Quotes about boys
page 19

Ernest Bevin photo

“We need 720,000 men continuously employed in this industry. This is where you boys come in. Our fighting men will not be able to achieve their purpose unless we get an adequate supply of coal.”

Ernest Bevin (1881–1951) British labour leader, politician, and statesman

Hansard HC 6ser vol 449 col 841 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm060725/debtext/60725-1076.htm
Speech to recruiting meeting, December 1943. Bevin had introduced a system whereby some men conscripted for National Service would be transferred to working in coal-mining; because of this speech, they were known as 'Bevin boys'.

Robin Williams photo
Maggie Stiefvater photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Taylor Swift photo
William Saroyan photo
Emily St. John Mandel photo
Florian Cajori photo
Harriet Beecher Stowe photo
Alison Bechdel photo
Marvin Gaye photo

“By the look in your eye I can tell you're gonna cry.
Is it over me?
If it is, save your tears
For I'm not worth it, you see.
For I'm the type of boy who is always on the roam,
Wherever I lay my hat that's my home,
I'm telling you that's my home.”

Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) American singer-songwriter and musician

Wherever I Lay My Hat, co-written with Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield.
Song lyrics, That Stubborn Kinda Fellow (1962)

Charles Hamilton (writer) photo
James Baldwin photo
Robert Falcon Scott photo

“Make the boy interested in natural history if you can; it is better than games; they encourage it in some schools.”

Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) Royal Navy officer and explorer

Last letter to his wife, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition (1913) vol.1, ch.20

Bob Dylan photo

“Do you ever wonder just what God requires? You think he's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), When You Gonna Wake Up

Martin Gardner photo

“Ever since I was a boy, I've been fascinated by crazy science and such things as perpetual motion machines and logical paradoxes.”

Martin Gardner (1914–2010) recreational mathematician and philosopher

"Interview: Martin Gardner" by Scot Morris in Omni, Vol. 4, No. 4 (January 1982)
Context: Ever since I was a boy, I've been fascinated by crazy science and such things as perpetual motion machines and logical paradoxes. I've always enjoyed keeping up with those ideas. I suppose I didn't get into it seriously until I wrote my first book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. I was influenced by the Dianetics movement, now called Scientology, which was then promoted by John Campbell in Astounding Science Fiction. I was astonished at how rapidly the thing had become a cult.

John Crowley photo

“One winter night when he was a boy … he first saw a ring around the moon.”

John Crowley (1942) American writer

Bk. 1, Ch. 1
Little, Big: or, The Fairies' Parliament (1981)
Context: One winter night when he was a boy … he first saw a ring around the moon. He stared up at it, immense, icy, half as wide as the night sky, and grew certain that it could only mean the End of the World. He waited thrilled in that suburban yard for the still night to break apart in apocalypse, all the while knowing in his heart that it would not: that there is nothing in this world not proper to it and that it contains no such surprises.

Alan Watts photo
Richard Rodríguez photo

“The scholarship boy does not straddle, cannot reconcile, the two great opposing cultures of his life. His success is unromantic and plain. He sits in the classroom and offers those sitting beside him no calming reassurance about their own lives. He sits in the seminar room—a man with brown skin, the son of working-class Mexican immigrant parents.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)
Context: To many persons around him, he appears too much the academic. There may be some things about him that recall his beginnings—his shabby clothes; his persistent poverty; or his dark skin (in those cases when it symbolizes his parents’ disadvantaged condition)—but they only make clear how far he has moved from his past. He has used education to remake himself. They expect—they want—a student less changed by his schooling. If the scholarship boy, from a past so distant from the classroom, could remain in some basic way unchanged, he would be able to prove that it is possible for anyone to become educated without basically changing from the person one was. The scholarship boy does not straddle, cannot reconcile, the two great opposing cultures of his life. His success is unromantic and plain. He sits in the classroom and offers those sitting beside him no calming reassurance about their own lives. He sits in the seminar room—a man with brown skin, the son of working-class Mexican immigrant parents.

“Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”

Abraham Kaplan (1918–1993) American philosopher

Source: "The Conduct of Inquiry", p. 28.
Context: In addition to the social pressures from the scientific community there is also at work a very human trait of individual scientist. I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. It comes as no particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates problems in a way which requires for their solution just those techniques in which he himself is especially skilled.

Ogden Nash photo

“My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Many Long Years Ago (1945), Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children
Context: My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.

Carl Sagan photo

“As a boy Kepler had been captured by a vision of cosmic splendour, a harmony of the worlds which he sought so tirelessly all his life.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

55 min 0 sec
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), The Harmony of the Worlds [Episode 3]
Context: As a boy Kepler had been captured by a vision of cosmic splendour, a harmony of the worlds which he sought so tirelessly all his life. Harmony in this world eluded him. His three laws of planetary motion represent, we now know, a real harmony of the worlds, but to Kepler they were only incidental to his quest for a cosmic system based on the Perfect Solids, a system which, it turns out, existed only in his mind. Yet from his work, we have found that scientific laws pervade all of nature, that the same rules apply on Earth as in the skies, that we can find a resonance, a harmony, between the way we think and the way the world works.
When he found that his long cherished beliefs did not agree with the most precise observations, he accepted the uncomfortable facts, he preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions. That is the heart of science.

Väinö Linna photo

“Rather dear, those boys.”

Closing words, p. 466.
The Unknown Soldier

Camille Paglia photo

“I am saying that many of the problems between the sexes are coming from something prior to socialization, a turbulence that has to do with every boy’s origin in a woman’s body, and the way he is overwhelmed by this huge, matriarchal shadow of a goddess figure from his childhood.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Rape and Modern Sex War, p. 68
Context: I am saying that many of the problems between the sexes are coming from something prior to socialization, a turbulence that has to do with every boy’s origin in a woman’s body, and the way he is overwhelmed by this huge, matriarchal shadow of a goddess figure from his childhood. And I feel, after so many decades of studying this, that men are suffering from a sense of dependence on women, their sense that at any moment they could be returned to that slavery and servitude they experienced under a woman’s thumb, when they were a boy in the shadow of the mother. I got this from studying all world culture, and comparing and noticing how often there were these similar patterns in many different cultures. Many things that erupt in rape or violence, or battery and so on, are happening when a woman is pushing that button of fear and dependency.

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“Hope is the boy, a blind, headlong, pleasant fellow, good to chase swallows with the salt; Faith is the grave, experienced, yet smiling man.”

Virginibus Puerisque, Ch. 2.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: Hope is the boy, a blind, headlong, pleasant fellow, good to chase swallows with the salt; Faith is the grave, experienced, yet smiling man. Hope lives on ignorance; open-eyed Faith is built upon a knowledge of our life, of the tyranny of circumstance and the frailty of human resolution. Hope looks for unqualified success; but Faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honourable defeat to be a form of victory. Hope is a kind old pagan; but Faith grew up in Christian days, and early learnt humility. In the one temper, a man is indignant that he cannot spring up in a clap to heights of elegance and virtue; in the other, out of a sense of his infirmities, he is filled with confidence because a year has come and gone, and he has still preserved some rags of honour. In the first, he expects an angel for a wife; in the last, he knows that she is like himself - erring, thoughtless, and untrue; but like himself also, filled with a struggling radiancy of better things, and adorned with ineffective qualities. You may safely go to school with hope; but ere you marry, should have learned the mingled lesson of the world: that dolls are stuffed with sawdust, and yet are excellent play-things; that hope and love address themselves to a perfection never realised, and yet, firmly held, become the salt and staff of life; that you yourself are compacted of infirmities, perfect, you might say, in imperfection, and yet you have a something in you lovable and worth preserving; and that, while the mass of mankind lies under this scurvy condemnation, you will scarce find one but, by some generous reading, will become to you a lesson, a model, and a noble spouse through life.

Harold Macmillan photo

“Events, dear boy, events.”

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) British politician

Response to a journalist when asked what is most likely to blow governments off course.
The quote is also given as "Events, my dear boy, events", with the word "my", but it may never have been uttered at all.
[What they didn't say: a book of misquotations, Knowles, Elizabeth M., Oxford University Press, 2006, vi, 33]
Disputed

Philip Pullman photo

“There is a war coming, boy. The greatest war there ever was. Something like it happened before, and this time the right side must win. We've had nothing but lies and propaganda and cruelty and deceit for all the thousands of years of human history. It's time we started again, but properly this time.”

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 15 : Bloodmoss
Context: If you're the bearer of the knife, you have a task that's greater than you can imagine. A child... How could they let it happen? Well, so it must be.... There is a war coming, boy. The greatest war there ever was. Something like it happened before, and this time the right side must win. We've had nothing but lies and propaganda and cruelty and deceit for all the thousands of years of human history. It's time we started again, but properly this time...."
He stopped to take in several rattling breaths.
"The knife," he went on after a minute. "They never knew what they were making, those old philosophers. They invented a device that could split open the very smallest particles of matter, and they used it to steal candy. They had no idea that they'd made the one weapon in all the universes that could defeat the tyrant. The Authority. God. The rebel angels fell because they didn't have anything like the knife; but now..."
"I didn't want it! I don't want it now!" Will cried. "If you want it, you can have it! I hate it, and I hate what it does — "
"Too late. You haven't any choice: you're the bearer. It's picked you out. And, what's more, they know you've got it; and if you don't use it against them, they'll tear it from your hands and use it against the rest of us, forever and ever."

Elizabeth Hand photo

“I've always had numinous dreams, and a lot of them feature a Dionysian character I named The Boy in the Tree.”

Elizabeth Hand (1957) American writer

Apocalypse Descending (2002)
Context: I've always had numinous dreams, and a lot of them feature a Dionysian character I named The Boy in the Tree. He first came to me when I was seventeen: I had a dream that I was on a flat featureless plane, mist everywhere. Then there was a blinding flash of lightning, deafening thunder, and I fell to the ground. Someone reached out to touch the middle of my forehead with a finger: I opened my eyes, the mist was gone, and there he was: the boy in the tree, this beautiful demonic figure with mocking green eyes. After that he would appear in dreams, sitting up in a tree and talking to me, and I'd have this incredible wave of emotion, a feeling I've only ever had in dreams — the most amazingly intense combination of desire and loss and anticipation. Later I'd think (still dreaming) This is what I will feel when I die. And who knows? Maybe I will.
Then, while researching Winterlong, I found a reference to Dionysios of Boeotia, where the god was called the One in the Tree. So even though I rationally know there's no such thing as a Dionsyian god, or a universal unconscious, it's very, very easy for me to extrapolate them both from my own dream-experience. The roots of these myths of the dying or vegetative god are so ancient and so many that one can wander among them forever, I think, yet never find a single source. And the primary material in Greece is so fascinating and so dark — The Bacchae, what we know of the Dionysian and Eleusinian Mysteries — great stuff for writers.
For me personally, of course, Dionysos embodies all the themes that have always preoccupied me: mutable sexual identity, altered states of consciousness; madness, the theater, ecstacy.

Helmut Newton photo

“Growing up, I was surrounded by Nazi imagery, like everybody in Germany, and for a boy obsessed with photography it left an indelible impression on me.”

Helmut Newton (1920–2004) German-Australian photographer

American Photo (January/February 2000), p. 90
Context: Growing up, I was surrounded by Nazi imagery, like everybody in Germany, and for a boy obsessed with photography it left an indelible impression on me. Later this influence was tempered by Brassaï and Dr. Erich Salomon. My love of photography at night started with m early experience of … the Brelin undergrund stations. Even today I love photographing by the light of street lamps or in the glare of my flash.

Mark Ames photo

“One reason why our society has failed to curb bullying is that we like bullies. Hell, we are bullies. Research has shown that bullies are not the anti-social misfits that adults, in their forced amnesia, want them to be. Rather, bullies are usually the most popular boys, second only on the clique-ranking to those described as friendly, outgoing, and self-confident.”

Mark Ames (1965) American writer and journalist

Part V: More Rage. More Rage., page 191.
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005)
Context: One reason why our society has failed to curb bullying is that we like bullies. Hell, we are bullies. Research has shown that bullies are not the anti-social misfits that adults, in their forced amnesia, want them to be. Rather, bullies are usually the most popular boys, second only on the clique-ranking to those described as friendly, outgoing, and self-confident. The Santana High kids and parents both felt that there was no point in complaining to the administration because they wouldn't have done anything anyway, a reflection of the fact that popular winners are treated better than losers. At Columbine, parents and students both felt that bullies were favored by teachers and administrators, and that complainers were often ignored or blamed. Indeed, losers pay for being losers twice over in our schools, taking both the punishment and the blame.

Edwin Abbott Abbott photo

“I resumed my seat, again exclaiming, "The boy is a fool, I say; 3³ can have no meaning in Geometry." At once there came a distinctly audible reply, "The boy is not a fool; and 3³ has an obvious Geometrical meaning."”

Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART II: OTHER WORLDS, Chapter 15. Concerning a Stranger from Spaceland
Context: There I sat by my Wife's side, endeavouring to form a retrospect of the year 1999 and of the possibilities of the year 2000, but not quite able to shake off the thoughts suggested by the prattle of my bright little Hexagon. Only a few sands now remained in the half-hour glass. Rousing myself from my reverie I turned the glass Northward for the last time in the old Millennium; and in the act, I exclaimed aloud, "The boy is a fool."Straightway I became conscious of a Presence in the room, and a chilling breath thrilled through my very being. "He is no such thing," cried my Wife, "and you are breaking the Commandments in thus dishonouring your own Grandson." But I took no notice of her. Looking round in every direction I could see nothing; yet still I FELT a Presence, and shivered as the cold whisper came again. I started up. "What is the matter?" said my Wife, "there is no draught; what are you looking for? There is nothing." There was nothing; and I resumed my seat, again exclaiming, "The boy is a fool, I say; 3³ can have no meaning in Geometry." At once there came a distinctly audible reply, "The boy is not a fool; and 3³ has an obvious Geometrical meaning."

Julian (emperor) photo

“From my earliest infancy I was possessed with a strange longing for the solar rays, so that when, as a boy, I cast my eyes upon the ethereal splendour, my soul felt seized and carried up out of itself.”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Context: From my earliest infancy I was possessed with a strange longing for the solar rays, so that when, as a boy, I cast my eyes upon the ethereal splendour, my soul felt seized and carried up out of itself. And not merely was it my delight to gaze upon the solar brightness, but at night also whenever I walked out in clear weather, disregarding all else, I used to fix my eyes upon the beauty of the heavens; so that I neither paid attention to what was said to me, nor took any notice of what was going on. On this account, people used to think me too much given to such pursuits, and far too inquisitive for my age: and they even suspected me, long before my beard was grown, of practising divination by means of the heavenly bodies. And. yet at that time no book on the subject had fallen into my hands, and I was utterly ignorant of what that science meant. But what use is it to quote these matters, when I have still stranger things to mention; if I should mention what I at that time thought about the gods? But let oblivion rest upon that epoch of darkness! How the radiance of heaven, diffused all round me, used to lift up my soul to its own contemplation! to such a degree that I discovered for myself that the moon's motion was in the opposite direction to that of the rest of the system, long before I met with any works giving the philosophy of such matters.

Richard Wright photo
Aesop photo

“The boy cried "Wolf, wolf!" and the villagers came out to help him.”

Aesop (-620–-564 BC) ancient Greek storyteller

The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf.

