Quotes about back
page 55

Harry Turtledove photo

“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."”

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

Kent Hovind photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
George W. Bush photo
Paul Simon photo
Arsène Wenger photo

“Going back in time, looking back is just as scary. […] there’s not as much to come as what has already been lived… The only way to fight time is to not look back too much. If you do, it can make you feel anxious and guilty.”

Arsène Wenger (1949) French footballer and manager

On His Anxiety and his relationship with time, (2015) http://www.ysone.com/coupons/store/puma-com/Arsene-Wenger-Famous-Quotes-of-2015
Arsenal (1996–present)

Jerry Springer photo

“Okay bear with me this'll be a little tough. You should know this isn't the first time I thought about leaving. I thought about it some twenty years ago when a check that would soon become a part of Cincinnati folklore, made me see life from the bottom. To be honest, a thought about ending it all crossed my mind, but a more reasonable alternative seemed to be 'hey how about just leaving town? Running away? Starting life over, some place else?' You see, in political terms as well as human, here in Cincinnati, I was dead. But then in the, probably, the luckiest decision I ever made, I decided 'No! I'm staying put!' I would withstand all the jokes, all the ridicule. I'd pretend it didn't hurt, and I would give every ounce of my being to Cincinnati. 'Why in time,' I was thinking, 'you'd have to like me. Or if not like me, at least respect me.' And I'd run for council even unendorsed. And I'd prove to you I could be the best public servant you ever had, or I'd die trying. Be it as a mayor, an anchor, or a commentator, whatever it took, I was determined to have you know that I was more than a check and a hooker on a one night stand. But something happened along the way. Maybe it's God's way of teaching us. I don't know, but you see? In trying to prove something to you, I learned something about me. I learned that I had fallen in love with you. With Cincinnati. With you who taught me more about life, and caring, and forgiving, and also most importantly, giving. Giving something back. Which is part of the reason… I have been… Excuse me. So sad this week. why… Why it's so hard to say goodbye. God bless you, and goodbye.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

his final commentary at NBC's WLWT in Ohio, January 1993
This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Tony Blair photo

“The intelligence is clear: [Saddam Hussein] continues to believe that his weapons of mass destruction programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. It is essential to his regional power. Prior to the inspectors coming back in, he was engaged in a systematic exercise in concealment of those weapons.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Hansard http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030225/debtext/30225-05.htm#30225-05_head0, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 400, col. 123.
House of Commons statement on Iraq, 25 February 2003.
2000s

