Quotes about home
page 26

George Gerbner photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Francis Escudero photo
Henry Adams photo

“As a type for study, or a standard for education, Lodge was the more interesting of the two. Roosevelts are born and never can be taught; but Lodge was a creature of teaching — Boston incarnate — the child of his local parentage; and while his ambition led him to be more, the intent, though virtuous, was — as Adams admitted in his own case — restless. An excellent talker, a voracious reader, a ready wit, an accomplished orator, with a clear mind and a powerful memory, he could never feel perfectly at ease whatever leg he stood on, but shifted, sometimes with painful strain of temper, from one sensitive muscle to another, uncertain whether to pose as an uncompromising Yankee; or a pure American; or a patriot in the still purer atmosphere of Irish, Germans, or Jews; or a scholar and historian of Harvard College. English to the last fibre of his thought — saturated with English literature, English tradition, English taste — revolted by every vice and by most virtues of Frenchmen and Germans, or any other Continental standards, but at home and happy among the vices and extravagances of Shakespeare — standing first on the social, then on the political foot; now worshipping, now banning; shocked by the wanton display of immorality, but practicing the license of political usage; sometimes bitter, often genial, always intelligent — Lodge had the singular merit of interesting. The usual statesmen flocked in swarms like crows, black and monotonous. Lodge's plumage was varied, and, like his flight, harked back to race. He betrayed the consciousness that he and his people had a past, if they dared but avow it, and might have a future, if they could but divine it.”

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

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Paddy Chayefsky photo
James Thomson (B.V.) photo
Neville Chamberlain photo

“No conqueror returning from a victory on the battlefield has come home adorned with nobler laurels than M and people alike have shown by the manner of their reception their sense of his achievement.”

Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"A New Dawn", The Times, 1 October 1938; opening words of the leader on the Munich Agreement.
About

Annie Besant photo

“My own life in India, since I came to it in 1893 to make it my home, has been devoted to one purpose, to give back to India her ancient freedom.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Indian critiques of Gandhi http://books.google.co.in/books?id=inhDAAAAYAAJ, p. 82

Yrjö Kallinen photo
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton photo
Francis Bacon photo

“Come home to men's business and bosoms.”

Dedication to the Essays (edition 1625)
Essays (1625)

Stanley Baldwin photo
Gordon R. Dickson photo
Bismillah Khan photo

“An image can never be the real thing. Varanasi is where the Ganga flows, where I can play the Shehnai for Lord Balaji. I shall be at home, nowhere else but in India.”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

Sukriya.
When he was asked to stay back in America following his concerts there, even with a promise that a Varanasi would be replicated for him there.
Quote, Encyclopedia of Bharat Ratnas

Paul Desmond photo
Bob Seger photo
Phillip Guston photo

“So when the 1960's came along I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening to America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything—and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue.”

Phillip Guston (1913–1980) American artist

Guston's quote is describing his departure from Abstract Expressionism
1961 - 1980
Source: 'It's About Freedom' - as quoted in 'It's About Freedom, Philip Guston's Late Works in the Schirn'; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt 11/6/2013 – 2/2/2014 http://db-artmag.com/en/78/on-view/its-about-freedom-philip-gustons-late-works-in-the-schirn/

Marcus Orelias photo
Bill Mauldin photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“When I call myself a peasant painter, that is a real fact, and it will become more and more clear to you in the future, I feel at home there. By witnessing peasant life continually at all hours of the day I have become so absorbed in it that I hardly ever think of anything else.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Summer 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 400) p. 21
1880s, 1885

“Ye gentlemen of England
That live at home at ease,
Ah! little do you think upon
The dangers of the seas.”

Martin Parker (1624–1647) English ballad writer

Ye Gentlemen of England, (c. 1630), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Harper Lee photo

“My light shall be the moon
And my path, the ocean.
My guide, the morning star
As I sail home to you.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

"Exile"
Song lyrics, Watermark (1988)

Roger Scruton photo
Edmund Clarence Stedman photo

“The year of jubilee has come;
Gather the gifts of Earth with equal hand;
Henceforth ye too may share the birthright soil,
The corn, the wine, and all the harvest-home.”

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) American poet, critic, and essayist

"The Feast of the Harvest" in The Blameless Prince : And Other Poems (1869).

Jon Cruddas photo

“No matter what you've lost
Be it a home, a love, a friend
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.”

Stan Rogers (1949–1983) Folk singer

The Mary Ellen Carter (1979)

Garry Kasparov photo
Pat Condell photo

“This guy (Pat Robertson) obviously wants to be a prophet so bad. I wonder if he walks around at home dressed up in a bed sheet, talking Aramaic, maybe parting the waters in the bathtub occasionally, just to keep in practice?”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Hook, line and rapture" (8 January 2008) http://youtube.com/watch?v=HXdwcIWIB_o
2008

John of St. Samson photo
Thomas Guthrie photo
Owain Owain photo
Gideon Levy photo
John Danforth photo
George W. Bush photo
Olof Palme photo
Fenella Fielding photo

“I had to hide every morning, until Daddy had gone out to work. And then stay out late to try to avoid him in the evening. Because of these terrible rows. Mummy would come and try to get me to go back home in the middle of the day. After about a year the school said look, this cannot carry on. I had to leave.”

Fenella Fielding (1927–2018) English actress

Why she dropped out of drama school
Interview: Independent, Sunday 24 February 2008 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/the-lady-vanishes-what-ever-happened-to-fenella-fielding-785265.html

Amir Taheri photo

“In Iran, no-one can ignore the tragic record of the revolution. Over the past three decades some six million Iranians have fled their homeland. The Iran-Iraq war claimed almost a million lives on both sides. During the first four years of the Khomeinist regime alone 22,000 people were executed, according to Amnesty International. Since then, the number of executions has topped 80,000. More than five million people have spent some time in prison, often on trumped-up charges. In terms of purchasing power parity, the average Iranian today is poorer than he was before the revolution. De-Khomeinization does not mean holding the late ayatollah solely responsible for all that Iran has suffered just as Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, and Fidel Castro shared the blame with others in their respective countries. However, there is ample evidence that Khomeini was the principal source of the key decisions that led to tragedy… Memoirs and interviews and articles by dozens of Khomeini’s former associates—including former Presidents Abol-Hassan Banisadr and Hashemi Rafsanjani and former Premier Mehdi Bazargan—make it clear that he was personally responsible for some of the new regime’s worst excesses. These include the disbanding of the national army, the repression of the traditional Shi’ite clergy, and the creation of an atmosphere of terror, with targeted assassinations at home and abroad. Khomeini has become a symbol of what went wrong with Iran’s wayward revolution. De-Khomeinization might not spell the end of Iran’s miseries just as de-Stalinization and de-Maoization initially produced only minimal results. However, no nation can plan its future without coming to terms with its past.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Opinion: Iran must confront its past to move forwards" http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341173, Ashraq Al-Awsat (February 6, 2015).

Ron Paul photo

“Most often, our messing around and meddling in the affairs of other countries have unintended consequences. Sometimes just over in those countries that we mess with. We might support one faction, and it doesn't work, and it's used against us. But there's the blowback effect, that the CIA talks about, that it comes back to haunt us later on. For instance, a good example of this is what happened in 1953 when our government overthrew the Mossadegh government and we installed the Shah, in Iran. And for 25 years we had an authoritarian friend over there, and the people hated him, they finally overthrew him, and they've resented us ever since. That had a lot to do with the taking of the hostages in 1979, and for us to ignore that is to ignore history… Also we've antagonized the Iranians by supporting Saddam Hussein, encouraging him to invade Iran. Why wouldn't they be angry at us? But the on again off again thing is what bothers me the most. First we're an ally with Osama bin Laden, then he's our archenemy. Our CIA set up the madrasah schools, and paid money, to train radical Islamists, in Saudi Arabia, to fight communism… But now they've turned on us… Muslims and Arabs have long memories, Americans, unfortunately, have very short memories, and they don't remember our foreign policy that may have antagonized… The founders were absolutely right: stay out of the internal affairs of foreign nations, mind our own business, bring our troops home, and have a strong defense. I think our defense is weaker now than ever.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Interview by Laura Knoy on NHPR, June 5, 2007 http://info.nhpr.org/node/13016
2000s, 2006-2009

“The world around us can be construed as a huge "house" that we share with other humans, as well as with animals and plants. It is in this world that we exist, fulfilling our tasks, enjoying things, developing social relations, creating a family. In short, we live in this world. We thus have a deep human need to know and to trust it, to be emotionally involved in it. Many of us, however, experience an increasing feeling of alienation. Even though, with the expansion of society, virtually the entire surface of the planet has become a part of our house, often we do not feel "at home" in that house. With the rapid and spontaneous changes of the past decades, so many new wings and rooms have been constructed or rearranged that we have lost familiarity with our house. We often have the impression that what remains of the world is a collection of isolated fragments, without any structure and coherence. Our personal "everyday" world seems unable to harmonise itself with the global world of society, history and cosmos.
It is our conviction that the time has come to make a conscious effort towards the construction of global world views, in order to overcome this situation of fragmentation. There are many reasons why we believe in the benefit of such an enterprise, and in the following pages we shall attempt to make some of them clear.”

Diederik Aerts (1953) Belgian theoretical physicist

Source: World views. From Fragmentation to Integration (1994), p. 1; About "The fragmentation of our world"

Dennis Kucinich photo
Henry Hawkins, 1st Baron Brampton photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Michelle Obama photo
Robert Frost photo
Heidi Klum photo
Willa Cather photo

“(On her home town:) Erith isn't twinned with anywhere but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham.”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Obituary in The Independent by Mark Steel 1 March 2006

W. Somerset Maugham photo

“After all, a man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.”

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer

Arnold, in The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts (1921), p. 58-59
Plays

Michele Bachmann photo
Pauline Kael photo

“Writing is not "the establishment of a professional reputation" as if one were a doctor or lawyer; it is not properly in the sentence with creation of a family and the purchase of a home.”

