! All 9 of them:

When you’re climbing up a rock face, your hands are not more than a few inches from your eyes, but when you’re coming down, your feet are never less than five feet below you, which means that when you look down you’ve far more chance of losing your balance. Got the idea?’ George laughed. ‘Ignore my friend,’ he said. ‘And not just because he’s a hide-bound Tory, but he’s also a lackey of the capitalist system.’ ‘True enough,’ said Guy without shame. ‘So what clubs have you signed up for?’ asked Brooke, turning his attention to Guy. ‘Apart from cricket, the Union, the Disraeli Society and the Officers’ Training Corps,’ replied Guy. ‘Good heavens,’ said Brooke. ‘Is there no hope for the man?’ ‘None whatsoever,’ admitted Guy. Turning to George, he added, ‘But at least I’ve found what you’ve been looking for, so the time has come for you to follow me.’ George raised his mortar board to Brooke, who returned the compliment. Guy led the way to the next row of stalls, where he pointed triumphantly at a white awning that read CUMC, founded 1904. George slapped his friend on the back. He began to study a display of photographs showing past and present undergraduates standing on the Great St Bernard Pass, and on the summits of Mont Vélan and Monte Rosa. Another board on the far side of the table displayed a large photograph of Mont Blanc, on which was written the words Join us in Italy next year if you want
Jeffrey Archer (Paths of Glory)
This young woman,” said Diana, “was responsible for the destruction of the Triumvirate’s fleet.” “Well, I had a lot of help,” Lavinia said. “I don’t understand,” I said, turning to Lavinia. “You made all those mortars malfunction?” Lavinia looked offended. “Well, yeah. Somebody had to stop the fleet. I did pay attention during siege-weapon class and ship-boarding class. It wasn’t that hard. All it took was a little fancy footwork.” Hazel finally managed to pick her jaw off the pavement. “Wasn’t that hard?” “We were motivated! The fauns and dryads did great.” She paused, her expression momentarily clouding, as if she remembered something unpleasant. “Um…besides, the Nereids helped a lot. There was only a skeleton crew aboard each yacht. Not, like, actual skeletons, but—you know what I mean. Also, look!” She pointed proudly at her feet, which were now adorned with the shoes of Terpsichore from Caligula’s private collection. “You mounted an amphibious assault on an enemy fleet,” I said, “for a pair of shoes.” Lavinia huffed. “Not just for the shoes, obviously.” She tap-danced a routine that would’ve made Savion Glover proud. “Also to save the camp, and the nature spirits, and Michael Kahale’s commandos.” Hazel held up her hands to stop the overflow of information. “Wait. Not to be a killjoy—I mean, you did an amazing thing!—but you still deserted your post, Lavinia. I certainly didn’t give you permission —” “I was acting on praetor’s orders,” Lavinia said haughtily. “In fact, Reyna helped. She was knocked out for a while, healing, but she woke up in time to instill us with the power of Bellona, right before we boarded those ships. Made us all strong and stealthy and stuff.” Hazel asked, “Is it true about Lavinia acting on your orders?” Reyna glanced at our pink-haired friend. The praetor’s pained expression said something like, I respect you a lot, but I also hate you for being right. “Yes,” Reyna managed to say. “Plan L was my idea. Lavinia and her friends acted on my orders. They performed heroically.” Lavinia beamed. “See? I told you.” The assembled crowd murmured in amazement, as if, after a day full of wonders, they had finally witnessed something that could not be explained.
Rick Riordan (The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4))
Closing the door behind him, Macdonald stood still in the darkness, as he had stood so often in other buildings. Houses, barns, shops, flats, warehouses, all dark, as this passage was dark, but having in the darkness their own character because each had its own peculiar smell. Gramarye smelt of floor polish and carbolic and soap: something of the unwelcoming smell of an institution, but behind the overlay of modern cleanliness, the smell of the ancient house declared itself, of old mortar, of stone walls built without damp courses, of woodwork decaying under coats of paint, of panelling and floor boards which gave out their ancient breath as the coldness of the stone house triumphed over the warmth of the midsummer evening.
E.C.R. Lorac (Murder in the Mill Race)
The members of the board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folk would never have discovered - the poor people like it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all year round; a brick and mortar elysium where it was all play and no work. "Oho!" said the board, looking very knowing; "we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all in no time." So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel per day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; undertook to divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctor's Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief under these two heads, might have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty. The relief was inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people. For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the system was in full operation. It was rather expensive at first, in consequence to the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two's gruel.
Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)
If marriage is the great mystery of the City, the image of the Coinherence - if we do indeed become members one of another in it - then there is obviously going to be a fundamental need in marriage for two people to be able to get along with each other and with themselves. And that is precisely what the rules of human behavior are about. They are concerned with the mortaring of the joints of the City, with the strengthening of the ligatures of the Body. The moral laws are not just a collection of arbitrary parking regulations invented by God to make life complicated; they are the only way for human nature to be natural. For example, I am told not to lie because in the long run lying destroys my own, and my neighbor's nature. And the same goes for murder and envy, obviously; for gluttony and sloth, not quite so obviously; and for lust and pride not very obviously at all, but just as truly. Marriage is natural, and it demands the fullness of nature if it is to be itself. But human nature. And human nature in one piece, not in twenty-three self-frustrating fragments. A man and a woman schooled in pride cannot simply sit down together and start caring. It takes humility to look wide-eyed at somebody else, to praise, to cherish, to honor. They will have to acquire some before they can succeed. For as long as it lasts, of course, the first throes of romantic love will usually exhort it from them, but when the initial wonder fades and familiarity begins to hobble biology, it's going to take virtue to bring it off. Again, a husband and a wife cannot long exist as one flesh, if they are habitually unkind, rude, or untruthful. Every sin breaks down the body of the Mystery, puts asunder what God and nature have joined. The marriage rite is aware of this; it binds us to loving, to honoring, to cherishing, for just that reason. This is all obvious in the extreme, but it needs saying loudly and often. The only available candidates for matrimony are, every last one of them, sinners. As sinners, they are in a fair way to wreck themselves and anyone else who gets within arm's length of them. Without virtue, therefore, no marriage will make it. The first of all vocations, the ground line of the walls of the New Jerusalem is made of stuff like truthfulness, patience, love and liberality; of prudence, justice, temperance and courage; and of all their adjuncts and circumstances: manners, consideration, fair speech and the ability to keep one's mouth shut and one's heart open, as needed. And since this is all so utterly necessary and so highly likely to be in short supply at the crucial moments, it isn't going to be enough to deliver earnest exhortations to uprightness and stalwartness. The parties to matrimony should be prepared for its being, on numerous occasions, no party at all; they should be instructed that they will need both forgiveness and forgivingness if they are to survive the festivities. Neither virtue, nor the ability to forgive the absence of virtue are about to force their presence on us, and therefore we ought to be loudly and frequently forewarned that only the grace of God is sufficient to keep nature from coming unstuck. Fallen man does not rise by his own efforts; there is no balm in Gilead. Our domestic ills demand an imported remedy.
Robert Farrar Capon (Bed and Board: Plain Talk About Marriage)
In order to avoid incidents at night in which local inhabitants might be misidentified as enemy I had a large board prepared with the legend: Nuieste voie seara deamere prin sat moartea. Free translation (so a Romanian told me): ‘Being on the street at night is forbidden. It can mean death.
Hans Heinz Rehfeldt (Mortar Gunner on the Eastern Front. Volume II: Russia, Hungary, Lithuania, and the Battle for East Prussia)
From a long board, he watched her rake a pile into the stockpot: tomatoes and garlic, orange peel and bay, the heads and spines and tails of a dozen sardines. She plunged a knife into a spider crab and split it in two, tossing it after. She hadn't noticed Al standing behind her. He cleared his throat, and she swung around. "Oh, goodness," she said. "You've been busy." She held to his face a mortar of green pounded herbs and garlic, a rouille so sharp it made his eyes water. And then a hard loaf of bread, white fish steaks translucent as china; she put a salted almond in his mouth, a crust dipped into the stockpot, her finger. She was giddy, beautiful, his wife. She poured the stock through a strainer, pressing on the bones and shells with the back of a wooden spoon. She poached the fish steaks, some tiny rings and tangles of squid, picking out the mussels as they opened; she toasted bread; she warmed a Delft tureen with boiling water. She set the table, handing a cold bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and a corkscrew to him. "There's so much in this kitchen," she whispered. "Is Gigi here?" "No, not ever, I don't think. But she's got every kind of gadget. Look at this. Do you know what this is?" She held up a Bakelite-handled comb with a dozen tines. Al waited. "It's for slicing cake," she said.
Ashley Warlick (The Arrangement)
Hancock High School is a massive complex of brick and mortar in Seattle’s Central District, a downtown neighborhood on the confused end of gentrification. It’s a neighborhood with multiple personality disorder—housing projects on one block, hulking renovated Victorians on another, boarded-up convenience stores on the next.
Kimberly Belle (The Marriage Lie)
1 shallot, finely chopped 1/2 teaspoon salt red or white wine vinegar 1 bunch parsley, leaves picked from stems and roughly chopped 1/2 clove garlic, chopped and pounded to a paste with a tiny bit of salt in a mortar with a pestle or on a cutting board 1 anchovy fillet, finely chopped 1 teaspoon capers, finely chopped 1/2 cup olive oil Put the shallot in a small mixing bowl. Add the salt and then enough vinegar to cover. Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Drain the shallot of its vinegar, reserving it for a future vinaigrette. Mix the shallot and the rest of the ingredients together.
Tamar Adler (An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace)