Quotes about applause (146 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Seek not to grow in knowledge chiefly for the sake of applause, and to enable you to dispute with others; but seek it for the benefit of your souls.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Soul , Knowledge

“The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

in a letter to his father, 1782

Truth , Singing

“President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. He sees democracy as a filthy process that can be cured only by the centralized power of bureaucrats. He sees his presidency as a Hegelian synthesis marking the end of political conflict. He sees himself as embodiment of the collective will. No president should speak in these terms — not in a representative republic. Obama does it habitually.”

Ben Shapiro (1984) American journalist and attorney

2010-02-03
Obama's Philosophically Fascist State of the Union Address
Townhall.com
https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2010/02/03/obamas-philosophically-fascist-state-of-the-union-address-n1331445

Democracy , Personality , Waiting

“In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.”

Judy Garland (1922–1969) actress, singer and vaudevillian from the United States

Depressing , Love , People , Silence

“Applause is the beginning of abuse”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

“The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and…
I had it all, I had him right there where I wanted him
She came along, got him alone and let's hear the applause
She took him faster than you could say "sabotage"I never saw it coming, wouldn't have suspected it
I underestimated just who I was dealing with
She had to know the pain was beating on me like a drum
She underestimated just who she was stealing from”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Better Than Revenge.
Song lyrics, Speak Now (2010)

Pain , Summer

“And this is probably a good place for me to end by just saying that the issue of climate change is a perfect example of why young people have to lead. Because old people, they've created a mess, and then they'll be gone. And then you -- (applause) -- you're the ones who have to deal with it. And also what happens is old people get set in their ways. So the older you get, the more likely you are to say, that's how it's always been so that's how I'm going to keep on doing it -- even if there's a better way to do things. Young people, they're asking, well, why do I have to do it that way? Let's try it this way. And that kind of willingness to accept challenges and try things in a new way, to not be stuck in the past, or to look towards the future, that's what all of you represent.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Town Hall Speech (November 2014)

People , Way , Change , Past

“In general they are intoxicated by the fame of mass culture, a fame which the latter knows how to manipulate; they could just as well get together in clubs for worshipping film stars or for collecting autographs. What is important to them is the sense of belonging as such, identification, without paying particular attention to its content. As girls, they have trained themselves to faint upon hearing the voice of a 'crooner'. Their applause, cued in by a light-signal, is transmitted directly on the popular radio programmes they are permitted to attend. They call themselves 'jitter-bugs', bugs which carry out reflex movements, performers of their own ecstasy. Merely to be carried away by anything at all, to have something of their own, compensates for their impoverished and barren existence. The gesture of adolescence, which raves for this or that on one day with the ever-present possibility of damning it as idiocy on the next, is now socialized.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Perennial fashion — Jazz, as quoted in The Sociology of Rock (1978) by Simon Frith,

Girl , Star , Sense , Light

“At the same time, new difficulties are constantly surfacing: experiences of failure and the human weaknesses which bring so much pain. We all know from experience that sometimes a task does not bring the satisfaction we seek, results are few and changes are slow, and we are tempted to grow weary. Yet lowering our arms momentarily out of weariness is not the same as lowering them for good, overcome by chronic discontent and by a listlessness that parches the soul. It also happens that our hearts can tire of the struggle because in the end we are caught up in ourselves, in a careerism which thirsts for recognition, applause, rewards and status. In this case we do not lower our arms, but we no longer grasp what we seek, the resurrection is not there. In cases like these, the Gospel, the most beautiful message that this world can offer, is buried under a pile of excuses.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Section 277
2010s, 2013, Evangelii Gaudium · The Joy of the Gospel

Pain , World , Beauty , Soul

“And so, supposing that light impinging on a refracting or reflecting ethereal superficies puts it into a vibrating motion, that physical superficies being by the perpetual applause of rays always kept in a vibrating motion, and the ether therein continually expanded and compressed by turns, if a ray of light impinge on it when it is much compressed, I suppose it is then too dense and stiff to let the ray through, and so reflects it; but the rays that impinge on it at other times, when it is either expanded by the interval between two vibrations or not too much compressed and condensed, go through and are refracted.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

"Hypothesis explaining the Properties of Light" (1675)

Light , Time

“I have discovered three things which know no geographical borders - classical music, American jazz, and applause as the sign of the public's favor.”

Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987) Lithuanian violinist

Heifetz official web site http://www.jaschaheifetz.com/about/quotes.html

Music

“I don't care for the applause one gets by saying what others are thinking; I want actually to change people's thoughts. Power over people's minds is the main personal desire of my life; and this sort of power is not acquired by saying popular things.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Lucy Martin Donnelly, February 10, 1916
1910s

Life , People , Thinking , Change

“Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. (Note: spelling/capitalization likely original.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

http://www.bartleby.com/43/24.html
1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

People , Confidence

“One man, by delaying, restored the state to us.
He valued safety more than mob's applause;
Hence now his glory more resplendent grows.”
Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem. Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem; Ergo plusque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.

Ennius (-239–-169 BC) Roman writer

Of Fabius Maximus Cunctator, as quoted by Cicero in De Senectute, Chapter IV (Loeb translation)

“Obama: Now, I swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books, but that doesn't mean I don't know very well the real pain and heartbreak that deportations cause. I share your concerns and I understand them. And I promise you, we are responding to your concerns and working every day to make sure we are enforcing flawed laws in the most humane and best possible way. Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. [Applause] And believe me, right now dealing with Congress —
Audience: Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Yes, you can!
Obama: Believe me — believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. [Laughter] I promise you. Not just on immigration reform. [Laughter] But that's not how — that's not how our system works.
Audience member: Change it!
Obama: That’s not how our democracy functions. That's not how our Constitution is written. So let’s be honest. I need a dance partner here — and the floor is empty.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks to the National Council of La Raza (25 July 2011) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/25/remarks-president-national-council-la-raza
2011

Pain , People , Books , Law

“Dr. King understood that peace without justice was no peace at all; that aligning our reality with our ideals often requires the speaking of uncomfortable truths and the creative tension of non-violent protest. But he also understood that to bring about true and lasting change, there must be the possibility of reconciliation; that any social movement has to channel this tension through the spirit of love and mutuality. If he were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there; that the businessman can enter tough negotiations with his company’s union without vilifying the right to collectively bargain. He would want us to know we can argue fiercely about the proper size and role of government without questioning each other’s love for this country -- (applause) -- with the knowledge that in this democracy, government is no distant object but is rather an expression of our common commitments to one another. He would call on us to assume the best in each other rather than the worst, and challenge one another in ways that ultimately heal rather than wound.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2011, Remarks at a Dedication Ceremony for the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial (October 2011)

Love , Truth , Peace , Justice

“…glad applause and the heaven-flung shout of the populace.”
Laetifici plausus missusque ad sidera vulgi clamor.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book XII, Line 521 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

“Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!”

Ben Jonson On Shakespeare

Source: To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare (1618), Lines 17 - 24; this was inspired by a eulogy by William Basse, On Shakespeare:
Context: Soul of the age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room;
Thou art a monument, without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

Age , Soul

“O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Against Unworthy Praise http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1433/
The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)
Context: p>O heart, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause
Being for a woman's sake.
Enough if the work has seemed,
So did she your strength renew,
A dream that a lion had dreamed
Till the wilderness cried aloud,
A secret between you two,
Between the proud and the proud.What, still you would have their praise!
But here's a haughtier text,
The labyrinth of her days
That her own strangeness perplexed;
And how what her dreaming gave
Earned slander, ingratitude,
From self-same dolt and knave;
Aye, and worse wrong than these.
Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.</p

Peace , Heart

“In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book I, 1.22-[4]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I

Time

“Applause is a receipt, not a bill.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

“It is an absurdity to believe that the Deity has human passions, and one of the lowest of human passions, a restless appetite for applause”

David Hume (1711–1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian

Passion

“You must be prepared to work always without applause.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“So instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Silence , Parting

“… as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) English historian and Member of Parliament

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“Life is a play that does not allow testing. So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Source: Charlie Chaplin: Interviews

Life , Singing , Dance , Cry

“You just said you were sorry."

…

"I was only apologizing," he said stiffly, "for startling you. The applause was to compliment you on the improvement in your life-saving techniques since the last time you-”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Abandon

Life , Time

“So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

“We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

“Well, you have to work out what it is. They are a little splinter. They can't summon many voters at any given time. They are a minority of a minority of a minority. They have everybody buffaloed because the great corporations like them and pay money to their candidates for sheriff and senator. And they're playing big-time politics. Yes, indeed. But the average person doesn't like them. You know, any time I want to get applause — and I lecture across America in state after state after state — when I fear things are getting a little low, I always say, “And another thing: Let us tax all the religions,” I bring down the goddamn house with that. And any politician would if he had sense enough to do it. The people don't like their tax exemption.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

On the religious right in America http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=342
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

Money , People , Fear , Religion

“The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.”

James Otis Jr. (1725–1783) Lawyer in colonial Massachusetts

Argument Against the Writs of Assistance (1761)

Life , Health , Country

“[IRENE ROSENBAUM:] …“you Americans do not rear children, you incite them; you give them food and shelter and applause”…”

Randall Jarrell book Pictures from an Institution

Source: Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel], Chapter 4, p. 180

Children , Food

“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Bob Hope will go to the opening of a phone booth in a gas station in Anaheim, providing they have a camera there and three people. He'll go to the opening of a market to receive an award. He'd get an award from Thom McCan for wearing their shoes. It's pathetic. It's a bottomless pit. A barrel that has no floor. He must be a man who has an ever-crumbling estimation of himself. He's constantly filling himself up. He's like a junkie – an applause junkie. What happens to those people when they can't get up and do their shtick, God only knows. Bob Hope, Christ, instead of growing old gracefully or doing something with his money, be helpful, all he does is he has an anniversary with the President looking on. It's sad. He gets on an airplane every two minutes always going someplace. It didn't bother him at all to work the Vietnam War. Oh, he took that in his stride. He did his World War II and Korean War act. "Our boys" and all that. He’s a pathetic guy.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Money , God , War , People

“How many watched the President's speech last night?
[half-hearted audience applause]
How many watched American Idol?
[thundering applause]
Okay, there you go! You get the government you deserve.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Monologue, February 1, 2006
The Tonight Show

Heart , Night

“A friend of mine who passed away some nine years ago was an active member of the NBA. And many of you may remember him, Gil Hardy. [Applause. ] Probably one of the most painful tragedies for me of my confirmation was to see the name of one of the nicest, most decent human beings I had ever met, besmirched. And Gil was my best friend at both college and at Yale Law School. He was the best man at my wedding and he is the person to whom I went for solace.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)

Pain , School , Law , Wedding

“Of course what makes breakfast in bed so special is you're lying down and eating bacon, the most beautiful thing on Earth. Bacon's the best, even the frying of bacon sounds like an applause. (sizzling sounds) YEAAAA BACON!!!! You wanna hear how good bacon is? To improve other food they wrap it in bacon. If it wasn't for bacon we wouldn't even know what a water chestnut is. "Thank you bacon. Sincerely, Water Chestnut the third". And those bits of bacon, bits of bacon are like the fairy dust of the food community. "you don't want this baked potato," bbbrrriinnnggg! it's now your favorite part of the meal. "not interested in a salad?" bippady boppidy bacon! Just turned it into an entre. And once you put bacon into a salad it's no longer a salad, it just becomes a game of find the bacon in the lettuce. It's like you're panning for gold, hmmmmm, EUREKA! bacon! not many ways to prepare bacon, you can either fry it or get botulism. It's amazing the shrinkage that occurs. You start with a pound you end up with a book mark. You know the only bad part about bacon is it makes you thirsty… for more bacon! I never feel like I get enough bacon. at breakfast it's like they're rationalizing it. "Here's your two strips of bacon." "But I want more! More bacon!" Whenever you're at a brunch buffet and you see that metal tray filled with the four thousand strips of bacon, don't you almost expect a rainbow to be coming out of it? "I found it I found the source of all bacon!"”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

That bacon tray is always at the end of the buffet, you always regret all the stuff on your plate. "What am I doing with all this worthless fruit? I should have waited! If I had known you were here I would've waited...."
King Baby

Books , Food , Beauty , Way

“Yesterday there was a Concert Spirituel. The symphony by Haydn was lovely and the execution very good. Mademoiselle Wendling and a Welsh tenor Giuliano were hissed. Danner and another Welsh violinist Giuliani were overall applauded. A sinfonia concertante by the brothers Thonberg [Romberg] got applause. The concert on the bassoon by Devienne so so.”

Joseph Martin Kraus (1756–1792) German composer

Gestern war Concert Spirituel. Die Symphonie von Haydn war allerliebst und die Exekution vorzüglich gut. Mlle Wendling und ein welscher Tenorist Giuliano wurden ausgepfiffen. Danner und ein andrer welscher Geiger Giuliani wurden allgemein beklatscht. Eine Symphonie concertante von den Gebrüdern und Söhnen Thonberg [Romberg] fand Beifall. Das Konzert auf dem Fagotte von Devienne so so.
Letter dated Paris, 3rd February 1785. To pater Roman Hofstetter in Amorbach, in: Irmgard Leux-Henschen, Joseph Martin Kraus in seinen Briefen, Stockholm 1978.
Letters

Love

“Comrades of the 'Boys in Blue' and fellow-citizens of New York. I cannot look upon this great assemblage and these old veterans that have marched past us, and listen to the words of welcome from our comrade who has just spoken, without remembering how great a thing it is to live in this Union and be a part of it. [Applause. ] This is New York; and yonder, toward the Battery, more than a hundred years ago, a young student of Columbia College was arguing the ideas of the American Revolution and American union against the un-American loyalty to monarchy, of his college president and professors. By and by, he went into the patriot army, was placed on the staff of Washington, [cheers] to fight the battles of his country, [cheers] and while in camp, before he was twenty-one years old, upon a drum-head he wrote a letter which contained every germ of the Constitution of the United States. [Applause. ] That student, soldier, statesman, and great leader of thought, Alexander Hamilton, of New York, made this Republic glorious by his thinking, and left his lasting impress upon this the foremost State of the Union. [Applause. ] And here on this island, the scene of his early triumphs, we gather tonight, soldiers of the new war, representing the same ideas of union, having added strength and glory to the monument reared by the heroes of the Revolution.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech to the 'Boys in Blue' (1880)

War , Boy , Idea , Thinking

“We ask no favours of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight the people of London were asked to cast their votes as to whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities, an overwhelming majority would cry, "No, we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, they have meted out to us." {applause} The people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: "You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate bombing. We remember Warsaw! In the first few days of the war. We remember Rotterdam. We have been newly reminded of your habits by the hideous massacre in Belgrade. We know too well the bestial assaults you're making upon the Russian people, to whom our hearts go out in their valiant struggle! {cheers} We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will! You do your worst!”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

and we will do our best! {sustained cheering} Perhaps it may be our turn soon. Perhaps it may be our turn now."
July 14, 1941, in a speech before the London County Council. The original can be found in Churchill's The Unrelenting Struggle (English edition 187; American edition 182) or in the Complete Speeches VI:6448.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

War , People , Sun , Heart

“I can't really hear the audience applause when I'm on stage. I'm totally immersed in the piece. But sometimes I get a lot of it and wonder, "Now, why did they applaud here?" If it's a white crowd, they usually applaud because they think it's a pretty movement. If it's a black crowd, it's usually because they identify with the message.”

Judith Jamison (1943) American dancer

WomenSports magazine, p. 14 (September 1975)

Thinking

“It is true that to one who was a rustic and a soldier the political proceedings of the capital were strange and incongruous: he spoke as ill as he commanded well, and displayed a far firmer bearing in the presence of the lances and swords of the enemy than in presence of the applause or hisses of the multitude; but his inclinations were of little moment. The hopes of which he was the object constrained him.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 3, translated by W.P.Dickson
on Gaius Marius
The History of Rome - Volume 3

Hope

“Canned laughter: After some supposedly funny or witty remark you can hear the laughter and applause included in the soundtrack of the show itself - here we have the exact counterpart of the Chorus in classical tragedy; it is here that we have to look for 'living Antiquity.' That is to say, why this laughter? The first possible answer - that it serves to remind us when to laugh - is interesting enough, because it implies the paradox that laughter is a matter of duty and not of some spontaneous feeling; but this answer is not sufficient because we do not usually laugh. The only correct answer would be that the Other - embodied in the television set - is relieving us even of our duty to laugh - is instead laughing for us. So even if, tired from a hard days stupid work, all evening we did nothing but gaze drowsily into the television screen, we can say afterwards that objectively, through the medium of the other, we had a really good time.”