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) Novelist, short story writer, literary critic

"Cheever, or, The Ambiguities" (p. 244)
American Fictions (1999)

Robert Musil photo
Pauline Kael photo
Homér photo
Wesley Clark photo
Gloria Estefan photo
Stephen Colbert photo
Stanley Baldwin photo

“…protection of the home market? That has made mass production possible.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Conversation with Thomas Jones (30 April 1936), quoted in Thomas Jones, A Diary with Letters. 1931-1950 (Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 192
1936

Milan Kundera photo
George Eliot photo
Qutb al-Din Aibak photo
Frances Kellor photo
Ron Paul photo

“Imagine […] that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their strategic interests." Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence. Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers' attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. […] The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Imagine by Ron Paul http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul512.html (11 March 2009).
2000s, 2006-2009

Bill Engvall photo
Norman Tebbit photo
Homér photo
Thomas Moore photo

“Who has not felt how sadly sweet
The dream of home, the dream of home,
Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,
When far o'er sea or land we roam?”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

The Dream of Home.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Henry Adams photo
Tucker Max photo

“Tucker: You guys going to Milwaukee?
Guy: Yes sir, heading home after a vacation.
Tucker: Did you know there are midgets in Milwaukee?
[The man and his wife are silent and confused. ]
Tucker: HUNDREDS OF THEM!”

Tucker Max (1975) Internet personality; blogger; author

The Midget Story http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/date/the_midget_story.phtml,
The Tucker Max Stories

Lal Bahadur Shastri photo
Frances Kellor photo
Birju Maharaj photo
George Gordon Byron photo

“When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome
And get knock'd on the head for his labours.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can.
And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Letter to Thomas Moore, 5 November 1820 http://books.google.com/books?id=K-s_AAAAYAAJ&q=%22When+a+man+hath+no+freedom+to+fight+for+at+home+Let+him+combat+for+that+of+his+neighbours+Let+him+think+of+the+glories+of+Greece+and+of+Rome+And+get+knock'd+on+the+head+for+his+labours+To+do+good+to+mankind+is+the+chivalrous+plan+And+is+always+as+nobly+requited+Then+battle+for+freedom+wherever+you+can+And+if+not+shot+or+hang'd+you+'ll+get+knighted%22&pg=PA377#v=onepage

Zhang Zhijun photo
Jefferson Davis photo

“I think Stone Mountain is amusing, but then again I find most representations of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson outside of Virginia, and, in Jackson's case, West Virginia, to be amusing. Aside from a short period in 1861-62, when Lee was placed in charge of the coastal defense of South Carolina and Georgia, neither general stepped foot in Georgia during the war. Lee cut off furloughs to Georgia's soldiers later in the war because he was convinced that once home they’d never come back. He resisted the dispatch of James Longstreet's two divisions westward to defend northern Georgia, and he had no answer when Sherman operated in the state. It would be better to see Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood on the mountain, although it probably would have been difficult to get those two men to ride together. Maybe Braxton Bragg would have been a better pick, but no one calls him the hero of Chickamauga. Yet Bragg, Johnston, and Hood all attempted to defend Georgia, and they are ignored on Stone Mountain. So is Joe Wheeler, whose cavalry feasted off Georgians in 1864. So is John B. Gordon, wartime hero and postwar Klansman. Given Stone Mountain's history, Klansman Gordon would have been a good choice. It's also amusing to see Jefferson Davis represented. Yes, Davis came to Georgia, once to try to settle disputes within the high command of the Army of Tennessee, not a rousing success, and once to rally white Georgians to the cause once more after the fall of Atlanta. But any serious student of the war knows that Davis spent much of his presidency arguing with Georgia governor Joseph Brown about Georgia's contribution to the Confederate war effort, and that the vice president of the Confederacy, Georgia's own Alexander Hamilton Stephens, was not a big supporter of his superior. Yet we don't see Brown or Stephens on Stone Mountain, either.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Brooks D. Simpson, "The Future of Stone Mountain" https://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/the-future-of-stone-mountain/ (22 July 2015), Crossroads, WordPress

Stephen Harper photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo

“I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink—oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course—very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief moment that they live!”

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

William Westmoreland photo
John Green photo

“I'm just scared of ghosts, Pudge. And home is full of them.”

Alaska Young, p. 80
Looking for Alaska (2005)

Kunti photo
John Muir photo

“The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang — home-going. So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock-ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit — waited on, watched over, noticed only by their Maker, each arriving at its own heaven-dealt destiny. All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home through death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of life’s feast — all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share heaven’s blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity. 'Our little lives are rounded with a sleep.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

pages 439-440
("Trees towering … into eternity" are the next-to-last lines of the documentary film " John Muir in the New World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/" (American Masters), produced, directed, and written by Catherine Tatge.)
John of the Mountains, 1938

Paul Klee photo

“I tell the Iranians that if they hear from people here or there that pictures of Ayatollah Khamenei are hung in Iraqi homes, it is a lie.”

Iyad Jamal Al-Din (1961) Iraqi politician

Sayyed Ayad Jamal Aldin: Iraqis Do Not Put Pictures of Khamenei in Their Homes, Al-Arabiya TV, January 3, 2005 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyjdKV9wxpk,

Chuck Berry photo
Norman Angell photo
Anna Yesipova photo