Rik Mayall photo

“I was brought up to be a good boy and proud of myself so I suppress all the things about me that are bad.”

Rik Mayall (1958–2014) British comedian and actor

TV Times, January 19 - 25, 1991 http://rikmayall.info/quotes1.htm.

Kate Bush photo

“There's something very special indeed,
In all the places where I've seen you shine, boy.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Kick Inside (1978)
Context: There's something very special indeed,
In all the places where I've seen you shine, boy.
There's something very real in how I feel, honey.
It's in me.
It's in me,
And you know it's for real.
Tuning in on your saxophone…

Alvin C. York photo

“You know we were in the Argonne Forest twenty-eight days, and had some mighty hard fighting in there. A lot of our boys were killed off.”

Alvin C. York (1887–1964) United States Army Medal of Honor recipient

On how he came to be known as "Sergeant York" when he was still technically only a corporal, as quoted in Sergeant York And His People (1922) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19117 by Sam K. Cowan, Ch. I : A Fight In The Forest Of The Argonne.
Context: You know we were in the Argonne Forest twenty-eight days, and had some mighty hard fighting in there. A lot of our boys were killed off. Every company has to have so many sergeants. They needed a sergeant; and they jes' took me.

Richard Wright photo
William Gibson photo

“They were a traumatized lot, those boys. And I just felt frivolous.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

No Maps for These Territories (2000)
Context: Consequently, when I got to Toronto, much to my chagrin, I really, really couldn't handle hanging out with the American draft dodgers. There was too much clinical depression. Too much suicide. Too much hardcore substance abuse. They were a traumatized lot, those boys. And I just felt frivolous.

Herbert Hoover photo

“You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Letter to Senator George H. Moses, chairman of the Republican national convention, upon learning of his nomination for president (14 June 1928); reported in The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover (1952), volume 2, p. 195.
Context: You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.

Thomas Savery photo

“Should the engine, to the apprehension of some, seem intricate and difficult to be worked, after all the description I have given of it in this book, yet I can, and do assure them, that the attending and working the engine is so far from being so, that it is familiar and easy to be learned by those of the meanest capacity, in a very little time; insomuch that I have boys of thirteen or fourteen years of age, who now attend and work it to perfection, and were taught to do it in a few days; and I have known some learn to work the engine in half an hour.”

Thomas Savery (1650–1715) British steam engineer

Source: The Miner's Friend; or, An Engine to Raise Water by Fire, 1702, pp. 10-11
Context: Should the engine, to the apprehension of some, seem intricate and difficult to be worked, after all the description I have given of it in this book, yet I can, and do assure them, that the attending and working the engine is so far from being so, that it is familiar and easy to be learned by those of the meanest capacity, in a very little time; insomuch that I have boys of thirteen or fourteen years of age, who now attend and work it to perfection, and were taught to do it in a few days; and I have known some learn to work the engine in half an hour. We have a proverb, that interest never lies; and I am assured that you gentlemen of the mines and collieries, when you have once made this engine familiar in your works, and to yourselves and servants; not only the profit, but abundance of other advantages and conveniences which you will find to attend your works in the use thereof, will create in you a favourable opinion of the labours of
Your real Friend and humble Servant,
THOMAS SAVERY

Charles Mackay photo

“There’s a good time coming, boys!
A good time coming.”

Charles Mackay (1814–1889) British writer

"The Good Time Coming".
Voices from the Crowd, and Town Lyrics (1857)
Context: There’s a good time coming, boys!
A good time coming.
We may not live to see the day,
But earth shall glisten in the ray
Of the good time coming.
Cannon-balls may aid the truth
But thought’s a weapon stronger;
We’ll win our battles by its aid,
Wait a little longer.

P. J. O'Rourke photo
Haile Selassie photo

“It is obvious that We have been young. We weren't born old! We have been a child, a boy, a youth, an adult, and finally an old man. Like everyone else.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Interview with Oriana Fallaci as reported in The Chicago Tribune (24 June 1973) (Excerpts online) http://www.jah-rastafari.com/selassie-words/show-jah-word.asp?word_id=int_ori.
Context: It is obvious that We have been young. We weren't born old! We have been a child, a boy, a youth, an adult, and finally an old man. Like everyone else. Our Lord the Creator made us like everyone else. Maybe you wish to know what kind of youth We were. Well We were a very serious, very diligent, very obedient youth. We were sometimes punished, but do you know why? Because what We were made to study did not seem enough and We wished to study further. We wanted to stay on at school after lessons were over. We were loath to amuse ourselves, to go riding, to play. We didn't want to waste time on games.

James Mill photo

“A certain immense aggregate of operations, is subservient to the production of the commodities useful and agreeable to man. It is of the highest importance that this aggregate should be divided into portions, consisting, each, of as small a number of operations as possible, in order that every operation may be the more quickly and perfectly, performed. If each man could, by the more frequent repetition thus occasioned, perform two of these operations, instead of one, and also perform each of them better, the powers of the community, in producing articles useful and agreeable to them, would, upon this supposition, be more than doubled. Not only would they be doubled in quantity, but a great advantage would be gained in point of quality.
This subject has been fully illustrated by Dr. Smith, in the first chapter of the first book of the "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," where the extraordinary effect of the division of labour in increasing its productive powers, in the more complicated cases, is displayed in some very remarkable instances. He states that a boy, who has been accustomed to make nothing but nails, can make-upwards of two thousand three hundred in a day; while a common blacksmith, whose operations are nevertheless so much akin to those of the nailer, cannot make above three hundred, and those very bad ones.”

James Mill (1773–1836) Scottish historian, economist, political theorist and philosopher

Ch 1 : Production
Elements of Political Economy (1821)

Virgil photo

“I sing for maidens and boys.”
Virginibus puerisque canto.

Virgil (-70–-19 BC) Ancient Roman poet

Horace, Odes, Book III, ode i, line 4
Misattributed

Kage Baker photo

“What do I tell my boy, then, if he gets the shakes about eternal life?”

Source: The Machine's Child (2006), Chapter 18, “In the Dark Night of the Soul (Year Indeterminate)” (pp. 173-174)
Context: Now then, Nick, wilt thou not sleep?
Nicholas glanced up from the plaquette on which he had been studying the Pali canon of Buddha’s teachings. He sighed and set it aside...
You don’t look like revelation has struck you, somehow.
No, Spirit.
This ain’t any better than the Tao?
No.
Nor the Bhagavad Gita? Nor the Avesta, neither?
No.
I thought certain you’d like them Gnostic Gospels.
Nicholas shrugged.
And I reckon you ain’t even looked at that nice book on Vodou.
Spirit, this is futility. What do the best of them but recapitulate the Ten Commandments, in one form or another? And I find no proof that men have obeyed strange gods any better than the God of the Israelites, or learned any more of the true nature of the Almighty. Shall I worship a cow? Shall I spin paper prayers on a wheel? I’d as lief go back to eating fish in Lent lest God smite me down, or pray to wooden Mary to take away the toothache.
Well, son, allowing for the foolishness, which I reckon depends on what port you hail from—ain’t there any one seems better than the rest?
None, Spirit. That I must be kind and do no harm, I needed no prophets to tell me; but not one will open his dead mouth to say what kind and harmless Lord would create this dreadful world, said Nicholas...
What do I tell my boy, then, if he gets the shakes about eternal life?
Set up no gods for thine Alec, Spirit. Nicholas lay back and put his arms about Mendoza, pulling her close. There is love, or there is nothing. The rest is vanity.

William Golding photo

“Jack held the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick."
Instinctively the boys drew back too; and the forest was very still. They listened, and the loudest noise was the buzzing of the flies over the spilled guts."”

Source: Lord of the Flies (1954), Ch. 8: Gift for the Darkness
Context: He paused and stood up, looking at the shadows under the trees. His voice was lower when he spoke again.
"But we'll leave part of the kill for …"
He knelt down again and was busy with his knife. The boys crowded round him. He spoke over his shoulder to Roger.
"Sharpen a stick at both ends."
Presently he stood up, holding the dripping sow's head in his hands.
"Where's that stick?"
"Here."
"Ram one end in the earth. Oh — it's rock. Jam it in that crack. There."
Jack held the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick."
Instinctively the boys drew back too; and the forest was very still. They listened, and the loudest noise was the buzzing of the flies over the spilled guts."

Oliver Heaviside photo

“The following story is true. There was a little boy, and his father said, “Do try to be like other people. Don’t frown.” And he tried and tried, but could not. So his father beat him with a strap; and then he was eaten up by lions.”

Oliver Heaviside (1850–1925) electrical engineer, mathematician and physicist

Electromagnetic Theory (1912), Volume III; p. 1; "The Electrician" Pub. Co., London.
Context: The following story is true. There was a little boy, and his father said, “Do try to be like other people. Don’t frown.” And he tried and tried, but could not. So his father beat him with a strap; and then he was eaten up by lions.
Reader, if young, take warning by his sad life and death. For though it may be an honour to be different from other people, if Carlyle’s dictum about the 30 million be still true, yet other people do not like it. So, if you are different, you had better hide it, and pretend to be solemn and wooden-headed. Until you make your fortune. For most wooden-headed people worship money; and, really, I do not see what else they can do. In particular, if you are going to write a book, remember the wooden-headed. So be rigorous; that will cover a multitude of sins. And do not frown.

Tom Lehrer photo

“I would like to state at this time that I am not now and have never been… a member of the Boy Scouts of America.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Introduction to "Be Prepared"
Songs by Tom Lehrer (1953)
Context: I would like to state at this time that I am not now and have never been... a member of the Boy Scouts of America. Their motto is, as you know, "Be Prepared!" and that is the name of this song.

James Branch Cabell photo

“At the gate of the garden, beside the lingham post which stood there in eternal erection, sat a boy who was diverting himself by whittling, with a small green-handled knife, a bit of cedar-wood into the quaint shaping which the post had.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Source: The Way of Ecben (1929), Ch. 13 : What a Boy Thought
Context: At the gate of the garden, beside the lingham post which stood there in eternal erection, sat a boy who was diverting himself by whittling, with a small green-handled knife, a bit of cedar-wood into the quaint shaping which the post had. His hair was darkly red: and now, as he regarded Alfgar with brown and wide-set eyes, the face of this boy was humorously grave, and he nodded now, as the complacent artist nods who looks upon his advancing work and finds all to be near his wishes.

Sophocles photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo

“In what awe you stood of her! How miserable you were when you had offended her! And yet, how pleasant to be bullied by her and to sue for pardon without having the slightest notion of what your fault was! How dark the world was when she snubbed you, as she often did, the little rogue, just to see you look wretched; how sunny when she smiled! How jealous you were of every one about her! How you hated every man she shook hands with, every woman she kissed—the maid that did her hair, the boy that cleaned her shoes, the dog she nursed—though you had to be respectful to the last-named! How you looked forward to seeing her, how stupid you were when you did see her, staring at her without saying a word! How impossible it was for you to go out at any time of the day or night without finding yourself eventually opposite her windows!”

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
Context: And who would not risk its terrors to gain its raptures? Ah, what raptures they were! The mere recollection thrills you. How delicious it was to tell her that you loved her, that you lived for her, that you would die for her! How you did rave, to be sure, what floods of extravagant nonsense you poured forth, and oh, how cruel it was of her to pretend not to believe you! In what awe you stood of her! How miserable you were when you had offended her! And yet, how pleasant to be bullied by her and to sue for pardon without having the slightest notion of what your fault was! How dark the world was when she snubbed you, as she often did, the little rogue, just to see you look wretched; how sunny when she smiled! How jealous you were of every one about her! How you hated every man she shook hands with, every woman she kissed—the maid that did her hair, the boy that cleaned her shoes, the dog she nursed—though you had to be respectful to the last-named! How you looked forward to seeing her, how stupid you were when you did see her, staring at her without saying a word! How impossible it was for you to go out at any time of the day or night without finding yourself eventually opposite her windows!

Alan Watts photo

“While other boys dreamed of becoming generals, cowboys, mountain climbers, explorers, and engineers, I wanted to be a Chinese villain”

Alan Watts (1915–1973) British philosopher, writer and speaker

Source: In My Own Way: An Autobiography 1915-1965 (1972), p. 63-64
Context: At about the age of eleven, I was reading the thrillers of Sax Rohmer and Edgar Wallace concerning Dr. Fu Manchu and other sophisticated Chinese villains, nurturing a secret admiration for these gentlemen because of their opposition to the suet-pudding heroism of our own culture, and because of their refined and mysterious style of life. While other boys dreamed of becoming generals, cowboys, mountain climbers, explorers, and engineers, I wanted to be a Chinese villain. I wanted servants carrying knives in their sleeves, appearing or vanishing without the slightest sound. I wanted a house with secret doors and passages, with Coromandel screens, with ancient scrolls, with ivory and lacquer boxes of exotic poisons, with exquisite brands of tea, with delicate blue porcelain, with jade idols and joss-sticks, and with sonorous gongs.

Richard Rodríguez photo

“A boy named Buddy came up beside me in the schoolyard. I don't remember what passed as prologue, but I do not forget what Buddy divulged to me: If you're white, you're all right; If you're brown, stick around; If you're black, stand back.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)
Context: A boy named Buddy came up beside me in the schoolyard. I don't remember what passed as prologue, but I do not forget what Buddy divulged to me: If you're white, you're all right; If you're brown, stick around; If you're black, stand back.
It was as though Buddy had taken me to a mountaintop and shown me the way things lay in the city below.

Henry Adams photo

“Sumner was the boy's ideal of greatness; the highest product of nature and art. The only fault of such a model was its superiority which defied imitation.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)
Context: p>His superiority was, indeed, real and incontestable; he was the classical ornament of the anti-slavery party; their pride in him was unbounded, and their admiration outspoken.The boy Henry worshipped him, and if he ever regarded any older man as a personal friend, it was Mr. Sumner. The relation of Mr. Sumner in the household was far closer than any relation of blood. None of the uncles approached such intimacy. Sumner was the boy's ideal of greatness; the highest product of nature and art. The only fault of such a model was its superiority which defied imitation. To the twelve-year-old boy, his father, Dr. Palfrey, Mr. Dana, were men, more or less like what he himself might become; but Mr. Sumner was a different order — heroic.</p

“I try to write every day. I used to try to write four times a day, minimum of three sentences each time. It doesn't sound like much but it's kinda like the hare and the tortoise. If you try that several times a day you're going to do more than three sentences, one of them is going to catch on. You're going to say "Oh boy!"”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

and then you just write. You fill up the page and the next page. But you have a certain minimum so that at the end of the day, you can say "Hey I wrote four times today, three sentences, a dozen sentences. Each sentence is maybe twenty word long. That's 240 words which is a page of copy, so at least I didn't goof off completely today. I got a page for my efforts and tomorrow it might be easier because I've moved as far as I have".
Phlogiston interview (1995)

Wisława Szymborska photo

“Within him, there's awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

"A Film from the Sixties"
Poems New and Collected (1998), No End of Fun (1967)
Context: Within him, there's awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy. God of humor, do something about him, OK?
God of humor, do something about him today.

Hoyt Axton photo

“Travel where you will and grow to be a man
And sing what must be sung, poor boy
Sing what must be sung.”

Hoyt Axton (1938–1999) American country singer

Greenback Dollar (1963)
Context: When I was a little baby, my mama she said "Son.
Travel where you will and grow to be a man
And sing what must be sung, poor boy
Sing what must be sung."

