Quotes about back
page 40

Vitruvius photo

“Voice is a flowing breath of air, perceptible to the hearing by contact. It moves in an endless number of circular rounds, like the innumerably increasing circular waves which appear when a stone is thrown into smooth water, and which keep on spreading indefinitely from the centre unless interrupted by narrow limits, or by some obstruction which prevents such waves from reaching their end in due formation. When they are interrupted by obstructions, the first waves, flowing back, break up the formation of those which follow.”

Alternate translation: The voice is a flowing breath, made sensible to the organ of hearing by the movements it produces in the air. It is propagated in infinite numbers of circular zones, exactly as when a stone is thrown into a pool of standing water countless circular undulations are generated therein, which, increasing as they recede from the center, spread out over a great distance, unless the narrowness of the locality or some obstacle prevent their reaching their termination; for the first line or waves, when impeded by obstructions, throw by their backward swell the succeeding circular lines of waves into confusion. Quoted by Ernst Mach, The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of its Development (1893, 1960) Tr. Thomas J. McCormack
Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book V, Chapter IV, Sec. 6

Carole King photo
Paul Laurence Dunbar photo
Willem Roelofs photo

“I was sorry for Gabriel that all the efforts you have employed so diligently were in vain to help him to sell one of his paintings in [the exposition in Amsterdam, in] 'Arti'. Is there not any chance to order from him a small presentable painting (backed up by me, if it will help) for one or the other? He really deserves it and hundred guilders can mean so much at some moments.”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek
(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Het speet mij voor Gabriel alle door U zoo ijverig aangewende moeite te vergeefsch is geweest, om hem van een der schilderijen in 'Arti' [in Amsterdam] af te helpen. Zou er geen kans bestaan om voor hem eens een klein gesoigneerd (door mij, als het helpen kan, gerugsteund) schilderij te bestellen voor den een of ander? Hij verdient het zoo dubbel en een honderd guldens kunnen op sommige oogenblikken zoo véél doen.
Quote from Roelof's letter to Mr. P. verloren van Themaat , from Brussels, 4 Sept 1862; as cited in an excerpt in the R.K.D. Archive https://rkd.nl/explore/excerpts/291, The Hague
1860's

“A few programming is taking you away from mathematics; a lot will get you back in.”

Xavier Leroy (1968) French computer scientistand programmer

Sources
Source: Xavier Leroy (2007) Conclusion of his seminar at Collège de France, 2009-03-13 http://www.college-de-france.fr/default/EN/all/inn_tec2007/seminaire_n3_xavier_leroy.htm,

DJ Paul photo
William Gibson photo
John Crowley photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“Welcome back, my naughty monkeys.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

whipcrack
citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), "Welcome Back" variations
Variant: Welcome back, my frisky badgers

Hal David photo
Andrew Carnegie photo
James MacDonald photo
Taylor Caldwell photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Paula Modersohn-Becker photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Gloria Estefan photo
George W. Bush photo
Tim McGraw photo
Van Morrison photo
Leonard Peikoff photo

“Now, the United States’ response, the western response to this is a continuation of the appeasement that was started back in the ’50s with Eisenhower when Iran seized western oil companies. The Americans, the British, and the Israelis, as I remember, launched an attack to try to reclaim it and — or at least the British and the Israelis did and Eisenhower vetoed it.”

Leonard Peikoff (1933) Canadian-American philosopher

On Middle East history and American foreign policy, in What do you think of the plan for a mosque in New York City near Ground Zero? (28 June 2010) http://www.peikoff.com/2010/06/28/what-do-you-think-of-the-plan-for-a-mosque-in-new-york-city-near-ground-zero-isnt-it-private-property-and-therefore-protected-by-individual-rights/ - Transcript http://treygivens.com/?p=1738
2010s

Karl Kraus photo

“If I return some people's greetings, I do so only to give them their greeting back.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