Slavoj Žižek book The Sublime Object of Ideology

33
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Stupidity , Feeling , Laughter , Time

“This one is too elegant, too shiny, like jewelry. It seeks applause. This is clear to me, but difficult to explain, which is what makes abstraction so fascinating. In one sense, abstract art is absolutely nothing, stupid. In 100 years, maybe people will just think it's garbage. But somehow we see something in it; we have a sense of quality. [searching for an illustration of his point, Richter leafs through a catalog to find some of his 'gray monochromes']. I was doing these [monochromes] when I was getting divorced. When you feel totally empty, you do this - but then I saw that one picture was actually better than another. Both were miserable, but the difference was interesting. I loved this: that there must be something, some higher faculty, some progressive sensibility that we find in abstraction. But it is impossible to describe.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

Love , People , Stupidity , Art

“Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

No. 72
Characteristics, in the manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1823)

Love , Fear

“We have women priests now. What do y'all think of that, women priests? [scattered applause] I think that's fine. So what? Now we've got priests of both sexes that I don't listen to.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Arizona Bay (1997)

Women , Sex , Thinking

“B. Hussein Obama said he was for slavery reparations in many forms, but the only one that got applause was for more "investment" in schools. In Obama's defense, the precise question was: "But is African-Americans ever going to get reparations for slavery?" So a switch to the subject of education was only natural.
Moreover, a question on reparations has got to be confusing when you're half-white and half-black. What do you do? Demand an apology for slavery and money from yourself? I guess biracial reparations would involve sending yourself money, then sending back a portion of that money to yourself, minus 50 percent in processing fees — which is the same way federal aid works.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Did I Miss The ‘Hip’ Part?" (1 August 2007) http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2007/08/01/did_i_miss_the_‘hip’_part/page/full/.
2007

Money , Education , School , Way

“The attitude of the true scientist towards the real limits of human understanding was unforgettably impressed on me in early youth by the obviously unpremeditated words of a great biologist; Alfred Kuhn finished a lecture to the Austrian Academy of Science with Goethe's words, "It is the greatest joy of the man of thought to have explored the explorable and then calmly to revere the inexplorable." After the last word he hesitated, raised his hand in repudiation and cried, above the applause, "No, not calmly, gentlemen; not calmly!"”

Konrad Lorenz book On Aggression

Source: On Aggression (1963), Ch. XII : On the Virtue of Scientific Humility

Youth , Understanding , Science , Joy

“The admirers and followers of the Alcoran insist on the excellent moral precepts interspersed through that wild and absurd performance. But it is to be supposed, that the Arabic words, which correspond to the English, equity, justice, temperance, meekness, charity were such as, from the constant use of that tongue, must always be taken in a good sense; and it would have argued the greatest ignorance, not of morals, but of language, to have mentioned them with any epithets, besides those of applause and approbation. But would we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just sentiment of morals? Let us attend to his narration; and we shall soon find, that he bestows praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far only as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.”

David Hume book Of the Standard of Taste

David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste, 1760
Variant: The admirers and followers of the Alcoran insist on the excellent moral precepts interspersed through that wild and absurd performance. But it is to be supposed, that the Arabic words, which correspond to the English, equity, justice, temperance, meekness, charity were such as, from the constant use of that tongue, must always be taken in a good sense; and it would have argued the greatest ignorance, not of morals, but of language, to have mentioned them with any epithets, besides those of applause and approbation. But would we know, whether the pretended prophet had really attained a just sentiment of morals? Let us attend to his narration; and we shall soon find, that he bestows praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far only as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.

Justice , Revenge , Sense , Hurt

“How many of you watched the vice presidential debate expecting Sarah Palin to screw up? Be honest. [cheers and applause] : And how many of you watched the debate expecting Joe Biden to screw up? [more cheers and applause] : And how many of you watched the baseball game knowing the Cubs would screw up?”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

more applause
Monologue, 6 October, 2008
The Tonight Show

Game

“the most remarkable piece of reading that you may be recommended to take and try if you can study is a book by Goethe—one of his last books, which he wrote when he was an old man, about seventy years of age—I think one of the most beautiful he ever wrote, full of mild wisdom, and which is found to be very touching by those who have eyes to discern and hearts to feel it. It is one of the pieces in "Wilhelm Meister's Travels." I read it through many years ago; and, of course, I had to read into it very hard when I was translating it (applause), and it has always dwelt in my mind as about the most remarkable bit of writing that I have known to be executed in these late centuries. I have often said, there are ten pages of that which, if ambition had been my only rule, I would rather have written than have written all the books that have appeared since I came into the world.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

Wisdom , Books , Age , World

“In the 21st century, nations cannot; and we cannot allow them to redraw borders by force. These are the ground rules. And if we fail to uphold them, we will rue the day. Russia has violated these ground rules and continues to violate them. Today Russia is occupying sovereign Ukrainian territory. Let me be crystal clear: The United States does not, will not, never will recognize Russia’s attempt to annex the Crimea. (Applause.) It’s that saying -- that simple. There is no justification.”

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

Remarks by Vice President Joe Biden to The Ukrainian Rada https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/09/remarks-vice-president-joe-biden-ukrainian-rada (9 December 2015).
2010s

“[As graduates with] all the status and connections that degree confers, you don’t get to have no hands. No, you don’t get to be precious or cautious or cynical. No, not when the earth is warming and the oceans are rising. You don’t get to be cynical. Not when too many young people still languish in communities ripped apart by violence and despair. Not when women still make less than men for the same work. Not when millions of girls across the globe never set foot inside a school. (Applause.) No, not when many young people just like you — the men and women we honor this Memorial Day—have sacrificed their lives for your freedom to make your voice heard. You don’t get to have no hands.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

2010s, Commencement speech for Oberlin College Prep graduates (2015)

Women , Men , People , School

“An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause.”

John Updike book Couples

Source: Couples (1968), Ch. 2

World

“To fight for the right, to abhor the imperfect, the unjust, or the mean, to swerve neither to the right hand nor to the left, to care nothing for flattery or applause or odium or abuse—it is so easy to have any of them in India—never to let your enthusiasm be soured or your courage grow dim, but to remember that the Almighty has placed your hand on the greatest of His ploughs, in whose furrow the nations of the future are germinating and taking shape, to drive the blade a little forward in your time, and to feel that somewhere among these millions you have left a little justice or happiness or prosperity, a sense of manliness or moral dignity, a spring of patriotism, a dawn of intellectual enlightenment, or a stirring of duty, where it did not before exist—that is enough, that is the Englishman's justification in India. It is good enough for his watchword while he is here, for his epitaph when he is gone. I have worked for no other aim. Let India be my judge.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Speech at the Byculla Club in Bombay (16 November 1905) two days before he left India, quoted in Lord Curzon in India, Being A Selection from His Speeches as Viceroy & Governor-General of India 1898-1905 (London: Macmillan, 1906), pp. 589-590.

