Quotes about mood
page 3

“Worpswede, Worpswede, Worpswede! [small rural village in North-Germany were a colony of German artists was working then, including Paula] My sunken Bell mood! Birches, birches, pine trees and old willows. Beautiful brown moors – exquisite brown! The canals with their black reflections, black as asphalt..”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

Quote from her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as cited in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, p. 192
1897

Beauty, Tree

“Until now, neither the distinction between “worthy, since durable” and “vain, since transient,” nor the unbridgeable abyss separating the two, has disappeared for a moment from reflections on human happiness. Nonentity, the demeaning and humiliating insignificance of the individual bodily presence in the world by comparison with the unperturbed eternity of the world itself, has haunted philosophers (and non-philosophers, during their brief spells of falling into and staying in a philosophical mood) for more than two millennia. In the Middle Ages it was raised to the rank of the highest purpose and supreme concern of mortals, and deployed to promote spiritual values over the pleasures of the flesh—as well as to explain (and, hopefully argue away) the pain and misery of the brief earthly existence as a necessary and therefore welcome prelude to the endless bliss of the afterlife. It returned with the advent of the modern era in a new garb: that of the futility of individual interests and concerns, shown to be abominably short-lived, fleeting and vagrant when juxtaposed with the interests of “the social whole”—the nation, the state, the cause.”

Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) Polish philosopher and sociologist

Source: The Art of Life (2008), p. 31.

Pain, Happiness, Pleasure, Age

“There is a new mood in America. We have been shaken by a tragic war abroad and by scandals and broken promises at home. Our people are searching for new voices and new ideas and new leaders.
Although government has its limits and cannot solve all our problems, we Americans reject the view that we must be reconciled to failures and mediocrity, or to an inferior quality of life. For I believe that we can come through this time of trouble stronger than ever. Like troops who have been in combat, we have been tempered in the fire; we have been disciplined, and we have been educated.
Guided by lasting and simple moral values, we have emerged idealists without illusions, realists who still know the old dreams of justice and liberty, of country and of community.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Pre-Presidency, First Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech (1976)

Life, War, People, Education

“When Mrs. Casaubon was announced he started up as from an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his fingerends. Any one observing him would have seen a change in his complexion, in the adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance, which might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed the message of a magic touch. And so it had. For effective magic is transcendent nature; and who shall measure the subtlety of those touches which convey the quality of soul as well as body, and make a man’s passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-top differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels? Will, too, was made of very impressible stuff. The bow of a violin drawn near him cleverly, would at one stroke change the aspect of the world for him, and his point of view shifted— as easily as his mood. Dorothea’s entrance was the freshness of morning.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

World, Soul, Imagination, Mountain

“I spend a lot of my time looking at blue,
The colour of my room and my mood…”

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

Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)

Time

“One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged.”

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) American historian

Source: The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955), Chapter VI, part II, p. 245

People, Suffering, Time, Success

“As we all know, the singularity in the art of Bach is the fusion of both levels and lines, the horizontal and vertical line. It’s a real wonder to see that the creation and forming of the horizontal line, the polyphonic structure, also results in this perfect, beautiful vertical line, the harmonic line. As we also know, Bach already used the full harmonic range and radius as no composer before him. My artistic aim of course is to point out the horizontal line in soloistic manner in a dynamically elastic way, but in the same breath to form the harmonic line in a bright field of color (I would call it “harmonic articulation”), to achieve a particular atmosphere of emotions and moods, drama, velocity, vividness, and so on. As we can imagine, these are high demands …”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Beauty, Art, Color, Way

“Prayers born out of murmuring are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, let'us take care what we cry for, lest God give it to us, and thereby punish us.”

William Mackergo Taylor (1829–1895) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 465.

God, Cry

“The essayist … can pull on any sort of shirt, be any sort of person, according to his mood or his subject matter — philosopher, scold, jester, raconteur, confidant, pundit, devil's advocate, enthusiast…”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

Foreword to Essays of E.B. White (1976)

Confidence, Personality

“These days a very melancholic mood has taken hold of me. There is nothing else but my work. My dear ones, I have been well and I have been working and my way of working is changing. For this reason I always feel extremely anxious. I am not content and perhaps I will not (ever) be satisfied with my work, not even for one day. I want to attain works which are more personal and clean.”

Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) Armenian-American painter

Source: 1930 - 1941, from 'Arshile Gorky, – Goats on the roof' (2009), p. 125: Gorky's quote, in a letter to his sister Vartush Mooradian, 28 February 1938

Way, Feeling, Change, Personality

“In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Source: Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines Written in Early Spring, st. 1 (1798).

Sadness

“I think I'm getting into the real mood and atmosphere of Worpswede now. What I used to call my Sunken Bell mood, the spell I was under when I first got here, was sweet, very sweet – but it was really only a dream, and one that couldn't last long in any sort of active life. Then came the reaction to it, and after that something truer – serious work and serious living for my art, a battle I must fight with all my strength. I am filled with the sun, every part of me, and with the breezy air, intoxicated with the moonlight on the bright snow... Nature was speaking with me and I listened to her, happy and vibrant. Life.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

excerpt of her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, pp. 193-194
1897

Life, Happiness, Dreams, Art

“There is joy over disappointment
And delight in hopes that were vain.
Each poet is glad there was no cure
To stop his lonely pain.
For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food.”

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

Main Street and Other Poems (1917), Apology

Hunger, Pain, Food, Hope

“All offices of the SD and the security police are to be informed that pogroms of the populace against English and American terror-fliers were not to be interfered with; on the contrary, this hostile mood is to be fostered.”

Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946) Austrian-born senior official of Nazi Germany executed for war crimes

Quoted in "Tyranny on Trial: The Evidence at Nuremberg" by Whitney R. Harris - Law - 1954 - Page 235

Hostility

“I’m okay with waiting. I’ve found what I need to find. Whenever the mood strikes me, I wait until I’m home in my apartment. I put Enrique Iglesias on blast. I close my eyes. And I dance.”

Kai Cheng Thom (1991) writer

What I learned, loved and lost as a trans Zumba addict (2018)

Home, Waiting, Dance

“By painting colours and lines and forms seen in a quickened mood I was seeking to make this mood vibrate as a phonograph does.”

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) Norwegian painter and printmaker

1896 - 1930
Source: Diary Saint Cloud, 1898; Munch, as quoted in Edvard Much – behind the scream, Sue Prideaux; Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 105

Painting

“The most powerful figure in French politics after the retirement of Clemenceau was ex-President Poincaré. He disliked the Treaty [of Versailles] intensely. For several years after the withdrawal of Clemenceau, the policy of France was dominated by this rather sinister little man. He represented the vindictive and arrogant mood of the governing classes in France immediately after her terrible sacrifices and her astounding victory. He directly and indirectly governed France for years. All the Premiers who followed after Clemenceau feared Poincaré. Millerand was his creature. Briand, who was all for the League and a policy of appeasement, was thwarted at every turn by the intrigues of Poincaré. Under his influence, which continued for years after his death, the League became not an instrument of peace and goodwill amongst all men, including Germans; it was converted into an organisation for establishing on a permanent footing the military and thereby the diplomatic supremacy of France. That policy completely discredited the League as a body whose decisions on disputes between nations might be trusted to be as impartial as those of any ordinary tribunal in any civilised country. The obligations entered into by the Allies as to disarmament were not fulfilled. British Ministers put up no fight against the betrayal of the League and the pledges as to disarmament. Hence the Nazi Revolution, which has for the time—maybe for a long time—destroyed the hopes of a new era of peaceful co-operation amongst free nations.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

David Lloyd George, The Truth about the Peace Treaties. Volume II (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938), p. 1410.
About

Death, Men, Fear, Peace

“I will not seek the battle-field —
The men I there should meet,
What have they done to me to make
Shedding their life-blood sweet?
It is the veriest madness man
In maddest mood can frame,
To feed the earth with human gore,
And then to call it fame.
I have been wrong'd; but were my wrong
The deadliest wrong ere done,
I would not slay my enemy,
But bid him still live on :—
And I should deem my vengeance more
Than the death-wound in strife—
What ills can death inflict like those
Heap'd on each hour of life?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

19th August 1826) Metrical Fragments - No. 1 (under the pen name Iole
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

Life, Death, Men, Madness

“No matter how long our politicians order people to sing songs of praise, no matter how many fireworks they launch into the heavens, and no matter how many foreign leaders they embrace, they cannot arouse a genuine mood of joy and celebration among the people.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Happiness Can’t Be Faked, 2008

People, Singing, Joy

“It's so hard to believe in anything anymore, you know what I mean? It's like, religion, you really can't take it seriously, 'cause it seems so mythological, and seems so arbitrary; and then on the other hand, science is just pure empiricism, and by virtue of its method, it excludes metaphysics. – I guess I wouldn't believe in anything if it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Comedy album A Wild and Crazy Guy

Religion, Science

“Yet gazed MANDALLA on the square
As she he sought still glided there,—
Oh that fond look, whose eyeballs’ strain,
And will not know its look is vain!
At length he turned,—his silent mood
Sought that impassioned solitude,
The Eden of young hearts, when first
Love in its loneliness is nurst.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Love, Solitude, Heart, Loneliness

“Decade Blending: In clothing: the indiscriminate combination of two or more items from various decades to create a personal mood: Sheila = Mary Quant earrings (1960s) + cork wedgie platform shoes (1970s) + black leather jacket (1950s and 1980s).”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Definitions

Shoe, Personality, Clothes

“Nevertheless Kosovo is not the only indicator of a change of mood, of the sort of moral interventionist internationalism which has come to be associated particularly with Tony Blair. […] in fact, after a quarter of a century of doing nothing, the 'international community' in precisely the same year as Kosovo did engineer the independence of East Timor.”

Adrian Hastings (1929–2001) Roman Catholic priest, historian and author

Adrian Hastings (June 2001) " Chomsky and Kosova - book review http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosrep/report_format.cfm?articleid=802&reportid=151" in Human Rights Review: About American benevolence

Communication, Change

“I really believe that the general, happy mood of the people here [in Elberfeld, Germany] is largely caused by nature. At least I am experiencing that in places like these people are much more natural than in regions where nature offers them little or nothing to subtract their heart for some time from the hypocrisy of the world, and to taste a not-deceitful delight.”

