Quotes about clothes
page 11

“A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Tapes for the movie Ciao! Manhattan, on her first experiences with heavy drugs.
Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: Dr. Roberts says, "Hello, girls... how are we today? Are you all ready? Okay. Hop up. Put all your weight on this leg. Okay? ready? My god, this rear end looks like a battlefield." You went to hear something I wrote about the horror of speed? Well, maybe you don't but the nearly incommunicable torments of speed, buzzerama, that arcylic high, horrorous, yodeling, repetitious echoes of an infinity of butally harrowing that words cannot capture the devastation nor the tone of such a vicious nightmare. Yes, I'm even getting paranoid, which is a trip for me. I don't really dig it, but there it is. It's hard to choose between the climactic ecstasies of speed and cocaine. They're similar. Oh, they are so fabulous. That fantabulous sexual exhilaration. Which is better, coke or speed? It's hard to choose. The purest speed, the purest coke, and sex is a deadlock. Speeding and booze. That gets funny. You get chattering at about fifty miles an hour over the downdraft, and booze kind of cools it. It can get very funny. Utterly ridiculous. It's a good combination for a party. Not for an orgy, though. Speedball! Speed and heroin. That was the first time I had a shot in each arm. Closed my eyes. Opened my arms. Closed my fists, and jab, jab. A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean. A speedball is from another world. It's a little bit dangerous. Pure coke, pure speed, and pure sex. Wow! The ultimate in climax. Once I went over to Dr. Roberts for a shot of cocaine. It was very strange because he wouldn't tell me what it was and I was playing it cool. It was my first intravenous shot, and I said, "Well, I don't feel it." And so he gave me another one, and all of a sudden I went blind. Just flipped out of my skull! I ended up wildly balling him. And flipping him out of his skull. He was probably shot up... he was always shooting up around the corner anyway.

“The pattern of life is not woven ahead of time, like cloth to be worn later as a tunic. Rather, life is woven at the very instant you live it.”

Brian Bates (1944) British academic

The Way of the Wyrd : Tales of an Anglo-Saxon Sorcerer (1983)
Context: All our lives are locked together in the shimmering world of wyrd in which all things are enmeshed and connected to one another by the threads of wyrd. … The wyrd sisters spin the web of wyrd and weave the loom of life, they do not thereby determine it … the wyrd sisters simply express the will of wyrd. And so do we. We cannot control our lives, because we too are inseparable aspects of wyrd and express its will. But this is not the same as saying our life is determined. Rather, it is saying we live like an ocean voyager, trimming our sails to the winds and tides of wyrd as we skim across the waters of life. And cresting the waves of wyrd is something that happens at every instant. The pattern of life is not woven ahead of time, like cloth to be worn later as a tunic. Rather, life is woven at the very instant you live it.

Madonna photo
Charles Darwin photo

“It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Last paragraph of the first edition (1859). Only use of the term "evolve" or "evolution" in the first edition.
In the second http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F376&viewtype=image (1860) through sixth (1872) editions, Darwin added the phrase "by the Creator" to read:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 489-90 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&itemID=F373&viewtype=image

Robert LeFevre photo
Omar Bradley photo
Charles Stross photo

“Nobody taught me how to say no when a beautiful naked woman begs me to take my clothes off.”

Source: The Laundry Files, The Jennifer Morgue (2006), Chapter 7, “Nightmare Beach” (p. 144)

Charles Stross photo
Claude Louis Hector de Villars photo

“I was unable before starting to formulate a plan of campaign because I did not know whether I should find an army there … In fact I found the troops in a deplorable condition, without clothes, without arms, and without bread.”

Claude Louis Hector de Villars (1653–1734) Marshal General of France

Villars reflecting on the state of the French army in 1709 when he took command, quoted in Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times

Mahatma Gandhi photo
Jesse Jackson photo
Jesse Jackson photo
Seneca the Younger photo
Jonah Goldberg photo

“Both flag burners and flag wavers can agree on one thing: The flag has meaning beyond the merely instrumental necessity of having a piece of cloth that identifies a legal jurisdiction.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

"The Power of Symbols in Our Politics of Digust" https://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/power-of-symbols-politics-of-disgust/ (28 December 2018), National Review
2010s, 2018

Plutarch photo
Sania Mirza photo
Neelam Sanjiva Reddy photo
Francesco Maria Zanotti photo

“He who writes in a rich language is like a man with many suits of clothes, some for home wear, others in which to appear in public, and others for state occasions.”

