
„Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.“
— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890
A collection of quotes on the topic of color, likeness, people, can.
„Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.“
— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890
„What keeps my heart awake is colorful silence.“
— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926
„I'm not performing miracles, I'm using up and wasting a lot of paint…“
— Claude Monet French impressionist painter 1840 - 1926
„I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.“
— Vincent Van Gogh Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890) 1853 - 1890
„And what difference is there in the color of the soul?“
— Solomon Northup, book Twelve Years a Slave
Variant: What difference is there in the color of the soul?
Source: Twelve Years a Slave
„The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.“
— Marcus Aurelius, book Meditations
Source: Meditations
„The earth laughs in flowers.“
— Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882
„With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?“
— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900
„Here's to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.“
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, book The Beautiful and Damned
Source: The Beautiful and Damned
Total 1693 quotes color, filter:
— Martin Luther King, Jr. American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement 1929 - 1968
Variant: I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
— Johnny Depp American actor, film producer, and musician 1963
Variant: If there's any message, it is ultimately that it's okay to be different; that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.
— John Calvin French Protestant reformer 1509 - 1564
Sermon Number 10 on I Corinthians, 698. As quoted in John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait (1989) by William J. Bouwsma, pp. 134–135.
Epistles to the Corinthians
— Taylor Swift American singer-songwriter 1989
Out of the Woods, written by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff
Song lyrics, 1989 (2014)
„When someone shows you their true colors, believe them.“
— Dolly Parton American singer-songwriter and actress 1946
Source: Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business
„Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.“
— Wassily Kandinsky Russian painter 1866 - 1944
Source: Concerning the Spiritual in Art
— W.E.B. Du Bois American sociologist, historian, activist and writer 1868 - 1963
Source: Writings: The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade / The Souls of Black Folk / Dusk of Dawn / Essays
— George Lincoln Rockwell American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party 1918 - 1967
White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy
1962, White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy
„The best colour in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.“
— Coco Chanel French fashion designer 1883 - 1971
As quoted in Beauty in Bloom : A Collection of Beautiful Inspirations (2009) by Natalie Bloom, p. 23
— Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory
Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Fragments
— John Green, book The Fault in Our Stars
A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."
Augustus "Gus" Waters, p. 310-313
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)
— Nathan Bedford Forrest Confederate Army general 1821 - 1877
1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)
„Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.“
— Friedrich Nietzsche German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist 1844 - 1900
„Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.“
— Pablo Picasso Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer 1881 - 1973
— John Steinbeck, book Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Variant: What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America
„I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.“
— Joan Miró Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist 1893 - 1983
from: Joan Miro: Selected Writings and Interviews, M.Rowell, Thames and Hudson, 1987
1940 - 1960
„In this world
love has no color
yet how deeply
my body
is stained by yours.“
— Izumi Shikibu, Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan
Source: Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan
— W.E.B. Du Bois American sociologist, historian, activist and writer 1868 - 1963
Source: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century
— Georgia O'Keeffe American artist 1887 - 1986
1970 - 1986, Some Memories of Drawings (1976)
Context: It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colours put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint. … I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for.<!-- Also quoted in Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction (2007), edited by Richard Marshall, p. 13
„The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.“
— William Gibson, book Neuromancer
Source: Neuromancer (1984)
„I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.“
— Charles Bukowski American writer 1920 - 1994
Source: What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
„One beach-colored.
One brown.
One Loved.
One Loved a Little Less.“
— Arundhati Roy Indian novelist, essayist 1961
— George Lincoln Rockwell American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party 1918 - 1967
White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy
1962, White Self-Hate: Master-Stroke Of The Enemy
— Kofi Annan 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations 1938 - 2018
As quoted in Simply Living: The Spirit of the Indigenous People (1999) edited by Shirley A. Jones
— Leonardo DiCaprio American actor and film producer 1974
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
— Nathan Bedford Forrest Confederate Army general 1821 - 1877
1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)
„It is not bright colors but good drawing that makes figures beautiful.“
— Titian Italian painter 1488 - 1576
As quoted in The Quotable Artist (2002) by Peggy Hadden, p. 32.
undated quotes
— Ali Khamenei Iranian Shiite faqih, Marja' and official independent islamic leader 1939
Message of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei To the Youth in Europe and North America http://english.khamenei.ir//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2001, Khamenei.ir (January 21, 2015)
2015
— R.L. Stine American writer and producer 1943
Reading Rockets interview http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/stine/transcript hi you know it’s me cardi B
— Malala Yousafzai Pakistani children's education activist 1997
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Speech (October 10, 2014)
— Abul A'la Maududi Indian theologian, politician and philosopher 1903 - 1979
1978, Towards Understanding Islam, Chapter 7, Lahore, Pakistan.
