Quotes that show why we like the term "pliant":

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (tr. Thomas Common)

The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is the self-enjoying soul. Of such bodies and souls the self-enjoyment calleth itself "virtue."

 

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Men are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.

 

Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.

 

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.

 

Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

 

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.

 

John Milton, Areopagitica

...trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge?

 

Arne Emil Christensen, The Vikings

Shipbuilders strove to construct light-weight and flexible vessels, pliant to the forces of sea and wind -- working with the elements instead of against them.

 

Francis Bacon, Essays

So we see, in languages, the tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds, the joints are more supple, to all feats of activity and motions, in youth than afterwards. For it is true, that late learners cannot so well take the ply; except it be in some minds that have not suffered themselves to fix, but have kept themselves open, and prepared to receive continual amendment, which is exceeding rare.

 

Virgil, The Georgics

Those that to rustic uses thou wouldst mould,
As calves encourage and take steps to tame,
While pliant wills and plastic youth allow.

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Last update: 5/13/97 by Jed Harris (jed@pliant.org)