Francesco Maria Zanotti (1692–1777) Italian philosopher

Chi scrive in una lingua abbondante, è come un uomo che ha molti habiti, altri per usi domestici, altri per prodursi in pubblico, altri per le feste solenni.
XI.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 271.
Paradossi

Scott Lynch photo

“My responsibility was to tell you the truth, not wrap you in swaddling clothes.”

She raised her hood again, half-veiling her face in shadow. “Nor protect you from your own badly aimed temper.”
Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 9 “The Five-Year Game: Reasonable Doubt” section 2 (p. 551)

Drake photo
Ali Khamenei photo
Greta Garbo photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“It seems to be a fact of life that human beings cannot continue to do wrong without eventually reaching out for some thin rationalization to clothe the obvious wrong in the beautiful garments of righteousness. The philosopher-psychologist William James used to talk a great deal about the stream of consciousness. He says that the very interesting and unique thing about human nature is that man had the capacity temporarily to block the stream of consciousness and place anything in it that he wants to, and so we often end up justifying the rightness of the wrong. This is exactly what happened during the days of slavery. Even the Bible and religion were misused to crystallize the patterns of the status quo. And so it was argued from pulpits across the nation that the Negro was inferior by nature, because of Noah’s curse upon the children of Ham. The apostle Paul’s dictum became a watchword: Servants, be obedient to your master. And then one brother had probably studied the logic of the great philosopher Aristotle. You know Aristotle did a great deal to bring into being what we know as formal logic, and he talked about the syllogism, which had a major premise and a minor premise and a conclusion. And so this brother could put his argument in the framework of an Aristotelian syllogism. He could say, All men are made in the image of God. This was the major premise; then came the minor premise: God, as everybody knows, is not a Negro. Therefore, the Negro is not a man. This was the type of reasoning that prevailed.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Robert Greene photo
Teal Swan photo
Emily Brontë photo
Anaïs Nin photo
Teal Swan photo
Margaret Cho photo

“I can't even look at those "women's magazines" anyway. I love fashion, but I look at the pictures of the skinny models, and they're wearing clothes I can't even fit on my fingers.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

And I look at that and I think, if that is what a woman is supposed to look like, then I must not be one.
From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

Ounsi el-Hajj photo
William Blum photo
Enheduanna photo

“She stirs confusion and chaos against those who are disobedient to her, speeding carnage and inciting the devastating flood, clothed in terrifying radiance.”

Enheduanna Sumerian priestess and poet

About Inanna, Lines 18-28.
A Hymn to Inana (23rd century BCE)

“Why should they risk a public landing? Their ship would be impounded for evasion of custom duties. Their clothes would be torn off and sold as souvenirs.”

Desmond Leslie (1921–2001) British pilot, film maker, writer, and musician

Quoted in Obituary, The Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1327100/Desmond-Leslie.html (20 Mar 2001)

Lois McMaster Bujold photo

“The old customs are dead, and we keep trying on new ones, like badly fitting clothes.”

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 3 (p. 50)

Warren Leopold photo

“Man is endowed with choice, but the world as he has made it is a perfect example of what not to do. Man's basic needs are food, shelter, clothing, and procreation. The stock market, cosmetics, religious games, war games, the myth of teaching, and political games are the lack of these.”

Warren Leopold (1920–1998)

[Westlund, Darren, Cambria Treasures, Warren Leopold, Cambira, CA, Small Town Surrealist Productions, 1990, 39, ASIN: B000E263NM, 2019-03-17, https://www.amazon.com/Cambria-Treasures-Interviews-Noteworthy-Cambrians/dp/B000E263NM]

Ray Bradbury photo

“We clothe ourselves in flame
And trade new myths for old.
The Greek gods christen us
With ghosts of comet swords;
God smiles and names us thus:
Arise! Run! Fly, my Lords!”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

"We March Back to Olympus" in Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns (1977), p. 11

“I often got a belt from my mother with a wet dish cloth for kicking a ball through a window.”

Colm O'Rourke (1957) Irish Gaelic football player, journalist and businessman

A disagreement with Oisín McConville over the best gifts to give loved ones at half-time during the 2020 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final. Quoted in The Irish Times https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/tv-view-dublin-look-towards-seventh-heaven-as-mayo-s-hell-lingers-on-1.4441949 in December 2020

Mashrafe Mortaza photo
John Cooper Clarke photo

“I always judge people by appearances; don't you anyway? I think clothes are important; that's where the nudist camp falls down.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Series 1 - Textiles (9 Nov 2016)
BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016)

J. Howard Moore photo
Henry Morton Stanley photo

“You can find it on almost any tree. As we made our way through the forest, it was literally raining rubber juice. Our clothes were full of it. The Congo has so many tributaries that a well-organized company can easily extract a few tons of rubber per year here. You only have to sail up such a river and the branches with rubber hang almost up to your ship.”

Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) Welsh journalist and explorer

Leopold II, Het hele Verhaal, Johan Op De Beeck Horizon, 2020 https://klara.be/leopold-ii-aflevering-8-0 ISBN 9789463962094 Stanley Points out to King Leopold II Of Belgium that the Congo free State which was a loss-making endeavor at that time that rubber extraction has a possibility to make the colony profitable.

Paulo Coelho photo

“Elegance lies not in the clothes we wear, but in the way we wear them.”

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), About Elegance

Franklin D. Roosevelt photo

“The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, State of the Union Address — Second Bill of Rights (1944)

Imran Khan photo

“If a woman is wearing very few clothes it will have an impact on the man unless they are robots. It’s common sense.”

Imran Khan (1952) Prime Minister of Pakistan

Source: June 2021, Outrage after Pakistan PM Imran Khan blames rape crisis on women https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/25/outrage-after-pakistan-pm-imran-khan-blames-crisis-on-women

Liu Wen (model) photo

“I dressed more like a tomboy in very slouchy clothing. I was very humble because I didn’t think of myself as beautiful. It wasn’t something I even thought about.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen Sees Beauty as a Journey, Not a Destination" in Harper's Bazaar https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a36205161/liu-wen-beauty-issue-may-2021/ (26 April 2021)

Catherine Rowett photo

“Sophistry is one of the methods by which politicians dress up their policies in alien clothing, to pass them off as more desirable than they really are. Spin doctors thrive best where ‘democracy’ is the slogan.”

Catherine Rowett (1956) Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia (born 1956)

Source: Presocratic Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (2004), Ch. 7 : Spin doctors of the 5th century

Gabriel Serville photo

“A lot of families (in French Guiana) live in makeshift homes where people don't have access to water. When people don't have running water and no money because they have to feed and clothe their children and pay their rent, buying hydroalcoholic gel (hand sanitizer) is not a priority.”

Gabriel Serville (1959) French politician

Source: Gabriel Serville (2021) cited in: " In French Guiana, virus exposes inequality, colonial legacy https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/in-french-guiana-virus-exposes-inequality-colonial-legacy/" in The Seattle Times, 19 July 2020.

Kate Bush photo

“Could be in a dream
Our clothes are on the beach
These prints of our feet
Lead right up to the sea
No one, no one is here
No one, no one is here
We stand in the Atlantic
We become panoramic...”

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

Source: Song lyrics, Aerial (2005), A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Doina Ruști photo

“The love is happiness to be only a rotting cloth in the wound of a stranger.”

Doina Ruști (1957) Romanian Writer

Source: The Phanariot Manuscript https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuscrisul_fanariot

Paul Hinder photo

“Although we may be different in our look, ethnicity, culture, and clothing we are all the same and want the same – faith, hope and love. Our beliefs bind us so closely, that even though we come from various backgrounds we are able to live with each other in peace and harmony.”

Paul Hinder (1942) Roman Catholic bishop, Capuchin Friar

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Ahead of Being on Papal Flight for United Arab Emirates, ZENIT Speaks with Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia Bishop Paul Hinder https://zenit.org/2019/02/03/exclusive-interview-ahead-of-being-on-papal-flight-for-united-arab-emirates-zenit-speaks-with-apostolic-vicar-of-southern-arabia-bishop-paul-hinder-2/ (3 February 2019)