Definition of Whence at BrainyQuote.com

Definition of Whence

Whence

From what place; hence, from what or which source, origin, antecedent, premise, or the like; how; -- used interrogatively.

From what or which place, source, material, cause, etc.; the place, source, etc., from which; -- used relatively.

Related Definitions:

Antecedent, Cause, From, Hence, How, Interrogatively, Like, Material, Or, Origin, Place, Premise, Relatively, Source, The, Used, What, Which

Whence Quotations

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
Socrates

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.
John F. Kennedy

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
Albert Camus

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
Edmund Burke

Virtue is the fount whence honour springs.
Christopher Marlowe

Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
Omar Khayyam

Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, since perfection is nothing but magnitude of positive reality, in the strict sense, setting aside the limits or bounds in things which are limited.
Gottfried Leibniz

Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.
Max Planck

Never break the neutrality of a port or place, but never consider as neutral any place from whence an attack is allowed to be made.
Horatio Nelson

I looked about me once again, and suddenly the dancing horses without number changed into animals of every kind and into all the fowls that are, and these fled back to the four quarters of the world from whence the horses came, and vanished.
Black Elk

Whence it is somewhat strange that any men from so mean and silly a practice should expect commendation, or that any should afford regard thereto; the which it is so far from meriting, that indeed contempt and abhorrence are due to it.
Isaac Barrow

One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.
Joseph Smith, Jr.

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.
Joseph Conrad

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.
Oliver Goldsmith

'Tis not where we lie, but whence we fell; the loss of heaven's the greatest pain in hell.
Pedro Calderon de la Barca

If there is a God, whence proceed so many evils? If there is no God, whence cometh any good?
Boethius

Why should I ask the wise men: Whence is my beginning? I am busy with the thought: Where will be my end?
Muhammad Iqbal

Hate is a draining bottomless pit from whence nothing good or of any value can come. Try to eat a balanced diet. Guys only want one thing.
Christopher Meloni

The whole world appears to me like a huge vacuum, a vast empty space, whence nothing desirable, or at least satisfactory, can possibly be derived; and I long daily to die more and more to it; even though I obtain not that comfort from spiritual things which I earnestly desire.
David Brainerd

Every man has a rainy corner of his life whence comes foul weather which follows him.
Jean Paul

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.
Charles de Secondat

Like the winds that we come we know not whence and blow whither soever they list, the forces of society are derived from an obscure and distant origin. They arise before the date of philosophy, from the instincts, not the speculations of men.
Adam Ferguson

Cities have always been the fireplaces of civilization, whence light and heat radiated out into the dark.
Theodore Parker

Value is consequently the necessary theoretical starting point whence we can elucidate the peculiar phenomenon of prices resulting from capitalist competition.
Rudolf Hiferding

Damn you villains, who are you? And from whence came you?
Edward Teach

The greater absurdities are, the more strongly they evince the falsity of that supposition from whence they flow.
Francis Atterbury

Blue thou art, intensely blue; Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?
James Montgomery

More Whence Quotations

Whence Translations

whence in German is woher
whence in Hungarian is ahonnan
whence in Italian is donde
whence in Latin is unde

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