Quotes about colors
page 17

Ernest Hemingway photo

“That Muretto di Alassio by Mario Berrino is a beautiful color film.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Domenica del Corriere, 1973

Richard Sherman (American football) photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“There is also need for leadership and concern on the part of white people of good will in the North, if this problem is to be solved. Genuine liberalism on the question of race. And what we too often find in the North is a sort of quasi-liberalism based on the principle of looking objectively at all sides, and it is a liberalism that gets so involved in looking at all sides, that it doesn’t get committed to either side. It is a liberalism that is so objectively analytical that it fails to get subjectively committed. It is a liberalism that is neither hot nor cold but lukewarm. And we must come to see that his problem in the United States is not a sectional problem, but a national problem. No section of our country can boast of clean hands in the area of brotherhood. It is one thing for a white person of good will in the North to rise up with righteous indignation when a bus is burned in Anniston, Alabama, with freedom riders, or when a nasty mob assembles around a University of Mississippi, and even goes to the point of killing and injuring people to keep one Negro out of the university, or when a Negro is lynched or churches burned in the South; but that same person of good will must rise up with the same righteous indignation when a Negro in his state or in his city cannot live in a particular neighborhood because of the color of his skin, or cannot join a particular academic society or fraternal order or sorority because of the color of his or her skin, or cannot get a particular job in a particular firm because her happens to be a Negro. In other words, a genuine liberalism will see that the problem can exist even in one’s front and back yard, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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

1960s, Address to Cornell College (1962)

Salvador Dalí photo

“Just now I'm painting a beautiful woman, smiling, burnt to a crisp, with feathers of all colors, held up by a small die of burning marble; the die is in turn held up by a little puff of smoke, churned and quite; in the sky there are asses with parrot-heads, grasses and beach sand, all about to explode, all clean, incredible objective..”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote in Dali's letter to his art-friend Lorca, 1927; as quoted in Surrealism and the Spanish Civil War, Robin Adèle Greeley, p. 67
Dali is striving then for a rational approach of his paintings; he is very probably referring to his painting, he made earlier in 1927: ' Little Ashes' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Little_Ashes.jpg
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1920 - 1930

Bernard Cornwell photo
Gregory Benford photo

“Schools praised diversity but were culturally the same. Different skin color, same opinions.”

Gregory Benford (1941) Science fiction author and astrophysicist

Source: Short fiction, The Man Who Sold The Stars (2013), p. 318

Rob Pike photo

“Syntax highlighting is juvenile. When I was a child, I was taught arithmetic using [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisenaire_rods colored rods]. I grew up and today I use monochromatic numerals.”

Rob Pike (1956) software engineer

Rob Pike (2012) in golang-nuts https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/golang-nuts/hJHCAaiL0so/kG3BHV6QFfIJ group at groups.google.com, Oct 28 2012

Marilyn Ferguson photo
Alexander Calder photo
Alexander Calder photo
Alexander Calder photo
Alexander Calder photo
Alexander Calder photo
Alexander Calder photo

“How can art be realized? Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe. Out of different masses, tight, heavy, middling - indicated by variations of size or color - directional line - vectors which represent speeds, velocities, accelerations, forces, etc...”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

these directions making between them meaningful angles, and senses, together defining one big conclusion or many. Spaces, volumes, suggested by the smallest means in contrast to their mass, or even including them, juxtaposed, pierced by vectors, crossed by speeds. Nothing at all of this is fixed. Each element able to move, to stir, to oscillate, to come and go in its relationships with the other elements in its universe. It must not be just a fleeting moment but a physical bond between the varying events in life. Not extractions, but abstractions. Abstractions that are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.
1930s, How Can Art Be Realized? (1932)

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“...And I have seen stranger things in a long and colorful career. Exactly. So what is the problem in believing my story?”

“You’ve nothing to back it up with. Even if you’re right, I’m still right in not believing without evidence.”

Chapter 28 (p. 172)
Roadmarks (1979)

Alexander Calder photo

“The mobiles started when I went to see [[w:Piet Mondrian|Mondrian [in Paris, 1930]. I was impressed by several colored rectangles he had on the wall. Shortly after that I made some mobiles.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

Question: How did the mobiles start?
1950s - 1960s, Excerpt, Interview with Alexander Calder (1962)

Anna J. Cooper photo

“When colored persons have been employed it was too often as machines or as manikins. There has been no disposition, generally, to get the black man's ideal or to let his individuality work by its own gravity.”