Richard Wright photo
George Long photo

“We must do something to lead boys to look at the wonderful objects by which we are surrounded, and to examine them carefully. I don't think that lectures are of much use.”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Context: We must do something to lead boys to look at the wonderful objects by which we are surrounded, and to examine them carefully. I don't think that lectures are of much use. They will now and then amuse, and may teach boys a little; and if the lectures are followed by examinations, they will teach more.

Michael Grimm photo

“Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again, I'll throw you off this fucking balcony. If you ever do that to me again. No, no, you're not man enough, you are not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy.”

Michael Grimm (1970) American politician

To Michael Scotto, at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C. (28 January 2014) http://www.ny1.com/content/politics/political_news/202672/rep--grimm-threatens-ny1-reporter-following-state-of-the-union.
2010s

Richard Wright photo
Virgil photo

“Blessings on your young courage, boy; that's the way to the stars.”
Macte nova virtute, puer, sic itur ad astra.

Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book IX, Line 641

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)
Context: Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him … he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!

Calvin Coolidge photo

“During the war 500,000 colored men and boys were called up under the draft, not one of whom sought to evade it. They took their places wherever assigned in defense of the nation of which they are just as truly citizens as are any others. The suggestion of denying any measure of their full political rights to such a great group of our population as the colored people is one which, however it might be received in some other quarters, could not possibly be permitted by one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Letter to Charles F. Gardner (1924)
Context: Leaving out of consideration the manifest impropriety of the President intruding himself in a local contest for nomination, I was amazed to receive such a letter. During the war 500,000 colored men and boys were called up under the draft, not one of whom sought to evade it. They took their places wherever assigned in defense of the nation of which they are just as truly citizens as are any others. The suggestion of denying any measure of their full political rights to such a great group of our population as the colored people is one which, however it might be received in some other quarters, could not possibly be permitted by one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution. It is the source of your rights and my rights. I propose to regard it, and administer it, as the source of the rights of all the people, whatever their belief or race.

“A pig is a pig," said the stranger, "and a pig-boy is a pig-boy.”

Source: The Chronicles of Prydain (1964–1968), Book II: The Black Cauldron (1965), Chapter 1 (Ellidyr)

Kenneth Grahame photo

“St. George paced slowly up the street. The Boy's heart stood still and he breathed with sobs, the beauty and the grace of the hero were so far beyond anything he had yet seen.”

Dream Days (1898), The Reluctant Dragon
Context: St. George paced slowly up the street. The Boy's heart stood still and he breathed with sobs, the beauty and the grace of the hero were so far beyond anything he had yet seen. His fluted armour was inlaid with gold, his plumed helmet hung at his saddle-bow, and his thick fair hair framed a face gracious and gentle beyond expression till you caught the sternness in his eyes. He drew rein in front of the little inn, and the villagers crowded round with greetings and thanks and voluble statements of their wrongs and grievances and oppressions. The Boy heard the grave gentle voice of the Saint, assuring them that all would be well now, and that he would stand by them and see them righted and free them from their foe; then he dismounted and passed through the doorway and the crowd poured in after him. But the Boy made off up the hill as fast as he could lay his legs to the ground.

Robert Graves photo

“Another War soon gets begun,
A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in;
It's the cruellest team will win.
So hold your nose against the stink
And never stop too long to think.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"The Next War".
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)
Context: Another War soon gets begun,
A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in;
It's the cruellest team will win.
So hold your nose against the stink
And never stop too long to think.
Wars don't change except in name;
The next one must go just the same,
And new foul tricks unguessed before
Will win and justify this War.

Virgil photo

“Begin, baby boy, to recognize your mother with a smile.”
Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem.

Book IV, line 60 (tr. Fairclough)
Eclogues (37 BC)

Richard Wright photo
George Long photo

“Some distinguished philosophers think that boys' eyes should be taught or trained to the examination of objects”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Context: Some distinguished philosophers think that boys' eyes should be taught or trained to the examination of objects: in other words, that boys should be taught to observe things and to see likeness and difference. It is done to some extent by all boys: their games teach them something, and they know a cake from an apple. But the power of careful, patient looking at a thing is not fully acquired without some pains on the part of a teacher. When a boy reads aloud, he must look carefully at the words and letters, or he will blunder. This is an instance of observation. But the philosophers mean, I believe, that we should introduce certain things called sciences into school teaching.

Albert Jay Nock photo

“Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it — the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers — felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

"Anarchist's Progress" in The American Mercury (1927); § III : To Abolish Crime or to Monopolize It? http://www.mises.org/daily/2714
Context: Once, I remember, I ran across the case of a boy who had been sentenced to prison, a poor, scared little brat, who had intended something no worse than mischief, and it turned out to be a crime. The judge said he disliked to sentence the lad; it seemed the wrong thing to do; but the law left him no option. I was struck by this. The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man. On this principle of action, it seemed to me that one could commit almost any kind of crime without getting into trouble with one's conscience.
Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it — the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers — felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials. Clearly, too, the public did not regard them as criminals, but rather as upright and conscientious men.
The idea came to me then, vaguely but unmistakably, that if the primary intention of government was not to abolish crime but merely to monopolize crime, no better device could be found for doing it than the inculcation of precisely this frame of mind in the officials and in the public; for the effect of this was to exempt both from any allegiance to those sanctions of humanity or decency which anyone of either class, acting as an individual, would have felt himself bound to respect — nay, would have wished to respect. This idea was vague at the moment, as I say, and I did not work it out for some years, but I think I never quite lost track of it from that time.