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands

(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) Ik geloof dat de algemeene, hier heerschende gelukkige gemoedsstemming der menschen [in Elberfeld, Germany] grotendeels door den natuur wordt veroorzaakt. Ik ten minste ben van gevoelen, dat in oorden, zooals deze de mensch natuurlijker is, dan in streken waar de natuur hem weinig of niets aanbiedt, om zijn hart eenige tijd van de huichelarij der wereld af te trekken, en een niet bedrieglijk genot te smaken.
Source: Herinneringen aan en Mededeelingen van…' (1841), p. 47

Happiness, People, World, Nature

“Nature appears to us in four seasons. The spring is bright and warm, the summer lazy and hot. The fall is decked with colour with a trace of sadness, and the winter frosted and severe. Similarly, the movement of shin shin toitsu aikido are rich and varied. There is both severity and kindness, speed and calmness. It is designed to express the many moods and characteristics of men and women, young and old. But if it for one moment varies from the principles of the universe, it is no longer aikido with ki.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

23
Ki Sayings (2003)

Women, Men, Sadness, Spring

“Give not rein to your hot mood, give time, a little delay; impulse is ever a bad servant.”
Ne frena animo permitte calenti, da spatium tenuemque moram, male cuncta ministrat impetus.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 703. Variant translation: Give not reins to your inflamed passions: take time and a little delay; impetuosity manages all things badly.

Time

“Today, people’s mood is very much like that: if the coffee is bitter they’re going to have a bad mood all day long. You could be having a perfect day and all of a sudden you get fired. And that’s it. there goes your beautiful day. Maybe they’ve had a beautiful life all life long, and then something will happen that will completely devastate them. But, you can go beyond all that to have something that’s permanent, to have something that is a true experience, to have an experience of yourself, to have an experience of what makes you alive.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Sao Paulo, Brazil, January 30, 1980
1980s

Life, People, Beauty, Coffee

“Temporal was the first recording that captured my true guitar sound (dinosaurs slipping and blocks of wire whittled with a feather). The mood of the world was different and yet music (sculpted time) always is there waiting to be manifested.”

Shawn Lane (1963–2003) American musician

http://bardorecords.com/Bardo136.htm Press site for the album Temporal Analogues of Paradise (1995)

World, Music, Time, Waiting

“I have two small altars where I burn incense when I have time and I'm in the mood, but I'm not really a pious practitioner. Modern living being what it is, I am not much into practice, but my thought, on the other hand, goes on uninterrupted.”

Christopher Gérard (1962)

Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

Time

“The servicemen of the 1939 - 45 war could not be disillusioned because they held not illusions to start with, the most common mood found everywhere was one of dour resolution, skeptical, resigned.”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet

Introductory Essay 'Setting the Scene'
Not Without Glory, 1976

War

“I was never in the mood of Lord Macaulay who said – I shall retire early I am very tired– I know that life meant that one must continue to occupy his time with work.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

Speech By Mr. S. G. Page, Government Pleader, High Court, Bombay, Made On Monday, 28 September, 1992

Life, Time

“Borderline Personality Disorder* An essential feature of this disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of self-image, interpersonal relationships, and mood, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. A marked and persistent identity disturbance is almost invariably present. This is often pervasive, and is manifested by uncertainty about several life issues, such as self-image, sexual orientation, long-term goals or career choice, types of friends or lovers to have, and which values to adopt.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Life, Lovers, Personality, Adulthood

“The embodiment of the unconscious of a woman as a figure of the opposite sex, the animus, also has positive and negative features. The animus, however, does not express itself so often in women as an erotic fantasy or mood, but rather as "sacred" convictions. When these latter are expressed loudly and energetically in a masculine style, this masculine side of a woman is easily recognizable. However, it can also manifest in a woman who appears very feminine externally as a quiet but relentless power that is hard as iron. Suddenly one comes up against something in her that is cold, stubborn, and completely inaccessible.”

Marie-Louise von Franz (1915–1998) Swiss psychologist and scholar

Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche (1994), The Animus, a Woman's Inner Man

Women, Sex, Appearance

“He shook his head violently, pulled himself together and swallowed a stiff dose of Infradex, a drug designed to alleviate drug reactions. Within seconds he was his old, normally depressed self. This cheered him considerably, and he left the hut in a mood teetering on the edge of equanimity.”

Robert Sheckley (1928–2005) American writer

Source: The 10th Victim (1965), Chapter 15 (p. 125)

“Postal will be so politically incorrect and harsh, it's like a mirror to American society, and I don't think the movie will be well received by anybody. For example, Osama Bin Laden will be one of the lead characters—I think that shows the mood of the movie.”

Uwe Boll (1965) German restaurateur and former filmmaker

Uwe Boll Bites Back, 2006-06-13, Ellie Gibson, Eurogamer, 2006-02-15 http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62899, 2000s

Thinking

“There is no way a military commander like el-Sisi who has no political background should be expected to believe in democracy as we see it in the West. El-Sisi, rightly or wrongly, is a reflection of the mood on the street, which has discovered that the cost of democracy is way too high.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Negad Borai, Egyptian rights activist; as reported in Al Arabiya, 20 Dec 2013 http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/features/2013/12/20/Egypt-Leaks-help-not-hurt-el-Sissi-s-image.html. About

Way, Democracy

“The Man in the Moon is like a great short story, one of those masterpieces of language and mood where not one word is wrong, or unnecessary. It flows so smoothly from start to finish that it hardly even seems like an ordinary film. Usually I am aware of the screenwriter putting in obligatory scenes. I can hear the machinery grinding. Not this time. Although, in retrospect, I can see how carefully the plot was put together, how meticulously each event was prepared for, as I watched the film I was only aware of life passing by.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-man-in-the-moon-1991 of The Man in the Moon (4 October 1991) Reviews, Four star reviews

Life, Time

“—On the dedication page of the rebellion, we see the words “To Clementine”. A fine sentiment, miscellaneous organ music next, and, turning several pages, massed orange flags at the head of the column. This will not be easy, but neither will it be hard. Good will is everywhere, and the lighthearted song of the gondoliers is heard in the distance.
—Yes, success is everything. Morally important as well as useful in a practical way.
—What have the rebels captured thus far? One zoo, not our best zoo, and a cemetery. The rebels have entered the cages of the tamer animals and are playing with them, gently.
—Things can get better, and in my opinion will.
—Their Graves Registration procedures are scrupulous—accurate and fair.
—There’s more to it than playing guitars and clapping along. Although that frequently gets people in the mood.
—Their methods are direct, not subtle. Dissolution, leaching, sandblasting, cracking and melting of fireproof doors, condemnation, water damage, slide presentations, clamps and buckles.
—And skepticism, although absolutely necessary, leads to not very much.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Crisis”, opening
Great Days (1979)

People, Music, Way, Water

“The mind does not regulate its own condition. Mental depression, for example, is a state of mind caused by the body. In a cell in the hole it only seems that there is a separation of mind and body - in fact, the body's condition (of deprivation of sensations; experiences, functions, and so on) controls the moods of the mind more than in any other situation I can think of.”

Jack Abbott book In the Belly of the Beast

In the Belly of the Beast (1981)

Thinking

“Prokofiev had a particular talent for creating a fully identifiable mood within the first notes of a piece, passage, or theme.”

Boris Berman (1948) Russian/American musician

Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Conclusion

“Any church which forsakes the regular and uniform for the periodical and spasmodic service of God, is doomed to decay; any church which relies for its spiritual strength and growth entirely upon seasons of "revival," will very soon have no genuine revivals to rely on. Our holy God will not conform His blessings to man's moods and moral caprice. If a church is declining, it may require a "revival" to restore it; but what need was there of its declining?”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 149.

God, Season

“How much
I loved the painter's glorious art, which forms
A world like, but more beautiful than this;
Just catching nature in her happiest mood!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

Erinna
The Golden Violet (1827)

Love, World, Beauty, Art

“It is a peculiar role in many respects, when you see the play Dracula seems to be constantly on the stage. A casual glance would indicate that he speaks as many lines as Hamlet. Yet, as a matter of fact, the number of ‘sides’ is small. The professor really has a great many more. But, if Count Dracula is not particularly chatty, he presents other difficulties. I find that it requires time and meditation to catch the mood of the character; each performance must be approached with some care. The result is that one doesn’t weary of the part.”

Béla Lugosi (1882–1956) Hungarian actor

IN THE WORLD OF SCREEN & STAGE The Oakland Tribune, Oakland, California https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/1930-2/ (July 6, 1930)

Time, Parting

“They got this and that with a rattle a tat.
Testing, one, two, man whatcha gonna do?
Bad news misused, got too much to lose.
Give me some truth now, whose side are we on?
Whatever you say.
Turn on the boob tube, I’m in the mood to obey.
So lead me astray.”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Good People.
Song lyrics, In Between Dreams (2005)

Truth

“The sad fact is that not only is the youth exposed to rock, but rock is coming into the church. So called Christian rock; and it’s being sung by the choir. You actually hear now and then about a rock mass or a rock service. I spoke a few years ago at a church which was…I’ll never be asked about. A very large church with a plant that was equal to a small college campus, and I don’t mean too small of a college, a fair sized one. They had a number of choirs; they had one man in charge of all the music in the church, overall music director, a very brilliant, very intelligent man, but as wrongheaded as I’ve ever seen. Because he told me that his belief was that the only kind of music that should be played or sung or used in a church or any place was throw away music; that was his term. Music that was hip, so up to the moment, that it would capture the mood of the youth who were listening to the latest on television or radio. Music which six months down the line would be out of date because it would be throw away music, music of the moment, in order to speak to the youth. And I tried to get through this point to him, that speaking to them in terms of what’s of the moment is not what it’s all about it, it’s speaking from the Lord with eternal truths.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Dangers Inherent in Public Education (March 24, 1986)

Truth, Youth, Sadness, Music

“Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says "I."”

G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949) influential spiritual teacher, Armenian philosopher, composer and writer

In Search of the Miraculous (1949)

“When serious scientists with huge beards aren't looking, I jocularly refer to these fossils as my alien goldfish. Picture the scene: the giant spaceship is parked on a wide beach, and kicking pebbles Commodore Grafnik is in a filthy mood. Yet another planet with hundreds of millions of years to go before intelligence evolves, not even at the zorkquaan stage, for Threga's sake! And as for his pet vlantans!! Purchased at huge expense, all they do is feed voraciously and then fall asleep. Still fuming, Grafnik carries the bowl down to the lagoon edge and (contrary to every regulation in the AIPC [Access to Inhabited Planets Code]) tips the vlantans out. They dart away and several months later enter the fossil record of a planet where they have no right to be.”

Simon Conway Morris (1951) British palaeontologist

Astronomy and Geophysics: Vol. 46, No. 4: "Aliens like us?"
Miscellaneous

Intelligence

“You know, without my telling you, how sometimes
A word or name eludes you, and you seek it
Through running ghosts of shadow,—leaping at it,
Lying in wait for it to spring upon it,
Spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound:
Until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest,
You hear it, see it flash among the branches,
And scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it—
Well, it was so I followed down this music,
Glimpsing a face in darkness, hearing a cry,
Remembering days forgotten, moods exhausted,
Corners in sunlight, puddles reflecting stars”

Conrad Aiken (1889–1973) American novelist and poet

The House of Dust (1916 - 1917)

Music, Star, Spring, Lying

“The digressions [ in Homer] are not meant to keep the reader in suspense … An episode that will increase suspense by retarding the action must be so constructed that it will not fill the present entirely, will not put the crisis, whose resolution is being awaited, entirely out of the reader’s mind, and thereby destroy the mood of suspense; the crisis and the suspense must continue, must remain vibrant in the background. But Homer—and to this we shall have to return later—knows no background. What he narrates is for the time being the only present, and fills both the stage and the reader’s mind completely.”

Erich Auerbach Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature

Source: Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1946), p. 4

Time

“Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,
Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings
From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,
Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things;
Clothing the vast with a familiar face;
Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Love, Dreams, Home, Memory

“Tunis. My head is full of the impressions of last night's walk. Art-Nature-Self. Went to work at once and painted in watercolour in the Arab quarter. Began the synthesis of urban architecture and pictorial architecture. Not yet pure, but quite attractive, somewhat too much of the mood, the enthusiasm of traveling in it-the Self, in a word. Things will no doubt get more objective later, once the intoxication has worn off a bit.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Diary-note, 7 April 1914; # 926-f; as cited by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee Part Four', : Klee as an Expressionist and Constructivist Painter http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev27.html The evening of their arrival, Dr. Jaggi took the 3 artists Klee, August Macke and Louis Moilliet on 'a nocturnal walk through the Arab city' Tunis. Klee wrote this note next day. 1911 - 1914, Diary-notes from Tunisia' (1914)

Art, Travel, Nature, Painting

“Life at Cambridge during those war years was to me particularly congenial, and it completed the process of thorough absorption in English life which, from the beginning, I had found very easy. Somehow the whole mood and intellectual atmosphere of the country had at once proved extraordinarily attractive to me, and the conditions of a war in which all my sympathies were with the English greatly speeded up the process of becoming thoroughly at home—much more than in my native Austria from which I had already become somewhat estranged during the conditions of the 1920s. While neither on my early visit to the United States nor during my later stay there or still later in Germany did I feel that I really belonged there, English ways of life seemed so naturally to accord with all my instincts and dispositions that, if it had not been for very special circumstances, I should never have wished to leave the country again. And of all the forms of life, that at one of the colleges of the old universities…still seems to me the most attractive. The evenings at the High Table and the Combinations Room at King's are among the pleasantest recollections of my life, and some of the older men I came then to know well, especially J. H. Clapham, remained, while they lived, dear friends.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Stephen Kresge and Leif Wenar (eds.), Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 86
1980s and later

Life, Men, War, Way

“The modern poet has no essential alliance with regular schemes of any sorts. He reserves the right to adapt his rhythm to his mood, to modulate his metre as he progresses. Far from seeking freedom and irresponsibility (implied by the unfortunate term free verse) he seeks a stricter discipline of exact concord of thought and feeling.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

Collected Essays in Literary Criticism (1938)
Literary Quotes

Feeling, Freedom

“Matins, he reads the lesson,
A chasuble of plumage on.
His cry from a grove, his brightshout
Over countrysides rings out,
Hill prophet, maker of moods,
Passion's bright bard of glenwoods.”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Plygain y darllain deirllith,
Plu yw ei gasul i'n plith.
Pell y clywir uwch tiroedd
Ei lef o lwyn a'i loyw floedd.
Proffwyd rhiw, praff awdur hoed,
Pencerdd gloyw angerdd glyngoed.
"Y Ceiliog Bronfraith" (The Thrush), line 7; translation from Anthony Conran and J. E. Caerwyn Williams (trans.) The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967) p. 145.

Passion, Reading, Cry

“There are times when the mirth of others only saddens us, especially the mirth of children with high spirits, that jar on our own quiet mood.”

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) English novelist, poet, playwright, and politician

Kenelm Chillingly; His Adventures and Opinions (1873).

Children, Time

“[I]f we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for further improvements.”

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) American author and socialist

Source: Looking Backward, 2000-1887 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/lkbak10.txt (1888), Ch. 11.

Music, Home, Perfection

“The brigand's life is a very fine life
For men of generous mind;
We rob the rich to help the poor
And succour oppressed mankind.
The rich, dear souls, are close around
And it's easy work to skelp 'em;
But the poor — damn their eyes — can never be found
When we're in the mood to help them.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

The Golden Ass (1999)

Life, Men, Soul, Help

“There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,
And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all
The immortal moods that faded, the god who died,
Hastening away to the King on a distant call.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

God, Distant, Heart, Forgetting

“Confession should be only in secret before God, who knows everything anyway, and thus it could remain hidden in one‘s innermost being. But at a dinner – and a woman! A dinner-it is not some hidden, remote place, nor is the lighting dim, nor is the mood like that among graves, nor are the listeners silent or invisibly present.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Three Discourses at Friday Communion November 14, 1849 Hong translation 1997 P. 139
1840s, Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (1849)

God, Secret, Light

“Oh, God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood.”

George Gordon Byron The Prisoner of Chillon

The Prisoner of Chillon, st. 8.

God, Fear, Soul

“The distance in form, intention, mood and expression between Schubert's songs for voice and piano and those of, say, Adele is remarkably small.”

Howard Goodall

Howard Goodall, Howard Goodall's Story of Music. Episode 3, BBC, February 2014

“Subjectively the possession of a role factor is felt as a 'mental set' which modifies all ordinary responses. The very same stimulus is perceived in a different way when one is in the role and when one is out of it… Technically, we handle this change of perception the same way in a role as in a mood—both of which can intrude on the ordinary personality — by this special factor, L, which can be called a modulator factor. A modulator factor comes into action only when the usual ordinary 'focal stimulus' comes into the orbit of a set of role cues which we may call the 'ambient' or surrounding stimulus.”

Raymond Cattell (1905–1998) British-American psychologist

Source: The Scientific Analysis of Personality, 1965, p. 160

Way, Change, Personality

“A few things led me to the vegan diet. I guess the first thing to say was that I had multiple injuries and surgeries. Then additional complications: stamina level, inflammation, stuff with my stomach, overall mood, how my body was feeling and working. … Eating a vegan diet has changed my everyday living. I sleep better, I wake up in a better mood, I recover faster, I’m not so inflamed, not so achey. I feel better overall, in everything that I do. I can take in more information easier. My mind is just open.”

Wilson Chandler (1987) American basketball player

"NBA Star Wilson Chandler Reveals the Vegan Secrets Behind His Success" https://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/09/28/wilson-chandler-interview/, interview with Highsnobiety (September 28, 2017).

Feeling, Sleep, Change

“If you are describing any occurrence… make two or more distinct reports at different times… We discriminate at first only a few features, and we need to reconsider our experience from many points of view and in various moods in order to perceive the whole.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

March 24, 1857
Journals (1838-1859)

Time

“There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what wonder that Nature's mood is often in harsh contrast with the great crisis of our lives? We are children of a large family, and must learn, as such children do, not to expect that our hurts will be made much of — to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other the more.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Children, Family, Nature, Learning

“Music, and mood, she loves, but love she hates
(As curious ladies do, their public cates),
This train, with meteors, comets, lightenings,
The dreadful presence of our empress sings:
Which grant for ever (O eternal Night)
Till virtue flourish in the light of light.”

George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator

Hymnus in noctem, line 398
The Shadow of Night (1594)

Love, Hate, Music, Light

“The two parties represent two opposite moods of the English mind, which may be trusted, unless past experience is wholly useless, to succeed each other from time to time. Neither of them, neither the love of organic changes nor the dislike of it, can be described as normal to a nation. In every nation, they have succeeded each other at varying intervals during the whole of the period which separates its birth from its decay. Each finds in the circumstances and constitution of individuals a regular support which never deserts it. Among men, the old, the phlegmatic, the sober-minded, among classes, those who have more to lose than to gain by change, furnish the natural Conservatives. The young, the envious, the restless, the dreaming, those whose condition cannot easily be made worse, will be rerum novarum cupidi.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

But the two camps together will not nearly include the nation: for the vast mass of every nation is unpolitical.
Quarterly Review, 133, 1872, pp. 583-584
1870s

Love, Men, Dreams, Birth

“Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there — that, one might say, is created. It is the inexplicable presence of the thing not named, of the overtone divined by the ear but not heard by it, the verbal mood, the emotional aura of the fact or the thing or the deed, that gives high quality to the novel or the drama, as well as to poetry itself.”

Willa Cather (1873–1947) American writer and novelist

"The Novel Démeublé"; originally published in The New Republic (1922)
Not Under Forty (1936)

“When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to M.V. Kiseleva (September 29, 1886)
Letters

Life, Death, People, Feeling

“One way of looking at poetic periods is to notice what contemporary interests and knowledge penetrate the best verse written at the time and what moods are permitted in treating of these matters.”