Justice , Feeling , Spring , Courage

“David Letterman: Earlier today, the man who owns this network, Leslie Moonves—he and I have had a relationship for years and years and years—and we have had this conversation in the past, and we agreed that we would work together on this circumstance and the timing of this circumstance. And I phoned him just before the program, and I said, "Leslie, it's been great, you've been great, the network has been great, but I'm retiring."
Paul Shaffer: This is—really?
David Letterman: Yep.
Paul Shaffer: This is—this is—you actually did this?
David Letterman: Yes, I did.
[dead silence in the studio followed by nervous laughter from the audience]
Paul Shaffer: Well—do I have a minute to call my accountant, because…I, uh…
[Dave cracks up]
David Letterman: I just want to reiterate my thanks for the support from the network, all of the people who have worked here, all of the people in the theatre, all the people on the staff, everybody at home. Thank you very much. And what this means now, is that Paul and I can be married.
[uproarious laughter and applause as wedding chimes play]
David Letterman: So we don't have the timing of this precisely down, I think it will be at least a year or so. But sometime in the not too distant future—2015 for the love of God, in fact, Paul and I will be wrapping things up and taking a hike.
[studio audience goes wild, gives him a standing ovation]
David Letterman: Thank you, thanks everybody. All right, thanks very much.”

David Letterman (1947) American comedian and actor

On announcing his retirement, quoted in Here’s what happened the moment David Letterman announced his retirement (transcript + video) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/04/03/heres-what-happened-the-moment-david-letterman-announced-his-retirement-transcript-video/ by Emily Yahr, in "The Washington Post" (3 April 2014).

Love , God , People , Home

“At 8 o’clock, the [body] of the hall was nearly filled with an intelligent and respectable looking audience – The exercises commenced with a patriotic song by the Hutchinsons, which was received with great applause. The Rev. H. H. Garnett opened the meeting stating that the black man, a fugitive from Virginia, who was announced to speak would not appear, as a communication had been received yesterday from the South intimating that, for prudential reasons, it would not be proper for that person to appear, as his presence might affect the interests and safety of others in the South, both white persons and colored. He also stated that another fugitive slave, who was at the battle of Bull Run, proposed when the meeting was announced to be present, but for a similar reason he was absent; he had unwillingly fought on the side of Rebellion, but now he was, fortunately where he could raise his voice on the side of Union and universal liberty. The question which now seemed to be prominent in the nation was simply whether the services of black men shall be received in this war, and a speedy victory be accomplished. If the day should ever come when the flag of our country shall be the symbol of universal liberty, the black man should be able to look up to that glorious flag, and say that it was his flag, and his country’s flag; and if the services of the black men were wanted it would be found that they would rush into the ranks, and in a very short time sweep all the rebel party from the face of the country”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Douglass Monthly https://web.archive.org/web/20160309192511/http://deadconfederates.com/tag/black-confederates/#_edn2 (March 1862), p. 623
1860s

Men , War , Color , Exercises

“Those of you who speak only English, applaud [audience applause]. Those of you who speak only Spanish, applaud [audience applause]. [In mock incredulity] Then how do you know what I just said?”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

"trick" question at innumerable concerts— always with the same result
2007, 2008

“If the nation only knew their hands dripped with innocent blood, it would have met them not with applause but with stones.”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

Quoted in "A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia" - Page 3 - by Alexander N. Yakovlev, Anthony Austin - Political Science - 2002 -

“Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause, without obtaining it, than obtain, without deserving it; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. With inferior minds the reverse is observable.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; VI
Lacon (1820)

“I found some consolation or narcotic. Sometimes it was a woman, sometimes a good friend — yes, you too once helped me that way — at other times it was music or applause in the theater. But now these things no longer give me pleasure and that is why I drink. I could never sing without first having a couple of drinks, but now I can also not think, talk, live and feel tolerably well without first having a couple of drinks.”

Hermann Hesse book Gertrud

Source: Gertrude (1910), p. 225

Pleasure , Music , Way , Feeling

“The applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes.”

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) English poet, historian

St. 16
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Pain , Smile , Reading

“Men whose only concern is other people's opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

Reflections

Men , People , Parting

“Let me tell you something -- wait a minute. You know one things that's wrong with this country? Everybody gets a chance to have their fair say. My budget did more to fight AIDS than any in history, and we're having to put up with this. (Applause.) Tell them to let me talk. (Applause.) If you want to give a speech -- go out there and raise your own crowd. We'll be glad to listen to you. (Applause.) So there were those -- (interruption) -- I'll make you a deal. I'll ignore them if you will.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

Applause.
Response to hecklers, courtyard of Philadelphia City Hall (May 28, 1993). Remarks at City Hall in Philadelphia http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=46631, May 28, 1993.
1990s

History , Chance , Waiting , Fight

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 481.