George Long photo

“Could not a boy be taught the elements of astronomy at the sole cost of using his eyes and his brain”

George Long (1800–1879) English classical scholar

An Old Man's Thoughts on Many Things, Of Education I
Context: Could not a boy be taught the elements of astronomy at the sole cost of using his eyes and his brain; taught slowly, certainly, and not wearied with too much at once? Some would learn more than others; but all would learn something. This is real science, real knowledge, which will make a boy wiser, and probably better too. He will learn to observe carefully, and not to be deceived, as we sometimes are, by appearances.

Rodney Dangerfield photo
William Blake photo
John Amos Comenius photo
Mary Wollstonecraft photo
Jocelyn Bell Burnell photo

“The girls got sent to the domestic science room and the boys to the science lab. ... I protested — unsuccessfully.”

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943) British scientist

Reflections on women in science – diversity and discomfort: Jocelyn Bell Burnell at TEDxStormont, 4 April 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp7amRdr30Y,

Baruch Spinoza photo
Paulo Lins photo

“From the outside, the favela and everyone in it look the same, but there are various strata, and my family was one of those at the top of the pyramid…Below us were the garbage collectors, delivery boys and street vendors who made even less money than we did, and then those who were so poor that they never even left the favela and lived from odd jobs here and there.”

Paulo Lins (1958) Brazilian author

On where his family stood in the strata of the favelas in “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; Out of the Slums of Rio, an Author Finds Fame” https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/26/world/the-saturday-profile-out-of-the-slums-of-rio-an-author-finds-fame.html in The New York Times (2003 Apr 26)

William Faulkner photo
Chris Hedges photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“Seven decades ago, the warriors of D-day fought a sinister enemy who spoke of a thousand-year empire. In defeating that evil, they left a legacy that will last not only for a thousand years, but for all time—for as long as the soul knows of duty and honor; for as long as freedom keeps its hold on the human heart. To the men who sit behind me, and to the boys who rest in the field before me, your example will never, ever grow old. Your legend will never tire. Your spirit—brave, unyielding, and true—will never die. The blood that they spilled, the tears that they shed, the lives that they gave, the sacrifice that they made, did not just win a battle. It did not just win a war. Those who fought here won a future for our Nation. They won the survival of our civilization. And they showed us the way to love, cherish, and defend our way of life for many centuries to come. Today, as we stand together upon this sacred Earth, we pledge that our nations will forever be strong and united. We will forever be together. Our people will forever be bold. Our hearts will forever be loyal. And our children, and their children, will forever and always be free. May God bless our great veterans, may God bless our Allies, may God bless the heroes of D-day, and may God bless America. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2019, June, Remarks on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day in Colleville-sur-Mer, France

Donald J. Trump photo
Theobald Wolfe Tone photo

“I see the Orange boys are playing the Devil in Ireland. I have no doubt it is the work of the Government. Please God, if I get safe into that country, I will settle those gentlemen, and their instigators also, more especially.”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) Irish politician

Diary (28 July 1796), quoted in T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell and C. J. Woods (eds.), The Writings of Theobold Wolfe Tone, 1763–98, Volume II: America, France and Bantry Bay, August 1795 to December 1796 (2001), pp. 257–258

Adolf Hitler photo
John Adams photo
Lauretta Bender photo
Samuel R. Delany photo

“What makes a boy interesting does not make a man interesting.”

Section 1 (p. 136)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Assata Shakur photo
Chris Hedges photo
Dhyan Chand photo

“You and your boys have done wonderfully to foster the game of hockey in our country I hope that you will return to India with good impressions and with the same feeling of friendship to the German hockey players as we feel towards you…Tell them how much we all admired the sill and performance of the prefect hockey they have shown us.”

Dhyan Chand (1905–1979) Indian field hockey player

George Evers, President of the Deutsch Hockey Board and the International Hockey Federation after India won the Olympics at Berlin in a message to Dhyan Chand quoted in "India and the Olympics" in page=64

Henry James photo

“It came to me in the very horror of the immediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration—I can call it by no other name—was that I felt how voluntarily, how transcendently, I might.”

It was like fighting with a demon for a human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how the human soul—held out, in the tremor of my hands, at arm's length—had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead.
Source: The Turn of the Screw (1898), Ch. XXIV.

Vittorio Agnoletto photo

“The dead boy was not one of ours, he was in a black bloc.”

Vittorio Agnoletto (1958) European Parliament member

Il ragazzo morto non era uno dei nostri, era un black block.
as quoted on TG5, Canale 5, (July 20, 2001)
from the first statement to the press on the death of protester Carlo Giuliani at the 27th G8 summit in Genoa

Annie Dillard photo

“This is my life, I thought, these are the people among whom I have spent it, prostitutes, tattooed boys with dead eyes, and horny cops.”

Michael Nava (1954) American writer

Source: Henry Rios series of novels, Rag and Bone (2001), p.153

James Eastland photo