Anna J. Cooper (1858–1964) African-American author, educator, speaker and scholar

Source: A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892), p. 37

“If life hands you a lemon adjust your rose colored glasses and start to selling pink lemonade.”

Anonymous, 1917, THE CONDUCTOR AND THE BRAKEMAN

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Robert Maynard Hutchins photo
Giovanni Morassutti photo

“Wine making is an artistic creation in which you deal with a variety of styles, colors, and inspiration therefore good wine, like good art, can evoke emotions, sensations and create an experience which leaves a lasting impression.”

Giovanni Morassutti (1980) Italian actor, theatre director and cultural entrepreneur.

Stated in the description of Video artwork Ribolla https://artelaguna.world/videoart/ribolla.30318/ , Arte Laguna World https://artelaguna.world/. Also quoted on visual art work Sauvignon https://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-morassutti/sauvignon, Series Wine & Art https://www.wikiart.org/en/giovanni-morassutti/all-works#!#filterName:Series_wine-art,resultType:masonry, Wikiart.org (28 April, 2020) https://www.wikiart.org/

Hendrik Willem Mesdag photo

“That splendid, head, in which everything is said that can be said; color, line, tone, expression; the slightly advanced head, with the soft, almost human eyes, I never enter my studio in the morning without my eye falling upon this creature and wishing it 'Good Morning.'”

Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831–1915) painter from the Northern Netherlands

note of H.W. Mesdag, published in the exhibition catalogue of Corporation Gallery of London, the Guildhall, in 1903; as cited in the catalogue of The American Art Galleries Madison Square South, New York, 3 March 1920 https://ia601600.us.archive.org/29/items/b1470642/b1470642.pdf

remark about the painting 'Ramskop' of Matthijs Maris, painted c. 1860 https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/26605, which Mesdag bought and hanged in his house for many years
after 1880

Ray Bradbury photo

“All flesh is one: what matter scores;
Or color of the suit
Or if the helmet glints with blue or gold?
All is one bold achievement,
All is fine spring-found-again-in-autumn day
When juices run in antelopes along our blood, And green our flag, forever green…”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

"All flesh is one: what matter scores?" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)

Alex Grey photo

“We separate.

We oppose.

We dramatize.

We exaggerate.

We add colors.

We make it beautiful.

We make it ugly.

We separate.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

Art Psalms (2008), Let Love Draw the Line

Marian Wright Edelman photo

“The odds continue to be stacked against children of color who made up nearly three-quarters of all poor children in 2018. With nearly one in four poor, they are more than 2.5 times more likely to be poor than White children.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Ask the Question: When Are We Going to End Child Poverty in America? in The Charleston Chronicle https://www.charlestonchronicle.net/2019/09/23/ask-the-question-when-are-we-going-to-end-child-poverty-in-america/ (23 September 2019)

Terrance Hayes photo

“I have a line in the last book about how to draw an invisible man, and it says, “I’m trying to be transparent.” I don’t actually want to be invisible, which is the dilemma of people of color, but I would like to be transparent, so people can see what my issues are, good and bad. I just try to be transparent and very present, and then see what happens.”

Terrance Hayes (1971) American poet

On seeking transparency in “Terrance Hayes on Shakespeare, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and What Makes a Good MFA” https://lithub.com/terrance-hayes-on-shakespeare-ol-dirty-bastard-and-what-makes-a-good-mfa/ in Lit Hub (2018 May 9)

Walter Reuther photo

“We must learn to judge people, not by their color or race or creed, but rather by their worth as human beings.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

Address before the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, India, April 5, 1956, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 141
1950s, Address before the Indian Council on World Affairs (1956)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Plato was synthesis of Europe and Asia, and a decidedly Oriental element pervades his philosophy, giving it a sunrise color.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Abhedananda, Swami India and her people, a study in the social. political, educational and religious conditians of India. [6th ed.] Calcutta, Ramakrishna Vedanta Math [1945]

Frederick Douglass photo
Diane Ackerman photo

“The color we see is always the one being reflected, the one that doesn’t stay put and get absorbed. We see the rejected color, and say “an apple is red.””

But in truth an apple is everything but red.
Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 5 “Vision” (p. 252)

Mary Church Terrell photo
Mary Church Terrell photo
Whoopi Goldberg photo
Elizabeth Martinez photo
Fannie Hurst photo
Andy Warhol photo

“When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong. And sizing is a form of thinking and coloring is too. My instinct about painting says, 'If you don’t think about it, it's right.'”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

As soon as you have to decide and choose, it's wrong. And the more you decide about, the more wrong it gets. Some people, they paint abstract, so they sit there thinking about it because their thinking makes them feel they're doing something. But my thinking never makes me feel I'm doing anything.
Source: 1970s, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 149

Ron English photo

“Fall is the season the leaves do dread, because gravity loves the color red.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

“When the police enforce the law, they do so unevenly, in ways that give disproportionate attention to the activities of poor people, people of color, and others near the bottom of the social pyramid. And when the police violate the law, these same people are their most frequent victims.”

Kristian Williams (1974) American historian

at the bottom. Put differently, we might say that the police act to defend the interests and standing of those with power—those at the top. So long as they serve in this role, they are likely to be given a free hand in pursuing these ends and a great deal of leeway in pursuing other ends that they identify for themselves. The laws may say otherwise, but laws can be ignored.
Rights, riots and police brutality, 2020

Joe Biden photo

“We will not shy away from engaging in the hard work to take on the damaging legacy of slavery and our treatment of Native Americans, or from doing the daily work of addressing systemic racism and violence against Black, Native, Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

21 March 2021 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/21/statement-by-president-biden-on-the-international-day-for-the-elimination-of-racial-discrimination/
2021, March 2021

Jason Tanamor photo
MILCK photo

“[It is] so important for women of color to have a voice, because we have been living in a paradigm where women of color, and men of color, and all genders in-between color — our voices have not been as quote-unquote "valuable."”

MILCK Los Angeles based singer songwriter

That is a problem because that creates a sense of not belonging, and invisibility. I felt so voiceless, and like I didn't matter. Like I was an inconvenience of space because I didn't look like the woman in the magazine or I didn't have the same upbringing as the people I was watching on television. But now that women of color are rising...a lot of women of color are bearing a lot of responsibility of healing their cultures, and there's a way that women are able to empathize deeply, and they are able to express things that can maybe help the mainstream culture understand. Because I think the more we tell different types of stories, the more tolerance there will be.
As quoted in [Alleyne, Robert, Meet MILCK, the Berkeley alum making space for herself in pop music, http://thebaybridged.com/2018/02/27/milck-interview/, 15 January 2019, The Bay Bridged, February 27, 2018]

Prevale photo

“Music colors the soul.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La musica colora l'anima.
Source: prevale.net

“Another favorite means of arresting the attention was by modulation; not used in a constructive in different keys, but to furnish the ear with a purely sensuous delight, corresponding to that which the eye derives from the kaleidoscopic colors of a sunset.”

Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author

Pages 164–165 https://books.google.com/books?id=pQARAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA164.
Music: An Art and a Language (1920), The Romantic Composers. Schubert and Weber (Ch. XII)

Sade Adu photo

“Most things around are very similar in every respect, the music and the way people look. In order to be in a band, you have to have certain colors in your hair—still! Our image is striking because it is different, not because it is particularly outstanding.”

Sade Adu (1959) English singer-songwriter

On the appeal of her band in “Sade: Our 1985 Interview” https://www.spin.com/featured/sade-diamond-life-interview-may-1985/ in SPIN (2019 Jul 20)
Music

Youn Yuh-jung photo

“We are all human beings—the same human beings. Don’t categorize that you are yellow, you are white, you are Black, and white is better than yellow or Black or any other skin color. That’s stupid things to compare. We are all different and beautiful.”

Youn Yuh-jung (1947) South Korean actress

Max, Gao, ‘Minari’ Actress Youn Yuh-Jung Knows the Awards “Mean Nothing to Me”, Observer, 2021-02-15, 2021-06-08 https://observer.com/2021/02/youn-yuh-jung-interview-minari/,

David Mitchell photo

“[...] Smart'n'Civ'lize ain't nothin' to do with the color o' the skin, nay.”

"Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", p. 258
Cloud Atlas (2004), Sloosha's Crossin' an' Evrythin' After

Asaduddin Owaisi photo

“We don’t care when you do it, but when we wear green, we will color everything green…insha allah. And no other color will stand before our green insha allah, neither Modi’s color, or Congress’…no one else, but only our green will be there..green, green, green…”

Asaduddin Owaisi (1969) Indian politician

Source: – MP Asaduddin Owaisi, head of AIMIM. attributed, in a speech, https://twitter.com/ANI/status/944450807755182081 https://www.hindupost.in/politics/asaduddin-owaisi-threatens-islamize-entire-country/ https://www.hindupost.in/dharma-religion/we-ruled-you-for-centuries-says-sufi-leader/

Charles Stross photo
Bo Xilai photo
Angelo Vulpini photo

“Our personality is like the colors of a painting, is what makes us unique”

Angelo Vulpini (2003) Venezuelan recording artist

Source: Posted on @angelovulpini, Instagram (June 7, 2019)

Colin Kaepernick photo

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

Colin Kaepernick (1987) American football quarterback

Source: quoted in Colin Kaepernick explains why he sat during national anthem, Steve Wyche, Aug 27, 2016, 2016 https://www.nfl.com/news/colin-kaepernick-explains-why-he-sat-during-national-anthem-0ap3000000691077,

Irfaan Ali photo

“You can’t run from your reflection… you can try to lighten your skin, change your hair, but the one thing you can’t run from is yourself. I want to influence people of color to be proud of where they come from and to reconnect with their roots.”

Haatepah (1998) model

Interviews, Television
Source: Stated in " An honest conversation about colorism in the Latino community https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/video/honest-conversation-colorism-latino-community-part-80088814" on Good Morning America (2021-09-18)

Francis Picabia photo

“Naturally, form has come to take precedence over color with me, though when I began painting color predominated. Slowly artistic evolution carried from color to form and while I still employ color, of course, it is the drawing which assumes the place of first importance in my pictures.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

Quote of Picabia, in an interview in an American newspaper, 1915; as quoted by William A. Camfield, in Francis Picabia: His Art, Life and Times, Princeton, 1979, p.77
Picabia emphasised that line took precedence over colour in his works since 1915
1910's

Stevie Nicks photo
George Lincoln Rockwell photo

“The color of your skin is your uniform in this ultimate battle for the survival of the West.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

undated

Clark Ashton Smith photo
Nicolas Cage photo

“I do love romantic movies, but at my age it doesn’t happen very often. I’ve always admired love stories—the expression of love is like white light to me. Every color of the universe is in the love story.”

Nicolas Cage (1964) American actor

"Nicolas Cage Is Ready to Be Taken Seriously Again" in Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/07/nicolas-cage-pig-interview (15 July 2021)

Carol Moseley Braun photo

“There’s a word, and the word is called misogynoir. And that word describes the double whammy that women of color have to face: You’re vulnerable on the issue of gender, and you’re vulnerable on the issue of race.”

Carol Moseley Braun (1947) American politician and lawyer

The US’s first Black woman senator on what Ketanji Brown Jackson brings to the Supreme Court https://www.vox.com/23015036/ketanji-brown-jackson-supreme-court-history (Apr 7, 2022)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Elizabeth Martinez photo
Angela Davis photo
Cherríe Moraga photo

“Time and time again, I have observed that the usual response among white women's groups when the "racism issue" comes up is to deny the difference. I have heard comments like, "Well, we're open to all women; why don't they (women of color) come? You can only do so much..."”

Cherríe Moraga (1952) American writer

But there is seldom any analysis of how the very nature and structure of the group itself may be founded on racist or classist assumptions. More important, so often the women seem to feel no loss, no lack, no absence when women of color are not involved; therefore, there is little desire to change the situation. This has hurt me deeply. I have come to believe that the only reason women of a privileged class will dare to look at how it is that they oppress, is when they've come to know the meaning of their own oppression. And understand that the oppression of others hurts them personally.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Fourth Edition (2015)

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Prevale photo

“He always finds strength, despite everything, to paint your colors world.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Trova sempre la forza, nonostante tutto, per dipingere il tuo mondo a colori.
Source: prevale.net

Wallace Stevens photo
Margaret Cho photo
Prevale photo

“Love has no form, color, gender or sex. It lives on mutual harmony.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'amore non ha forma, colore, genere o sesso. Vive di reciproca armonia.
Source: prevale.net