1970s
— Markus Persson Swedish video game programmer 1979
In response to a Twitter user who tweeted to him that "it’s not OK to celebrate white privilege". " 'Minecraft' Creator Goes Full White Man Denying White Privilege on Twitter https://www.theroot.com/minecraft-creator-goes-full-white-privilege-denying-whi-1820904201". The Root. (November 30, 2017)
— Henri Matisse French artist 1869 - 1954
In a letter to a friend, Nice 1918, as quoted in 'Matisse & Picasso', Paul Trachtman, Smithsonian Magazine, February 2003, p. 6
1910s
— Lydia Maria Child American abolitionist, author and women's rights activist 1802 - 1880
Chapter VIII http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/abolitn/abeslmca5t.html
1830s, An Appeal on Behalf of That Class of Americans Called Africans (1833)
„The Great Dancer is my husband," Mira says, "rain washes off all the other colors.”“
— Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet
Mīrābā, in Christian Mysticism East and West: What the Masters Teach Us http://books.google.co.in/books?id=u2EBULLB-uQC&pg=PA121, p. 121
— Ulysses S. Grant 18th President of the United States 1822 - 1885
Source: 1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Ch. 37.
— Caspar David Friedrich Swedish painter 1774 - 1840
Quote of Friedrich's letter 8 Feb. 1809, to 'Akademiedirektor Schulz'; as cited by Helmut Bôrsch-Supan and Karl Wilhelm Jàhnig in Caspar David Friedrich: Gemâlde, Druckgraphik und bildmassige Zeichnungen (Munich: Prestel, 1973), 182-83, esp. 183; translation, David Britt - note 117 http://d2aohiyo3d3idm.cloudfront.net/publications/virtuallibrary/0892366745.pdf
1794 - 1840
— Nathan Bedford Forrest Confederate Army general 1821 - 1877
1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)
— Charles R. Drew African-American physician, surgeon, and medical researcher 1904 - 1950
(1942) Spencie Love, One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew (1996) ISBN 0-8078-2250-7, 155-56, quoting as it appeared in Current Biography (1944), 180.
— Albert Pike, book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. XXXII : Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, p. 841
Context: All hypotheses scientifically probable are the last gleams of the twilight of knowledge, or its last shadows. Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted. Beyond the human Reason is the Divine Reason, to our feebleness the great Absurdity, the Infinite Absurd, which confounds us and which we believe. For the Master, the Compass of Faith is above the Square of Reason; but both rest upon the Holy Scriptures and combine to form the Blazing Star of Truth.
All eyes do not see alike. Even the visible creation is not, for all who look upon it, of one form and one color. Our brain is a book printed within and without, and the two writings are, with all men, more or less confused.
„In the case of colors, there is a tridimensional spread of feelings.“
— Charles Sanders Peirce American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist 1839 - 1914
The Law of Mind (1892)
Context: In the case of colors, there is a tridimensional spread of feelings. Originally all feelings may have been connected in the same way, and the presumption is that the number of dimensions was endless. For development essentially involves a limitation of possibilities. But given a number of dimensions of feeling, all possible varieties are obtainable by varying the intensities of the different elements.
— Horace Mann American politician 1796 - 1859
A Few Thoughts for a Young Man (1850)
Context: The laws of nature are sublime, but there is a moral sublimity before which the highest intelligences must kneel and adore. The laws by which the winds blow, and the tides of the ocean, like a vast clepsydra, measure, with inimitable exactness, the hours of ever-flowing time; the laws by which the planets roll, and the sun vivifies and paints; the laws which preside over the subtle combinations of chemistry, and the amazing velocities of electricity; the laws of germination and production in the vegetable and animal worlds, — all these, radiant with eternal beauty as they are, and exalted above all the objects of sense, still wane and pale before the Moral Glories that apparel the universe in their celestial light. The heart can put on charms which no beauty of known things, nor imagination of the unknown, can aspire to emulate. Virtue shines in native colors, purer and brighter than pearl, or diamond, or prism, can reflect. Arabian gardens in their bloom can exhale no such sweetness as charity diffuses. Beneficence is godlike, and he who does most good to his fellow-man is the Master of Masters, and has learned the Art of Arts. Enrich and embellish the universe as you will, it is only a fit temple for the heart that loves truth with a supreme love. Inanimate vastness excites wonder; knowledge kindles admiration, but love enraptures the soul. Scientific truth is marvellous, but moral truth is divine; and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light, has found the lost paradise. For him, a new heaven and a new earth have already been created. His home is the sanctuary of God, the Holy of Holies. <!-- p. 35
— Ulysses S. Grant 18th President of the United States 1822 - 1885
Memorandum: Reasons why Santo Domingo should be annexed to the United States http://books.google.com/books?id=h2ETxC83sdsC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=%22and+he+would+soon+receive+such+recognition+as+to+induce+him+to+stay%22&source=bl&ots=0bCUbNud-b&sig=SUGBB2pV8Ob_jR_KTJvQ2kenxKM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=B-9kU7-8DtXesAT_4YGQBA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22and%20he%20would%20soon%20receive%20such%20recognition%20as%20to%20induce%20him%20to%20stay%22&f=false (1869-1870?).