Kenneth Allott (1912–1973) Irish poet

Introduction Contemporary Verse, Ed Kenneth Allott, Penguin Books, London 1950

Way, Knowledge, Time

“I do not forgive myself for being born. It is as if, creeping into this world, I had profaned a mystery, betrayed some momentous pledge, committed a fault of nameless gravity. Yet in a less assured mood, birth seems a calamity I would be miserable not having known.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

World, Birth, Forgiveness

“Heroes and victims are the product of the mood they were in when opportunity came or when circumstances were at their worst.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Treason (1988)

“My poor health was matched, as it often is when one is sick, by my poor mood. A deep melancholy often overtook me, and at times I asked myself whether life was worth the trouble of living.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Light on Life: B.K.S. Iyengar's Yoga Insights

Life, Health, Time

“He realised how oddly detached he was. […] He enjoyed every moment, but he knew that his enjoyment came largely from standing a little apart. He was not a cynic, for there was no sourness in him. He had a kindliness towards most things, and a large charity. But he did not take sides. He had not accepted any mood, or creed, or groove of his own. Vix ea nostra voco [I scarcely call these things our own] was his motto. He was only a seeker […] occupied in finding out what was in his soul.”

John Buchan book Castle Gay

Source: Castle Gay (1930), Ch. 20

Soul

“The aim of art is to get us to dream, just like music, for it expresses a mood projected onto the canvas, which arouses identical sensations in the viewer.”

Francis Picabia (1879–1953) French painter and writer

two short quotes of Picabia, in 'A Paris painter', by Hapgood, published in 'The Globe and Commercial Advertiser', 20 Febr. 1913, p. 8
1910's

Dreams, Art, Music

“The so-called "don't say gay" law is premised on the misguided belief that, by not talking about gay people, they can simply make us disappear. I am here to tell Tennessee and all LGBT youth and teachers who would be affected by this law, that I am here for you. In fact, I am lending my name to the cause. Any time you need to say the word "gay", you can simply say "Takei". For example, you could safely proclaim you are a supporter of Takei marriage. If you're in a more festive mood, you can march in a Takei pride parade. Even homophobic slurs don't seem as hurtful if someone says, "That is soooo Takei."”

George Takei (1937) American actor and author

Regarding the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee passing state senator Stacey Campfield's bill SB49, which bans mentioning homosexuality in public schools prior to ninth grade

Marriage, People, Youth, Law

“The differentiation of the neuroses from organic visceral diseases, Dr. Crohn said, "is one of the difficult problems in clinical medicine. Let him who is proud of his acumen and experience as a physician survey, from year to year, his own record in this respect, and his pride may take, will take, a severe fall. With his eyes wide open to the problem, with much experience with the world, people and moods, and with years of clinical training and knowledge, no one is immune to, at times, mistaking organic diseases for the neuroses, or of falsely interpreting neurotic symptoms in terms of pathological states.”

Burrill Bernard Crohn (1884–1983) American gastroenterologist

Speaking at the seventh annual graduate fortnight of the New York Academy of Medicine, 25 October 1934. [Many Stomach Ills Called Functional: Dr. Crohn Says Physicians at Times Err in Diagnosing Neurotic Symptoms, The New York Times, 25 October 1934, http://search.proquest.com.dclibrary.idm.oclc.org/docview/101198139/E252539BA742405APQ/8?accountid=46320]

People, World, Disease, Knowledge

“.. it [his watercolor 'New Flower' ['Het Bloempje', 1880] is one of those pictures, I did my best to finish it highly, as the story is nice and pleasant [where] other pictures may be more necessarily rough or strong being paint in an other mood. But this new flower needed a tender hand and conspicuous attention for details.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

Quote from his letter, 23 Nov 1906, to E.D. Libbey in Toledo (TMA); as cited in Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, ed. Dieuwertje Dekkers; Waanders, Zwolle 1999, p. 306
E.D. Libbey was one of the initiators of the Toledo-museum; the watercolor was in his private collection till 1925
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

Flowers, Strong, Painting

“The prevailing mood in my country is one of optimism and opportunity. Scotland is restless for change and keen to expand its influence and to reach out beyond our shores.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Scotland and Northern Ireland (June 18, 2007)

Optimism, Change, Country

“The unique thing about Margaret Rutherford is that she can act with her chin alone. Among its many moods I especially cherish the chin commanding, the chin in doubt, and the chin at bay.”

Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980) English theatre critic and writer

Curtains (1961)

“Perhaps not only in his attitude towards truth, but in his attitude towards himself, Montaigne was a precursor. Perhaps here again he was ahead of his own time, ahead of our time also, since none of us would have the courage to imitate him. It may be that some future century will vindicate this unseemly performance; in the meanwhile it will be of interest to examine the reasons which he gives us for it. He says, in the first place, that he found this study of himself, this registering of his moods and imaginations, extremely amusing; it was an exploration of an unknown region, full of the queerest chimeras and monsters, a new art of discovery, in which he had become by practice “the cunningest man alive.” It was profitable also, for most people enjoy their pleasures without knowing it; they glide over them, and fix and feed their minds on the miseries of life. But to observe and record one’s pleasant experiences and imaginations, to associate one’s mind with them, not to let them dully and unfeelingly escape us, was to make them not only more delightful but more lasting. As life grows shorter we should endeavour, he says, to make it deeper and more full. But he found moral profit also in this self-study; for how, he asked, can we correct our vices if we do not know them, how cure the diseases of our soul if we never observe their symptoms? The man who has not learned to know himself is not the master, but the slave of life: he is the “explorer without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and when all is done, the fool of the play.””

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“Montaigne,” p. 6
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Life, People, Pleasure, Truth

“The colour, noise and festivity failed to elevate Carfilhiot’s mood; in fact—so he told himself—never had he witnessed so much pointless nonsense.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), Suldrun's Garden (1983), Chapter 25, section 3 (p. 280)

“Particle physics suffers more from being infected by the socio-political mood of the day than from lack of spectacular opportunities for major and profound discoveries.”

Leon M. Lederman (1922–2018) American mathematician and physicist

Remark by Lederman during 2002 interview. "Future of the field calls for charisma and courage" Kurt Riesselmann, FermiNews Volume 25, June 28, 2002, Number 11 http://www.fnal.gov/pub/ferminews/ferminews02-06-28/p3.html

Suffering

“Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

L’amour est le plus joli larcin que la Société ait su faire à la Nature; mais la maternité, n’est-ce pas la Nature dans sa joie? Un sourire a séché mes larmes.
Part I, ch. XXVIII.
Letters of Two Brides (1841-1842)

Love, Smile, Nature, Tear

“l don't know what Nordic art is worth in other people's minds.... but in today's cosmopolitan art world it doesn't figure at all... Nordic art is dangerous. It compresses all its power inside ourselves. It is not a hedonistic or sensuous art. It neither claims to be objectively intelligible, nor does it deal in clear and conscious symbols. The Danish author Jakob Knudsen hit on something important when he said that Nordic art has mood and works on the mood more than on the senses or the understanding..”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum 'Articles' by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255, 1959 - 1973, Alpha and Omega', (1963–64)

People, World, Art, Intelligence

“Only a few years ago one could observe, at least among German psychologists, a quite pessimistic mood. After the initial successes of experimental psychology in its early stages, it seemed to become clearer and clearer that it would remain impossible for experimental method to press on beyond the psychology of perception and memory to such vital problems as those with which psychoanalysis was concerned. Weighty 'philosophical' and 'methodological' considerations seemed to make such an undertaking a priori impossible.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, 1935, p. v.

Problem, Memory, Success

“This painting, this work you miss so much [the two sisters Morisot painted a lot together] is a cause of much trouble and concern, you know this as well as I do and yet, child that you are, you are already weeping for the loss of the very thing that darkened you mood only recently. Think of it, yours is not the very worst lot: you have a real affection, a devoted heart that is yours an yours alone, do not be ungrateful for the dealings of fate, think of the great sorrow that is solitude; whatever anyone says or does, womankind has immense need of affection; to want to retreat into yourself is to attempt the impossible.”

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) painter from France

in Berthe's letter to her sister Edma, c. 1870; as cited in The Correspondence of Berthe Morisot, ed. Denis Rouart; Camden, London 1986 / Kinston, R. I. Moyer Bell, 1989, p. 29
1860 - 1870

Fate, Thinking, Solitude, Sister

“… as a matter of fact it is nice to paint a happy picture after a sad one. I think there is a kind of loneliness in a lot of them which I don't think about as the fact that I'm lonely and therefore I paint lonely pictures, but I like kind of lonely things anyhow; so if the forms express that to me, there is a certain excitement that I have about that.... What I try to do is to create the painting so that the overall thing has the particular emotion; not just the forms in it.... in other words, there's a particular static or heavy form that can have a look to it, an experience that translated through the form; so then it does have a mood. And when that is there, well then it becomes it becomes a painting whereas all the other pictures that have far more interesting shapes and so on, don't become that to me.”

Franz Kline (1910–1962) American painter

n.p.
1960's, Living Art, 1963

Happiness, Sadness, Thinking, Painting

“Imagine a book of unexplained mysteries written by a contemporary of Shakespeare. It might include the mystery of the falling stars that sweep through the sky foretelling disaster; the mystery of the Kraken, the giant sea devil with 50-foot tentacles; the mystery of monster bones, sometimes found in caves or on beaches. Such a book would be a curious mixture of truth and absurdity, fact and legend. We would all feel superior as we turned its pages and murmured: "Of course, they didn't know about comets and giant squids and dinosaurs." If this book should happen to find its way into the hands of our remote descendants, they may smile pityingly and say: "It's incredible to think that they knew nothing about epsilon fields or multiple psychic feedback or cross gravitational energies. They didn't even know about the ineluctability of time."”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

But let us hope that such a descendant is in a charitable mood, and might add: "And yet they managed to ask a few of the right questions."
Source: Enigmas and Mysteries (1976), p. 142

Truth, Books, Smile, Hope