Heart

“In all base schools of art, the craftsman is dependent for his bread on originality; that is to say, on finding in himself some fragment of isolated faculty, by which his work may be distinct from that of other men. We are ready enough to take delight in our little doings, without any such stimulus; — what must be the effect of the popular applause which continually suggests that the little thing we can separately do is as excellent as it is singular; and what the effect of the bribe, held out to us through the whole of life, to produce — it being also in our peril not to produce — something different from the work of our neighbors?”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Lecture II, section 32.
The Eagle's Nest (1872)

Life , Men , School , Art

“Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything … If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

2004-06-21
Unfairenheit 9/11
Slate
1091-2339
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/unfairenheit_911.html: On Michael Moore
2000s, 2004

Family , Hope , Way , Courage

“Opinion is steadily inclining towards making the division of labor an imperative rule of conduct, to present it as a duty. Those who shun it are not punished precise penalty fixed by law, it is true; but they are blamed. The time has passed when the perfect man was he who appeared interested in everything without attaching himself exclusively to anything, capable of tasting and understanding everything finding means to unite and condense in himself all that was most exquisite in civilization. … We want activity, instead of spreading itself over a large area, to concentrate and gain in intensity what it loses in extent. We distrust those excessively mobile talents that lend themselves equally to all uses, refusing to choose a special role and keep to it. We disapprove of those men whose unique care is to organize and develop all their faculties, but without making any definite use of them, and without sacrificing any of them, as if each man were sufficient unto himself, and constituted an independent world. It seems to us that this state of detachment and indetermination has something anti-social about it. The praiseworthy man of former times is only a dilettante to us, and we refuse to give dilettantism any moral value; we rather see perfection in the man seeking, not to be complete, but to produce; who has a restricted task, and devotes himself to it; who does his duty, accomplishes his work. “To perfect oneself,” said Secrétan, “is to learn one's role, to become capable of fulfilling one's function... The measure of our perfection is no longer found in our complacence with ourselves, in the applause of a crowd, or in the approving smile of an affected dilettantism, but in the sum of given services and in our capacity to give more.””

Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)

[Le principe de la morale, p. 189] … We no longer think that the exclusive duty of man is to realize in himself the qualities of man in general; but we believe he must have those pertaining to his function. … The categorical imperative of the moral conscience is assuming the following form: Make yourself usefully fulfill a determinate function.
Source: The Division of Labor in Society (1893), pp. 42-43.

Men , World , Law , Penalty

“The struggles waged by nations are weak only when they lack support in the hearts of their women. But when women are moved and lend help, when women, who are by nature calm and controlled, give encouragement and applause, when virtuous and knowledgeable women grace the endeavor with their sweet love, then it is invincible.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)

Love , Women , Support , Nature

“You -- (applause continues) -- you know, the idea that you have to wait on line for eight hours to cast your ballot in Florida -- there's something the matter with that. You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever, and get home and then have a -- still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that, because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives. (Light applause.) But for ordinary working people, who have to work eight hours a day, they have kids, they got to get home to those kids, the idea of making them stand for eight hours to cast their ballot for democracy is wrong. We ought to make voting easier to do. Mail -- Oregon has got it right. (Applause.)”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

Source: Take Back America 2005 conference, in Washington D.C. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/7/11437/00894, June 2, 2005

People , Democracy , Home , Idea

“He was as sentimental as Hitler about applause and crowds.”

Howard Jacobson (1942) British author and journalist

Source: Coming from Behind (1983), Ch. 3

“Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; CCCCXXIV
Lacon

“I am going to negotiate with the IMF on the basis of our existing policies, not changes in policies, and I need your support to do it. (Applause) But when I say "existing policies", I mean things we do not like as well as things we do like. It means sticking to the very painful cuts in public expenditure (shouts from the floor) on which the Government has already decided. It means sticking to a pay policy which enables us, as the TUC resolved a week or two ago, to continue the attack on inflation. (Shout of, "Resign".)”

Denis Healey (1917–2015) British Labour Party politician and Life peer

Speech at the Labour Party Conference (30 September 1976), quoted in Labour Party Annual Conference Report 1976, p. 319. Healey had been forced to abandon plans to attend an international finance ministers' conference in order to speak to the conference because of a run on the pound.
1970s

Pain , Support , Change

“The Christian missionary orchestra in India after independence has continued to rise from one crescendo to another with the applause of the Nehruvian establishment manned by a brood of self-alienated Hindus spawned by missionary-macaulayite education. The only rift in the lute has been K. M. Panikkar’s Asia and Western Dominance published in 1953, the Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Committee Madhya Pradesh published in 1956, Om Prakash Tyagi’s Bill on Freedom of Religion introduced in the Lok Sabha in 1978, Arun Shourie’s Missionaries in India published in 1994 and the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill introduced in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly by Mangal Prabhat Lodha, M. L. A. on 20 December 1996.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report (1998)

Education , Religion , Freedom

“A hundred years from tonight, another American president will stand in this place and report on the State of the Union. He—or she—(applause)—he or she will look back on a 21st century shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now. So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only of our time, but of their time; that we reached as high as our ideals; that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of healing and hopefulness; that we joined together to serve and strengthen the land we love.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

State of the Union Address (January 19, 1999)
1990s

Love , Hope , Way , Thinking

“The vast applause shall reach the starry frame,
No years, no ages shall obscure thy fame,
And Earth's last ends shall hear thy darling name.”
Gratantes plausu excipient: tua gloria coelo Succedet, nomenque tuum sinus ultimus orbis Audiet, ac nullo diffusum abolebitur aevo.

Marco Girolamo Vida (1485–1566) Italian bishop

Book III, line 522
De Arte Poetica (1527)

Age

“Centuries ago, when I first stood on that little boulevard stage in Paris — when I saw the happy faces, when I heard applause — I felt as if my body and soul had found their destiny; I felt as if every promise in my birth and childhood had begun its fulfillment at last.
Oh, there were other actors, worse and better; other singers; other clowns; there have been a million since and a million will come after this moment. But each of us shines with his own inimitable power; each of us comes alive in his own unique and dazzling moment; each of us has his chance to vanquish the others forever in the eye of the beholder, and that is the only kind of accomplishment I can really understand: the kind of accomplishment in which the self-this self, if you will — is utterly whole and triumphant.”

Anne Rice The Vampire Chronicles

Lestat
Tale of the Body Thief (1992)

Soul , Birth , Understanding , Chance

“I was on this German talk show and this woman said to me, she said, "Mr. Williams, why do you think there's not so much comedy in Germany?" I said, "Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?" [laughter and applause] And…it was…and here's where it got interesting. She didn't bat an eyelash. She just went "No". At that point, even God's going, "Do you get it?!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

German comedy: "Knock-knock--We ask the questions!".
Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

God , People , Question , Thinking

“Indeed, one of the most cruel games anyone can play with self is the "not yet" game—hoping to sin just a bit more before ceasing; to enjoy the praise of the world a little longer before turning away from the applause; to win just once more in the wearying sweepstakes of materialism; to be chaste, but not yet; to be good neighbors, but not now. One can play upon the harp-strings of hesitations and reservations just so long, and then one faces that special moment—a moment when what has been sensed, mutely, suddenly finds voice and cries out with tears, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Mark 9:24 http://scriptures.lds.org/en/mark/9#24
Why Not Now?, Ensign, Nov. 1974, p. 12 ( http://www.lds.org/ensign/1974/11/why-not-now?lang=eng).

World , Hope , Game , Sense

“Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2000, The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000)

“I think that the whole of the movement towards dictatorships in Europe has reached its highest point and that there is a decline in the movement towards dictatorships owing to the failure of the dictators. I think that Hitler and his movement is the last move in the suggestion that somehow or other you can secure the world by getting some wonderful individual who is going to set everything right. [Interruption. ] We have always taken that view on these Benches, and I am pleased to see by the applause on the Benches opposite that there is no inclination on their part to take Sir Oswald Mosley too seriously. I think we can generally say to-day that this dictatorship is gradually falling down. [Interruption. ] I can quite understand the attitude of hon. Members opposite. We on this side are quite happy.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1934/jul/13/foreign-office in the House of Commons (13 July 1934). His remarks about dictatorships gradually falling down was a reference to the Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany a fortnight before.
1930s

World , Failure , Understanding , Thinking

“The only thing I'm interested in is the music and the musicians. I don't acknowledge applause 'cause I'm giving them something. They're not giving me anything with their applause. Can I write that down?”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40
1970s

Music

“To receive applause for works which do not demand all our powers hinders our advance towards a perfecting of our spirit. It usually means that thereafter we stand still.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 42
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Perfection

“Jim Thompson. Dead 14 years next month. The Academy Awards are upon us, and as I write this, I do not know what's been nominated for what. But I have a hunch this is the year of Thompson. I believe somebody famous will stand there to thank God and Swifty Lazar, if you can tell the difference, and then with a stifled sob, add a special thanks to Jim Thompson. And people will stand and cheer his name. I only hope Alberta is right, and that Jimmy hears the applause. But I doubt it. Jim Thompson stories seldom have happy endings.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "In Retrospect: Jim Thompson Stories Don't Have Happy Endings," https://books.google.com/books?id=gxMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA167&dq=%22Jim+Thompson.+Dead+14%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAGoVChMIkPvvraDGxwIVC48NCh3xaAuM#v=onepage&q=%22Jim%20Thompson.%20Dead%2014%22&f=false in Orange Coast Magazine (March 1991), p. 167
Other Topics

God , People , Hope , Dead

“Napoleon’s troops fought in bright fields, where every helmet caught some gleams of glory; but the British soldier conquered under the cool shade of aristocracy. No honours awaited his daring, no despatch gave his name to the applauses of his countrymen; his life of danger and hardship was uncheered by hope, his death unnoticed.”

William Francis Patrick Napier (1785–1860) Irish soldier in the British Army and military historian

Peninsular War (1810), Vol. ii, Book xi, Chap. iii.

Life , Death , Hope

“You know, you can tell the difference between a terrorist and a toddler. On a terrorist, the diaper is gonna be on the head, all right? That's how you can tell the difference. [very loud applause] It's upsetting. Unbelievable. They got absolutely nothing in common except both diapers are full of crap.”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Morning Constitutions (2007)

“How sweet is praise, and justly purchased glory,
By one's own actions, when to Heaven they soar!
Each nobler soul will strain, to have his story,
Match, if not darken, all that went before.
Envy of other's fame, not transitory,
Screws up illustrious actions more, and more.
Such, as contend in honorable deeds,
The spur of high applause incites their speeds.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Quão doce é o louvor e a justa glória
Dos próprios feitos, quando são soados!
Qualquer nobre trabalha que em memória
Vença ou iguale os grandes já passados.
As invejas da ilustre e alheia história
Fazem mil vezes feitos sublimados.
Quem valerosas obras exercita,
Louvor alheio muito o esperta e incita.
Stanza 92 (tr. Richard Fanshawe)
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto V

Soul , Envy , Speed

“We live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there's a great deal in which we choose not to participate. We wanted silence and we have that silence now. We arrived here speckled in sores and zits, our colons so tied in knots that we never thought we'd have a bowel movement again. Our systems had stopped working, jammed with the odor of copy machines, Wite-Out, the smell of bond paper, and the endless stress of pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause. We had compulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on a Saturday night was enough. But now that we live here in the desert, things are much, much better.”

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

Generation X (1991)

Silence , Night

“In 1934 I warned Mr. Baldwin that the Germans had a secret Air Force and were rapidly overhauling ours. I gave definite figures and forecasts. Of course, it was all denied with all the weight of official authority. I was depicted a scaremonger. Less than six months after Mr. Baldwin had to come down to the House and admit he was wrong. … He got more applause for making this mistake, which may prove fatal to the British Empire and to British freedom, than ordinary people would do after they rendered some great service which added to its security and power. Well, Mr. Chamberlain was, next to Mr. Baldwin, the most powerful Member of that Government. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He knew all the facts. His judgment failed just like that of Mr. Baldwin and we are are suffering from the consequences today.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Chingford (9 December 1938), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 1026
The 1930s

People , Secret , Freedom , Suffering

“I've never been one for late nights, which is why I have always preferred making films to theatre. A play takes over your life: you start to feel sick at lunchtime and by mid-afternoon you're wishing for a bomb scare so the whole thing will be called off. Of course, if the evening goes well and you get the applause then it's wonderful. We're a strange bunch, we actors.”

Charles Dance

Charles Dance's diary http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/charles-dances-diary-6407964.html (June 3, 2011)

Life , Feeling , Night

“To all this, his illustrious mind reflects the noblest ornament; he places no part of his happiness in ostentation, but refers the whole of it to conscience; and seeks the reward of a virtuous action, not in the applauses of the world, but in the action itself.”
Ornat haec magnitudo animi, quae nihil ad ostentationem, omnia ad conscientiam refert recteque facti non ex populi sermone mercedem, sed ex facto petit.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 22, 5.
Letters, Book I

World , Parting , Happiness

“Fame has earned me great applause, thanks to our generous people. of course, this fortune brought my financial situation. and the increasing love of the people who did not decline for years. Everything is mutual. I liked it very much, too many listeners, my followers … I paid my price with my heart, unfortunately. my heart is tired and said that this event comes from the stress of the scene that lasts for 25 years; doctors. And I said goodbye to the stage for 4 years. I gave my heart. I bought a lot but I gave it my heart, sir.”

Zeki Müren (1931–1996) Turkish musician

What did your honor stole from you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_jdymMh1U

Love , People , Heart

“And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: “When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.” Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for living out of love that disrupts the social order that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.”

Shane Claiborne The Irresistible Revolution

The Irresistible Revolution (2006)

Love , People , World , Justice

“All gunners were deaf, they said. They were the kings of the battlefield and they never heard the applause.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 249
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Honor (1985)

“[unenthusiastically at the beginning of every show in response to audience applause] "Thanks."”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Catchphrase

“When Sir Winton Turnbull [who represented a large rural seat], a slow and sometimes stumbling speaker, was raving and ranting on the adjournment and shouted: "I am a Count–ry member". I interjected "I remember". Sir Winton could not understand why, for the first time in all the years he had been speaking in the House, there was instant and loud applause from both sides.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

From a speech during a debate on the question That Politicians Have Lost Their Sense Of Humour http://whitlamdismissal.com/2000/05/24/whitlam-sense-of-humour-debate.html, Sydney Town Hall, 24 May 2000

Understanding , Time , Housing

“A fellow with a great voice shouted, "Hearken now to the words of the President of the Confederate States of America, the honorable Woodrow Wilson." The president turned this way and that, surveying the great swarm of people all around him in the moment of silence the volley had brought. Then, swinging back to face the statue of George Washington- and, incidentally, Reginald Bartlett- he said, "The father of our country warned us against entangling alliances, a warning that served us well when we were yoked to the North, before its arrogance created in our Confederacy what had never existed before- a national consciousness. That was our salvation and our birth as a free and independent country." Silence broke then, with a thunderous outpouring of applause. Wilson raised a bony right hand. Slowly, silence, of a semblance of it, returned. The president went on, "But our birth of national consciousness made the United States jealous, and they tried to beat us down. We found loyal friends in England and France. Can we now stand aside when the German tyrant threatens to grind them under his iron heel?" "No!" Bartlett shouted himself hoarse, along with thousands of his countrymen. Stunned, deafened, he had trouble hearing what Wilson said next: "Jealous still, the United States in their turn also developed a national consciousness, a dark and bitter one, as any so opposed to ours must be." He spoke not like a politician inflaming a crowd but like a professor setting out arguments- he had taken one path before choosing the other. "The German spirit of arrogance and militarism has taken hold in the United States; they see only the gun as the proper arbiter between nations, and their president takes Wilhelm as his model. He struts and swaggers and acts the fool in all regards."”

Harry Turtledove book The Great War: American Front

Now he sounded like a politician; he despised Theodore Roosevelt, and took pleasure in Roosevelt's dislike for him.
Source: The Great War: American Front (1998), p. 32

People , Pleasure , Fools , Way

“And finally, to my husband, who understands so well the awesome responsibilities resting on the shoulders of President Obama and Vice President Biden and all of us who serve with them. I am so grateful to him for a lifetime of… all kinds of experiences – (audience laughter) – which have given me a – (applause) – which have given me an extraordinary richness that I am absolutely beholden to and grateful for.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Official Swearing-in Ceremony http://web.archive.org/web/20090204230553/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/115841.htm, February 2, 2009
Secretary of State (2009–2013)

Understanding , Laughter

“Any kind of recognition for the work that you've done is a terrific thing. As a film actor, you don't often get that opportunity to meet with your audience and take your applause on stage. It's quite nice to meet people and hear them say, "I really enjoyed your work in this." I really enjoyed the Leprechaun films, and people who enjoy Leprechaun are quite obsessed.”

Warwick Davis (1970) English actor and television presenter

Warwick Davis Interview http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/04/11/warwick-davis-interview (April 11, 2012)

People

“The fundamental tenet of the Védántí school, to which in a more modern age the incomparable Sancara was a firm and illustrious adherent, consisted, not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which would be lunacy), but, in correcting the popular notion of it, and in contending, that it has no essence independent of mental perception, that existence and perceptibility are convertible terms, that external appearances and sensations are illusory, and would vanish into nothing if the divine energy, which alone sustains them, were suspended but for a moment; an opinion which Epicharmus and Plato seem to have adopted, and which has been maintained in the present century with great elegance, but with little publick applause; partly because it has been misunderstood, and partly because it has been misapplied by the false reasoning of some unpopular writers, who are said to have disbelieved in the moral attributes of God, whose omnipresence, wisdom, and goodness are the basis of the Indian philosophy… [N]othing can be farther removed from impiety than a system wholly built on the purest devotion; and the inexpressible difficulty, which any man, who shall make the attempt, will assuredly find in giving a satisfactory definition of material substance, must induce us to deliberate with coolness, before we censure the learned and pious restorer of the ancient Véda; though we cannot but admit, that, if the common opinions of mankind be the criterion of philosophical truth, we must adhere to the system of Gotama, which the Bráhmens of this province almost universally follow.”

William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India

II. pp. 238-239
"On the Philosophy of the Asiatics" (1794)

Wisdom , God , Truth , Age