1860s
Context: Caste has no foothold in Santo Domingo. It is capable of supporting the entire colored population of the United States, should it choose to emigrate. The present difficulty, in bringing all parts of the United States to a happy unity and love of country grows out of the prejudice to color. The prejudice is a senseless one, but it exists. The colored man cannot be spared until his place is supplied, but with a refuge like San Domingo his worth here would soon be discovered, and he would soon receive such recognition to induce him to stay; or if Providence designed that the two races should not live to-gether he would find his home in the Antilles.
— Pearl S. Buck American writer 1892 - 1973
Source: What America Means to Me (1943), p. 8
Context: Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored — it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on. It is not healthy when a nation lives inside a nation, as colored Americans are living inside America. A nation cannot live confident of its tomorrow if its refugees are among its own citizens. For it is never the one who suffers injustice who is the injured one, but the one who is unjust. Slavery bred a race of idle and shiftless white men, and race prejudice continues the evil work. White people who insist on their superority because of the color of the skin they were born with- can there be so empty and false a superiority as this? Who is injured the most by that foolish assumption, the colored or the white? In his soul it s the white man. It is the wise white people who ought now to be angry because of race prejudice, for as surely as night follows day our country will fail in its democracy because of race prejudice unless we root it out. We cannot grow in strength and leadership for democracy so long as we carry deep in our being this fatal fault.
— Jorge Luis Borges Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature 1899 - 1986
"The Argentine Writer and Tradition", Fervor of Buenos Aires (1923)
Context: Some days past I have found a curious confirmation of the fact that what is truly native can and often does dispense with local color; I found this confirmation in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work. It was written by Mohammed, and Mohammed, as an Arab, had no reason to know that camels were especially Arabian; for him they were part of reality, he had no reason to emphasize them; on the other hand, the first thing a falsifier, a tourist, an Arab nationalist would do is have a surfeit of camels, caravans of camels, on every page; but Mohammed, as an Arab, was unconcerned: he knew he could be an Arab without camels. I think we Argentines can emulate Mohammed, can believe in the possibility of being Argentine without abounding in local color.
— José Martí Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader 1853 - 1895
Our America (1881)
Context: There can be no racial animosity, because there are no races. The theorist and feeble thinkers string together and warm over the bookshelf races which the well-disposed observer and the fair-minded traveller vainly seek in the justice of Nature where man's universal identity springs forth from triumphant love and the turbulent hunger for life. The soul, equal and eternal, emanates from bodies of different shapes and colors. Whoever foments and spreads antagonism and hate between the races, sins against humanity.
— Lyndon B. Johnson American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969) 1908 - 1973
we do not answer those who lie beneath this soil — when we reply to the Negro by asking, "Patience."
1960s, Memorial Day speech (1963)
— Yuri Gagarin Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, the first human in space 1934 - 1968
As quoted in Earth's Aura (1977) by Louise B. Young
Context: What beauty. I saw clouds and their light shadows on the distant dear earth.... The water looked like darkish, slightly gleaming spots.... When I watched the horizon, I saw the abrupt, contrasting transition from the earth's light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.
— Yuri Gagarin Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, the first human in space 1934 - 1968
Statement of April 1961, as quoted in Warrior of Light : The Life of Nicholas Roerich : Artist, Himalayan explorer and visionary (2002) by Colleen Messina, p. 46
— Ronald Reagan American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989) 1911 - 2004
As quoted in "Daughter of Ronald Reagan breaks silence on ‘monkeys’ remark" https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/daughter-of-ronald-reagan-breaks-silence-on-monkeys-remark (2 August 2019), by Zachary Halaschak, The Washington Examiner
„If you're quiet, you're not living. You've got to be noisy and colorful and lively.“
— Mel Brooks American director, writer, actor, and producer 1926
„WHAT is your name? WHAT is your quest? and WHAT is your favorite color?“
— Graham Chapman English comedian, writer and actor 1941 - 1989
— Oswald Spengler German historian and philosopher 1880 - 1936
Source: The Decline of the West, Vol 1: Form and Actuality
„The destiny of the colored American … is the destiny of America.“
— Frederick Douglass American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818 - 1895
Speech at the Emancipation League (12 February 1862), Boston
1860s
„I danced along a colored wind/
Dangled from a rope of sand“
— Tom Waits American singer-songwriter and actor 1949
Source: Lyrics of Tom Waits: The Early Years, 1971-1983
— Pablo Neruda Chilean poet 1904 - 1973
Variant: I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
Source: The Poetry of Pablo Neruda
„To be more precise it was the color of heartache.“
— Susanna Clarke, book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell