Quotes about crying
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Chuck Klosterman photo
Tracey Emin photo
Katherine Paterson photo
Vladimir Nabokov photo
Emile Zola photo

“I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul.”

Source: J'accuse! (1898)
Context: In making these accusations I am aware that I am making myself liable to articles 30 and 31 of the law of 29/7/1881 regarding the press, which make libel a punishable offence. I expose myself to that risk voluntarily.
As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, and I bear them neither ill will nor hatred. To me they are mere entities, agents of harm to society. The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight! I am waiting.

Tennessee Williams photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Malcolm X photo
Harlan Ellison photo
Ruth Ozeki photo
Virginia Woolf photo

“My mind turned by anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper, is like a lost child–wandering the house, sitting on the bottom step to cry.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

5 December 1919
A Moment's Liberty (1990)
Source: A Writer's Diary
Context: This last week L. has been having a little temperature in the evening, due to malaria, and that due to a visit to Oxford; a place of death and decay. I'm almost alarmed to see how entirely my weight rests on his prop. And almost alarmed to see how intensely I'm specialised. My mind turned by anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper, is like a lost child – wandering the house, sitting on the bottom step to cry.

Terry Pratchett photo
John Lennon photo

“My defenses were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: John Lennon: In His Own Words

Terry Pratchett photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“The Kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Lewis Carroll photo

“And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
"The rest next time--" "It is next time!"
The Happy voice cry.

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Saul Bellow photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Vladimir Nabokov photo
Haruki Murakami photo
William Shakespeare photo
Federico Fellini photo
William Shakespeare photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Your only problem, perhaps, is that you scream without letting yourself cry.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Jim Butcher photo
Ramakrishna photo
Stella Adler photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Bob Marley photo
Muhammad photo

“Sometimes I enter prayer and I intend to prolong it, but then I hear a child crying, and I shorten my prayer thinking of the distress of the child's mother.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Fiqh us-Sunnah, Volume 2, Number 51b
Sunni Hadith

Mariah Carey photo

“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor, starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”

Mariah Carey (1970) American singer-songwriter

This was actually taken from a phony satirical interview on a site called "Cupcake" that has been widely circulated as an actual quotation since its appearance in early 1996. See the Snopes http://www.snopes.com/quotes/carey.htm Urban Legends site for more information.
Misattributed

Luís de Camões photo

“I was long ago undeceived that protesting
could bring redress. But whoever suffers
is bound to complain if the pain is great.
So I did! But the cry that could offer
relief is itself feeble and exhausted,
and it is not through weeping that pain abates.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Já me desenganei que de queixar-me
não se alcança remédio; mas, quem pena,
forçado lhe é gritar, se a dor é grande.
Gritarei; mas é débil e pequena
a voz para poder desabafar-me,
porque nem com gritar a dor se abrande.
"Vinde cá, meu tão certo secretário", trans. by Landeg White in The Collected Lyric Poems of Luis de Camoes (2016), p. 297
Lyric poetry, Hymns (canções)

Daniel Radcliffe photo
Maurice Maeterlinck photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Dan Fogelberg photo
Tom Odell photo
Jordan Peterson photo

“One of the things you want to do with a conception like compassion is that you want to start thinking about it like a psychologist, or like a scientist, because compassion is actually definable. The easiest way to approach it is to think about it in Big-5 terms, because it maps onto Agreeableness, which you can break down into Compassion and Politeness. The liberal types, especially the Social Justice types, are way higher in Compassion. It's actually their fundamental characteristic. You might think, 'well, compassion is a virtue.' Yes, it's a virtue, but any uni-dimensional virtue immediately becomes a vice, because real virtue is the intermingling of a number of virtues and their integration into a functional identity that can be expressed socially. Compassion can be great if you happen to be the entity towards which it is directed. But compassion tends to divide the world into crying children and predatory snakes. So if you're a crying child, hey great. But if you happen to be identified as one of the predatory snakes, you better look the hell out. Compassion is what the mother grizzly bear feels for her cubs while she eats you because you got in the way. We don't want to be thinking for a second that compassion isn't a virtue that can lead to violence, because it certainly can. The other problem with compassion - this is why we have conscientiousness - there's five canonical personality dimensions. Agreeableness is good if you are functioning in a kin system. You want to distribute resources equally for example among your children, because you want all of them to have the same chance, and even roughly the same outcome. That is, a good one. But the problem is that you can't extend that moral network to larger groups. As far as I can tell, you need conscientiousness, which is a much colder virtue. It's also a virtue that is much more concerned with larger structures over the longer period of time. And you can think about conscientiousness as a form of compassion too. It's like: 'straighten the hell out, and work hard and your life will go well. I don't care how you feel about that right now.' Someone who's cold, that is, low in agreeableness and high in conscientiousness, will tell you every time. 'Don't come whining to me. I don't care about your hurt feelings. Do your goddamn job or you're going to be out on the street.' One might think, 'Oh that person is being really hard on me.' Not necessarily. They might have your long term best interest in mind. You're fortunate if you come across someone who is disagreeable. Not tyrannically disagreeable, but moderately disagreeable and high in conscientiousness because they will whip you into shape. And that's really helpful. You'll admire people like that. You won't be able to help it. You'll feel like, 'Oh wow, this person has actually given me good information, even though you will feel like a slug after they have taken you apart.' That's the compassion issue. You can't just transform that into a political stance. I think part of what we're seeing is actually the rise of a form of female totalitarianism, because we have no idea what totalitarianism would be like if women ran it, because that's never happened before in the history of the planet. And so, we've introduced women into the political sphere radically over the past fifty years. We have no idea what the consequence of that is going to be. But we do know from our research, which is preliminary, that agreeableness really predicts political correctness, but female gender predicts over and above the personality trait, and that's something we found very rarely in our research. Usually the sex differences are wiped out by the personality differences, but not in this particular case. On top of that, women are getting married later, and they're having children much later, and they're having fewer of them, and so you also have to wonder what their feminine orientation is doing with itself in the interim, roughly speaking. A lot of it is being expressed as political opinion. Fair enough. That's fine. But it's not fine when it starts to shut down discussion.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Miguel de Unamuno photo

“I am the center of my universe, the center of the universe, and in my supreme anguish I cry with Michelet, "Mon moi, ils m'arrachent mon moi!" What is a man profited if he shall gain the world and lose his own soul?”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Matt. xvi. 26
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), III : The Hunger of Immortality

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“On the words of Ps. 21:3: "O My God, I shall cry day by day, and Thou wilt not hear."”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

On the Mystical Body of Christ

Albert Schweitzer photo
Claude Monet photo
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo
José Saramago photo

“The son of Joseph and Mary was born, like any other child, covered with his mother's blood, dripping with mucus, and suffering in silence. He cried because they made him cry, and he will cry for this one and only reason.”

O filho de José e de Maria nasceu como todos os filhos dos homens, sujo de sangue de sua mãe, viscoso das suas mucosidades e sofrendo em silêncio. Chorou porque o fizeram chorar, e chorará por esse mesmo e único motivo.
Source: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991), p. 58

Eminem photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo
Terence V. Powderly photo
River Phoenix photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“In the beginning of the year 1854 a new policy was inaugurated with the avowed object and confident promise that it would entirely and forever put an end to the Slavery agitation. It was again and again declared that under this policy, when once successfully established, the country would be forever rid of this whole question. Yet under the operation of that policy this agitation has not only not ceased, but it has been constantly augmented. And this too, although, from the day of its introduction, its friends, who promised that it would wholly end all agitation, constantly insisted, down to the time that the Lecompton bill was introduced, that it was working admirably, and that its inevitable tendency was to remove the question forever from the politics of the country. Can you call to mind any Democratic speech, made after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, down to the time of the Lecompton bill, in which it was not predicted that the Slavery agitation was just at an end; that "the abolition excitement was played out," "the Kansas question was dead," "they have made the most they can out of this question and it is now forever settled."”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

But since the Lecompton bill no Democrat, within my experience, has ever pretended that he could see the end. That cry has been dropped. They themselves do not pretend, now, that the agitation of this subject has come to an end yet.
1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)

Klaus Kinski photo
Mike Lange photo

“(Insert Goaltender here) doesn't know whether to cry or wind his watch.”

Mike Lange (1948) Canadian sportscaster

As noted on Sports Center's Top 10 Mike Lange Signature calls http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIHPd3vERUw (undated)

Nikola Tesla photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Greek tragedy met her death in a different way from all the older sister arts: she died tragically by her own hand, after irresolvable conflicts, while the others died happy and peaceful at an advanced age. If a painless death, leaving behind beautiful progeny, is the sign of a happy natural state, then the endings of the other arts show us the example of just such a happy natural state: they sink slowly, and with their dying eyes they behold their fairer offspring, who lift up their heads in bold impatience. The death of Greek tragedy, on the other hand, left a great void whose effects were felt profoundly, far and wide; as once Greek sailors in Tiberius' time heard the distressing cry 'the god Pan is dead' issuing from a lonely island, now, throughout the Hellenic world, this cry resounded like an agonized lament: 'Tragedy is dead! Poetry itself died with it! Away, away with you, puny, stunted imitators! Away with you to Hades, and eat your fill of the old masters' crumbs!”

Mit dem Tode der griechischen Tragödie dagegen entstand eine ungeheure, überall tief empfundene Leere; wie einmal griechische Schiffer zu Zeiten des Tiberius an einem einsamen Eiland den erschütternden Schrei hörten "der grosse Pan ist todt": so klang es jetzt wie ein schmerzlicher Klageton durch die hellenische Welt: "die Tragödie ist todt! Die Poesie selbst ist mit ihr verloren gegangen! Fort, fort mit euch verkümmerten, abgemagerten Epigonen! Fort in den Hades, damit ihr euch dort an den Brosamen der vormaligen Meister einmal satt essen könnt!"
Source: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 54

Aleksandr Pushkin photo
Sheikh Hasina photo

“What do you want, that I should start crying, ‘Oh, crisis, we have a crisis!’ Do you want that?”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

When a journalist asked whether she believed the election had thrust the country deeper into political instability. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/world/asia/matriarchs-duel-for-power-threatens-to-tilt-bangladesh-off-balance.html (January 15, 2014)

Max Planck photo
Stefan Zweig photo
Kathleen Norris photo
Joan Baez photo
Michael Savage photo
Eugene O'Neill photo

“Don't cry. The damned don't cry.”

Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature

Page 253.
Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)

Art Garfunkel photo
Ernest Bramah photo
Mike Oldfield photo

“Do we have to be so distant
How can you be so unreal?
What's the reason for hiding and
How this crying make you feel?”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Discovery (1984)

Chris Colfer photo
Marcel Marceau photo

“Chaplin made me laugh and cry without saying a word. I had an instinct. I was touched by the soul of Chaplin — Mime is not an imitator but a creator.”

Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) French mime and actor

Interview http://www.thelantern.com/global_user_elements/printpage.cfm?storyid=63845, The Lantern (5 April 2001)

Terry Pratchett photo

“They can ta'k our lives but they can never ta'k our freedom!' Now there's a battle cry not designed by a clear thinker…”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Referring to a statement in the movie Braveheart, at alt.fan.pratchett (11 January 1999) http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=2SwYaHAyOlm2EwG3%40unseen.demon.co.uk
Usenet

Antonio Gramsci photo
James Baldwin photo
José Saramago photo

“Fumbling in total darkness, they reached out to each other, naked, he penetrated her with desire and she received him eagerly, and they exchanged eagerness and desire until their bodies were locked in embrace, their movements in harmony, her voice rising from the depth of her being, his totally submerged, the cry that is born, prolonged, truncated, that muffled sob, that unexpected tear, and the machine trembles and shudders, probably no longer even on the ground but, having rent the screen of brambles and undergrowth, is now hovering at dead of night amid the clouds, Blimunda, Baltasar, his body weighing on hers, and both weighing on the earth, for at last they are here, having gone and returned.”

Em profunda escuridão se procuraram, nus, sôfrego entrou nela, ela o recebeu ansiosa, depois a sofreguidão dela, a ânsia dele, enfim os corpos encontrados, os movimentos, a voz que vem do ser profundo, aquele que não tem voz, o grito nascido, prolongado, interrompido, o soluço seco, a lágrima inesperada, e a máquina a tremer, a vibrar, porventura não está já na terra, rasgou a cortina de silvas e enleios, pairou no alto da noite, entre as nuvens, pesa o corpo dele sobre o dela, e ambos pesam sobre a terra, afinal estão aqui, foram e voltaram.
Source: Baltasar and Blimunda (1982), pp. 255–256

Socrates photo
Salman Khan photo
Martin Luther photo

“My whole heart and soul are stirred and incensed against the Turks and Mohammed, when I see this intolerable raging of the Devil. Therefore I shall pray and cry to God, nor rest until I know that my cry is heard in heaven.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Statement while being confined to residence at Coburg, as quoted in History of the Christian Church, (1910) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc7.ii.ix.vii.html by Philip Schaff, Vol. VII : Modern Christianity : The German Reformation, § 123. Luther at the Coburg; though it mentions Muhammad, this remark might actually be directed at those responsible for his confinement, as he makes allusions to dwelling in the "empire of birds" and his location as a "Sinai" and regularly uses other uncomplimentary comparisons of those involved in suppressing his ideas to figures unpopular to himself and his contemporaries.

José Saramago photo
Mark Twain photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“A child laughs when it feels joy and cries when it feels pain. Both things, laughing and crying, it does with its whole heart. We have all become so tall and so clever. We know so much and we have read so much. But one thing we have forgot: to laugh and cry like the children do.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Das Kind lacht, wenn es Freude hat, und weint, wenn es Schmerz empfindet. Bei beidem, bei Lachen und Weinen ist sein ganzes Herz dabei. Wir sind alle so groß und klug geworden. Wir wissen so viel und haben so viel gelesen. Aber eines haben wir vergessen: zu lachen und zu weinen wie die Kinder.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Gabriel Iglesias photo

“I accidentally wound up at this "dance…place", gentleman clubby place. I wasn't driving, it was an accident; we pulled up to the place, ya know (car engine, brakes), ah! I knew where I was, you can be drunk and know where you are, so long as you hear (drum beats), AAAH! I walked in there and I got recognized by one of the dancers. You gotta call them "dancers" or "entertainers" or they'll get mad at you, "(feminine voice) I am not a stripper, ok?! I'm an entertainer." And I said, "No, I'm an entertainer, you're nasty!" Some girl recognized me, and she said, "Omigawd I know who you are, you're faamous!" And I'm like, "Oh no, oh no!" And some other dancer who was spinning around on a pole overheard famous and she stopped [eek! Looks over]. She walks over, "(feminine voice) Oh my gawd, you're famous? Can I have your autograph?" I was like, "You don't even know who I am." "I don't care; SIGN IT!" "Ok, relax; what's your name?" "Diamond." "What's your last name?" "Rodriguez." "(writing)To Diamond, with all my love and affection…" "HURRY UP!" I got so mad, so I wrote, "George Lopez." I was so drunk, I didn't care; and she freaked out, she was like, "Oh my gawd! OH MY GAWD! You're George Lopez!" I can't help it guys, I was so drunk, I did this; I said, "[George Lopez voice] I know, huh? Ay, ay, cabrona! Why you cry!? Why you crying'!?"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

I'm not gonna lie to you guys, George knows that I do it; I don't think he likes it!
Hot & Fluffy (2007)

Dottie West photo
Juan Antonio Villacañas photo
William Blake photo
Pierre Joseph Proudhon photo
Gabriel Marcel photo
Henri Barbusse photo
Muhammad Ali photo

“You been hearing about how bad I am since you were a little kid with mess in your pants! Tonight, I'm gonna whip you till you cry like a baby.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

To George Foreman before the start of the "Rumble in the Jungle" as the referee is giving them instructions (30 October 1974).

Chuck Dixon photo

“I’ve seen my characters morphed into PC cyphers. But the thing is once I’m done working on them, it’s like watching your kids go off with another guy. The new daddy is here, I just don’t pay attention to it otherwise I’d be crying myself to sleep every night, so I just walk away from it and go on to new work, move forward.”

Chuck Dixon (1954) American comic book writer

Chuck Dixon On The Milo Show: ‘My Characters Have Been Morphed Into PC Cyphers’ http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/08/04/chuck-dixon-milo-yiannopoulos-show/ (August 24, 2016)

Aurelius Augustinus photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo

“Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love, and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace, through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Tractatus VII, 8 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170207.htm
Latin: "dilige et quod vis fac."; falsely often: "ama et fac quod vis."
Translation by Professor Joseph Fletcher: Love and then what you will, do.
In epistolam Ioannis ad Parthos

Andrew Jackson photo

“Oh, do not cry. Be good children, and we shall all meet in Heaven … I want to meet you all, white and black, in Heaven.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Last recorded words, to his grand-children and his servants, as quoted in The National Preacher (1845) by Austin Dickinson, p. 192.

Rabindranath Tagore photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Aurelius Augustinus photo