Daniel Patrick Moynihan photo
Anton Mauve photo

“Hereby I send you back the 'Winter' [a painting]. I hope you will be better satisfied now. After alternately smashing away and adding on the cart some new figures, finally this one climbed up, which I hope will do better than its predecessors..”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Hierbij zend ik je den winter [een schilderij] terug. Ik hoop dat je nu beter tevreden zult zijn. Na er eenige figuurtjes beurtelings op en van de wagen zijn gesmeten is er eindelijk deze opgeklommen die hoop ik beter zijn werk zal doen dan zijn voorganger..
Quote in a letter to Goupil in The Hague; as cited by R. Tervaert & C. Stolwijk, in ‘’De fabriek: Anton Mauve en zijn handelaren’’, 2009, p. 139
art-seller Goupil in The Hague wanted to buy this painting but demanded some additions first, to make it more marketable, it was too 'empty'
undated quotes

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
George Steiner photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo
Margaret Drabble photo
Gerd von Rundstedt photo
Jan Smuts photo
Piet Joubert photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“Yet scientists are required to back up their claims not with private feelings but with publicly checkable evidence. Their experiments must have rigorous controls to eliminate spurious effects. And statistical analysis eliminates the suspicion (or at least measures the likelihood) that the apparent effect might have happened by chance alone.Paranormal phenomena have a habit of going away whenever they are tested under rigorous conditions. This is why the £740,000 reward of James Randi, offered to anyone who can demonstrate a paranormal effect under proper scientific controls, is safe. Why don't the television editors insist on some equivalently rigorous test? Could it be that they believe the alleged paranormal powers would evaporate and bang go the ratings?Consider this. If a paranormalist could really give an unequivocal demonstration of telepathy (precognition, psychokinesis, reincarnation, whatever it is), he would be the discoverer of a totally new principle unknown to physical science. The discoverer of the new energy field that links mind to mind in telepathy, or of the new fundamental force that moves objects around a table top, deserves a Nobel prize and would probably get one. If you are in possession of this revolutionary secret of science, why not prove it and be hailed as the new Newton? Of course, we know the answer. You can't do it. You are a fake.Yet the final indictment against the television decision-makers is more profound and more serious. Their recent splurge of paranormalism debauches true science and undermines the efforts of their own excellent science departments. The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudo-scientific charlatans. The public appetite for wonder can be fed, through the powerful medium of television, without compromising the principles of honesty and reason.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

[Human gullibility beyond belief,— the “paranormal” in the media, The Sunday Times, 1996-08-25]

Tommy Franks photo

“Another hallway led to a green steel door. "This is the execution chamber," the officer said. "The day of the execution, we take the man through this door." He opened the green door, and we blinked at the bright lights inside. A big chair filled the room. I could smell leather. "All right, boys," he said. "Line up." The kids made a straight line that led out the green door, then moved ahead, one at a time, to sit in the big wooden chair. "This is the electric chair, Tommy Ray," my dad explained. "It's where murderers are executed." The boys inched forward. Some sat longer in the chair than others. Executed meant killed, that much I knew. "This is the ultimate consequence for the ultimate act of evil," my father told the troop. When all the boys had sat in the chair, it was my turn. I reached up and felt the smooth wood, the leather straps with cold metal buckles. There was a black steel cap dangling up there like a lamp without a bulb. "Up you go, Tommy Ray," Dad said, hoisting me into the chair. The boys were staring at me. But I wasn't even a little bit afraid. My father stood right beside me. I could feel his warm hand next to the cool metal buckle. As the school bus rumbled out of the prison parking lot that afternoon, I stared back at the high walls. I had learned another important lesson. A consequence was what followed what you did. If you did good things, you'd be rewarded with further good things. If you broke the law, you'd have to pay the price. I have never forgotten that lesson.”

Tommy Franks (1945) United States Army general

Source: American Soldier (2004), p. 8

Angela Merkel photo
Dan Fogelberg photo
Alfred Noyes photo
Kevin Rowland photo
Craig Venter photo
Richard Dawkins photo

“I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don't look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Giles Whittell, " The world according to Richard Dawkins http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4191347.ece" (), The Times, quoted in Trevor Grundy, " Richard Dawkins Pedophilia Remarks Provoke Outrage http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/richard-dawkins-pedophilia_n_3895514.html" (), The Huffington Post.

James Howard Kunstler photo
Christopher Hitchens photo

“"Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age" was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals… But an instant's thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed OUT of the Stone Age.”

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

2001-11-15
Christopher Hitchens on why peace-lovers must welcome this war
The Mirror
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/WAR+ON+TERROR%3a+CHRISTOPHER+HITCHENS+on+why+peace-lovers+must+welcome...-a080078072: On the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
2000s, 2001

Cesare Pavese photo
Richard K. Morgan photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Chris Murphy photo

“A progressive foreign policy isn’t just looking at the back-end of terrorism, but is also looking at the front-end of terrorism.”

Chris Murphy (1973) American politician

"Do Liberals Have an Answer to Trump on Foreign Policy?" (March 2017)

Alan Rusbridger photo
Donald Barthelme photo

“It's true," Carl said, "with a kind of merde-y inner truth which shines forth as the objective correlative of what actually did happen, back home.”

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

"Margins".
Come Back, Dr. Caligari (1964)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Pat Robertson photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“there is a mushroom cloud in the back garden
i did i tried to bring in the cat
but it simply came to pieces in my hand
i did i tried to whitewash the windows
but there weren't any”

Roger McGough (1937) British writer and poet

"Mother the Wardrobe is Full of Infantrymen", from The Mersey Sound (1967)

George Carlin photo
Van Morrison photo
Curtis LeMay photo

“My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power—not with ground forces.”

Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) American general and politician

Mission With LeMay: My Story (1965), p. 565. In an interview two years after the publication of this book, General LeMay said, "I never said we should bomb them back to the Stone Age. I said we had the capability to do it. I want to save lives on both sides"; reported in The Washington Post (October 4, 1968), p. A8. Many years later LeMay would claim that this was his ghost writer's overwriting.

Willie Mays photo
Tom DeLay photo
Arlo Guthrie photo

“We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, "You know what? I know my dad's songs…"”

Arlo Guthrie (1947) American folk singer

Talking about an unsuccessful performance of Alice's Restaurant Massacre, and how his children who were onstage for the performance did not know how to help him. (Live in Sydney)

Ben Croshaw photo
Colin Moulding photo
Borís Pasternak photo
Edward Everett Hale photo

“Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand!”

Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) American author and Unitarian clergyman

Variants of "the Four Mottos":
Look up and not down;
Look out and not in.
Look forward and not back;
Lend a hand!
As used in Our New Crusade (1884)
Look up and not down;
Look forward and not back;
Look out and not in; —
Lend a hand!
Handwritten version published in an 1917 edition
Ten Times One is Ten (1870)

George William Russell photo
E.E. Cummings photo
Richard Hooker photo

“I observe there is in Mr. Hooker no affected language; but a grave, comprehensive, clear manifestation of reason, and that backed with the authority of the Scriptures, the fathers and schoolmen, and with all law both sacred and civil.”

Richard Hooker (1554–1600) English bishop and Anglican Divine

Izaac Walton, The Life of Mr Rich. Hooker. In Walton's Lives, George Saintsbury, ed., reprinted in Oxford World's Classics (1927).
About

Henry Miller photo
Eddie Izzard photo
Ilana Mercer photo
Edwin Arnold photo
Pat Condell photo
Jean Baudrillard photo

“And I'd like to say this to [Sir James Goldsmith]……. who has got nothing to be smug about, and I would like to say that 1,500 votes is a derisory total. We have shown tonight that the Referendum Party is dead in the water, and Sir James can get off back to Mexico knowing your attempt to buy the British political system has failed.”

David Mellor (1949) former British politician, non-practising barrister, broadcaster, journalist and businessman

Quoted in Brian Cathcart, "Were you still up for Portillo?" (Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 63-4
From a speech following his defeat in the 1997 General Election and directed at Sir James Goldsmith.

Frederick Douglass photo

“There is something about Hayti which we have to deplore, and so there is about the United States. Let us go back 100 years and look at Hayti, and we find it surrounded by slavery and the whole Caribbean Sea reddened by the curse.”

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

Speech in Baltimore http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/the-nations-problem/ (7 September)

Roberto Clemente photo
Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Isaac Asimov photo

“Plowboy: You truly feel that all the major changes in history have been caused by science and technology?
Asimov: Those that have proved permanent—the ones that affected every facet of life and made certain that mankind could never go back again—were always brought about by science and technology. In fact, the same twin "movers" were even behind the other "solely" historical changes. Why, for instance, did Martin Luther succeed, whereas other important rebels against the medieval church—like John Huss—fail? Well, Luther was successful because printing had been developed by the time he advanced his cause. So his good earthy writings were put into pamphlets and spread so far and wide that the church officials couldn't have stopped the Protestant Reformation even if they had burned Luther at the stake.
Plowboy: Today the world is changing faster than it has at any other time in history. Do you then feel that science—and scientists—are especially important now?
Asimov: I do think so, and as a result it's my opinion that anyone who can possibly introduce science to the nonscientist should do so. After all, we don't want scientists to become a priesthood. We don't want society's technological thinkers to know something that nobody else knows—to "bring down the law from Mt. Sinai"—because such a situation would lead to public fear of science and scientists. And fear, as you know, can be dangerous.
Plowboy: But scientific knowledge is becoming so incredibly vast and specialized these days that it's difficult for any individual to keep up with it all.
Asimov: Well, I don't expect everybody to be a scientist or to understand every new development. After all, there are very few Americans who know enough about football to be a referee or to call the plays … but many, many people understand the sport well enough to follow the game. It's not important that the average citizen understand science so completely that he or she could actually become involved in research, but it is very important that people be able to "follow the game" well enough to have some intelligent opinions on policy.
Every subject of worldwide importance—each question upon which the life and death of humanity depends—involves science, and people are not going to be able to exercise their democratic right to direct government policy in such areas if they don't understand what the decisions are all about.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Mother Earth News interview (1980)

Pete Doherty photo
Alexandra Kollontai photo
Lindsay Lohan photo
Jean Tinguely photo

“I wanted something ephemeral, that would pass like a falling star and, most importantly, that would be impossible for museums to reabsorb. I didn't want it to be 'museumised'. The work had to pass by, make people dream and talk, and that would be all, the next day nothing would be left, everything would go back to the garbage bins.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

Quote of Tinguely in a radio interview (1982), as cited in: 'Violand-Hobi', Heidi G. Jean Tinguely: Life and Work (NY: Prestel, 1995), p. 36 ; Talking about his Homage to New York; Cited in: John D. Powell. (2009, p. 31).
Quotes, 1980's

Russell Brand photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“The Future is more present than the Past :
For one look back, a thousand on we cast;
And hope doth ever memory outlast.”

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

(1834-1) (Vol.40) The Future, compare Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) I, 31
The Monthly Magazine

William Blake photo

“Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau.
Mock on, mock on — 'tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Mock On, st. 1
1800s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1804)

Winston S. Churchill photo
Sienna Guillory photo
G. Edward Griffin photo

“The very wise and wealthy financiers of the world--going way back, even before Rothschild's time--have observed that the world was a pretty rocky place to live in, and that nations were always fighting over something or other, there was always somebody who was trying to conquer somebody else, and wars were universal. Too bad about that, but that's the way it is. So we--the bankers--found out that if we loan money to them that we'll get paid back - they don't question what the interest rate is because they're fighting a war! And if they can win the war they can just plunder the victim and pay us whatever we want out of the plunder - it doesn't cost them anything really. Then the issue comes up of what happens if one of these nations decides not to pay us? Ah! The answer is very simple: if they refuse to pay us back we'll finance an opposing nation, a revolutionary group somewhere else to become an enemy of that nation and attack it, and destroy it, invade it. We'll create another war, in other words, in order to get our money back, we'll finance this side to attack that side. And so, by financing all sides in a war, and keeping the world divided up into warring fractions so that no one unit is particularly stronger than the other, the banks can continue to finance all sides of wars forever, and always collect their interest, because they have the ability of putting one nation against another nation against another nation to collect their debts.”

G. Edward Griffin (1931) American conspiracy theorist, film producer, author, and political lecturer

From the documentary Corporate Fascism: The Destruction of America's Middle Class (2011) http://www.youtube.com/embed/hTbvoiTJKIs?autoplay=1&start=2094&end=2183