Hendrik Lorentz photo

“One has been led to the conception of electrons, i. e. of extremely small particles, charged with electricity, which are present in immense numbers in all ponderable bodies, and by whose distribution and motions we endeavor to explain all electric and optical phenomena that are not confined to the free ether…. according to our modern views, the electrons in a conducting body, or at least a certain part of them, are supposed to be in a free state, so that they can obey an electric force by which the positive particles are driven in one, and the negative electrons in the opposite direction. In the case of a non-conducting substance, on the contrary, we shall assume that the electrons are bound to certain positions of equilibrium. If, in a metallic wire, the electrons of one kind, say the negative ones, are travelling in one direction, and perhaps those of the opposite kind in the opposite direction, we have to do with a current of conduction, such as may lead to a state in which a body connected to one end of the wire has an excess of either positive or negative electrons. This excess, the charge of the body as a whole, will, in the state of equilibrium and if the body consists of a conducting substance, be found in a very thin layer at its surface.
In a ponderable dielectric there can likewise be a motion of the electrons. Indeed, though we shall think of each of them as haying a definite position of equilibrium, we shall not suppose them to be wholly immovable. They can be displaced by an electric force exerted by the ether, which we conceive to penetrate all ponderable matter… the displacement will immediately give rise to a new force by which the particle is pulled back towards its original position, and which we may therefore appropriately distinguish by the name of elastic force. The motion of the electrons in non-conducting bodies, such as glass and sulphur, kept by the elastic force within certain bounds, together with the change of the dielectric displacement in the ether itself, now constitutes what Maxwell called the displacement current. A substance in which the electrons are shifted to new positions is said to be electrically polarized.
Again, under the influence of the elastic forces, the electrons can vibrate about their positions of equilibrium. In doing so, and perhaps also on account of other more irregular motions, they become the centres of waves that travel outwards in the surrounding ether and can be observed as light if the frequency is high enough. In this manner we can account for the emission of light and heat. As to the opposite phenomenon, that of absorption, this is explained by considering the vibrations that are communicated to the electrons by the periodic forces existing in an incident beam of light. If the motion of the electrons thus set vibrating does not go on undisturbed, but is converted in one way or another into the irregular agitation which we call heat, it is clear that part of the incident energy will be stored up in the body, in other terms [words] that there is a certain absorption. Nor is it the absorption alone that can be accounted for by a communication of motion to the electrons. This optical resonance, as it may in many cases be termed, can likewise make itself felt even if there is no resistance at all, so that the body is perfectly transparent. In this case also, the electrons contained within the molecules will be set in motion, and though no vibratory energy is lost, the oscillating particles will exert an influence on the velocity with which the vibrations are propagated through the body. By taking account of this reaction of the electrons we are enabled to establish an electromagnetic theory of the refrangibility of light, in its relation to the wave-length and the state of the matter, and to form a mental picture of the beautiful and varied phenomena of double refraction and circular polarization.
On the other hand, the theory of the motion of electrons in metallic bodies has been developed to a considerable extent…. important results that have been reached by Riecke, Drude and J. J. Thomson… the free electrons in these bodies partake of the heat-motion of the molecules of ordinary matter, travelling in all directions with such velocities that the mean kinetic energy of each of them is equal to that of a gaseous molecule at the same temperature. If we further suppose the electrons to strike over and over again against metallic atoms, so that they describe irregular zigzag-lines, we can make clear to ourselves the reason that metals are at the same time good conductors of heat and of electricity, and that, as a general rule, in the series of the metals, the two conductivities change in nearly the same ratio. The larger the number of free electrons, and the longer the time that elapses between two successive encounters, the greater will be the conductivity for heat as well as that for electricity.”

Hendrik Lorentz (1853–1928) Dutch physicist

Source: The Theory of Electrons and Its Applications to the Phenomena of Light and Radiant Heat (1916), Ch. I General principles. Theory of free electrons, pp. 8-10

Alexis De Tocqueville photo
John Updike photo
George W. Bush photo

“You want the country to go back to normal, but the presidency couldn't go back to normal.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2011, Speech at the Gerald R. Ford Foundation (2011)

Lucille Ball photo
Nick Cave photo

“Well, ah tied on, percht on mah bed ah was,
Sticken' a needle in mah arm, Ah tied off,
Fucken wings burst out mah back!”

Nick Cave (1957) Australian musician

Song lyrics, Mutiny (1993), Mutiny in Heaven

Whittaker Chambers photo
P. L. Travers photo

““Myth, Symbol, and Tradition” was the phrase I originally wrote at the top of the page, for editors like large, cloudy titles. Then I looked at what I had written and, wordlessly, the words reproached me. I hope I had the grace to blush at my own presumption and their portentousness. How could I, if I lived for a thousand years, attempt to cover more than a hectare of that enormous landscape?
So, I let out the air, in a manner of speaking, dwindled to my appropriate size, and gave myself over to that process which, for lack of a more erudite term, I have coined the phrase “Thinking is linking.” I thought of Kerenyi — “Mythology occupies a higher position in the bios, the Existence, of a people in which it is still alive than poetry, storytelling or any other art.” And of Malinowski — “Myth is not merely a story told, but a reality lived.” And, along with those, the word “Pollen,” the most pervasive substance in the world, kept knocking at my ear. Or rather, not knocking, but humming. What hums? What buzzes? What travels the world? Suddenly I found what I sought. “What the bee knows,” I told myself. “That is what I’m after.”
But even as I patted my back, I found myself cursing, and not for the first time, the artful trickiness of words, their capriciousness, their lack of conscience. Betray them and they will betray you. Be true to them and, without compunction, they will also betray you, foxily turning all the tables, thumbing syntactical noses. For — note bene! — if you speak or write about What The Bee Knows, what the listener, or the reader, will get — indeed, cannot help but get — is Myth, Symbol, and Tradition! You see the paradox? The words, by their very perfidy — which is also their honorable intention — have brought us to where we need to be. For, to stand in the presence of paradox, to be spiked on the horns of dilemma, between what is small and what is great, microcosm and macrocosm, or, if you like, the two ends of the stick, is the only posture we can assume in front of this ancient knowledge — one could even say everlasting knowledge.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

"What the Bee Knows" in Parabola : The Magazine of Myth and Tradition, Vol. VI, No. 1 (February 1981); later published in What the Bee Knows : Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story (1989)

Alan Moore photo
Harold L. Ickes photo
Gertrude Stein photo

“Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers’ granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 3

C. N. R. Rao photo
Samuel Beckett photo
Naomi Klein photo
Mark Satin photo
Tommy Franks photo
Robert F. Kennedy photo

“Now I can go back to being ruthless again.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Remark on his reputation for "ruthlessness" after winning his race for a seat in the United States Senate, quoted in Esquire (April 1965)

“How much of our lives could we buy back if we cherished our lives instead of our trinkets?”

Gerry Spence (1929) American lawyer

Source: Give Me Liberty! (1998), Ch. 17 : Success Redefined, p. 199

Tawakkol Karman photo

“Women should stop being or feeling that they are part of the problem and become part of the solution. We have been marginalized for a long time, and now is the time for women to stand up and become active without needing to ask for permission or acceptance. This is the only way we will give back to our society and allow for Yemen to reach the great potentials it has.”

Tawakkol Karman (1979) Yemeni journalist, politician, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

As quoted in "Renowned activist and press freedom advocate Tawakul Karman to the Yemen Times: 'A day will come when all human rights violators pay for what they did to Yemen.'", in Yemen Times (3 November 2011)
2010s

Noel Gallagher photo

“I took a walk with my fame down memory lane / I never did find my way back"
Feel no shame / 'coz time's no chain"”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Hey Now
(What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

“But you have concerns about that back line, don't you, Taylor?”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

2010s, 2014, Voice of the Americans (2014)

Robert Erskine Childers photo

“The British can sign and find a way to repudiate their signatures. They've done it over and over again. You need to go back to the Treaty Of Limerick. You have Malta and Egypt, for instance. They can always find high moral reasons for such repudiation. They are opportunists. Griffith, however, having given his word, would stick to it whatever the consequences, even though it meant the disaster of a civil war. They knew that.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

Taken from a 1922, conversation between Childers and Brennan in regards to Arthur Griffith's decision to sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), cited in "Allegiance" by Robert Brennan, Browne & Nolan, Dublin (1950), pp. 254-55.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918), Last Years: Ireland (1919-1922)

Mario Savio photo
Fritz Leiber photo
James Carville photo
Stephen King photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Charlotte Brontë photo
Mark Rowlands photo
Kent Hovind photo
Toni Morrison photo
Algis Budrys photo
David Brin photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo
Clifford D. Simak photo
Denis Diderot photo

“The infant runs toward it with its eyes closed, the adult is stationary, the old man approaches it with his back turned.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

"Death"
Elements of Physiology (1875)

Markandey Katju photo
Phil Ochs photo

“The painter paints his brushes black
Through the canvas runs a crack
Portrait of the pain never answers back.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

"The Flower Lady" http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/flower-lady.html
Pleasures of the Harbor (1967)

Kathy Griffin photo
Hermann Hesse photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“Do you know what I long for sometimes? To make a trip to Brabant. I should love to draw the old churchyard at Nuenen, and the weavers. To make, for instance, during a month, studies of Brabant, and to come back [to The Hague] with a lot of them, for a large drawing of a peasant funeral for instance.”

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

Quote of letter 295, from The Hague, 1883; as cited in Vincent van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, catalog-page: Dutch Period 2. - Weaver
1880s, 1883

John Stuart Mill photo
Karel Appel photo
Charles Darwin photo

“I have attempted to write the following account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

volume I, chapter II: "Autobiography", page 27 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=45&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

Ellen Page photo
Ai Weiwei photo
Gloria Estefan photo

“I'm in great shape considering I have hardware in my back. I work out constantly to keep my muscles limber and my abs strong so they can take the burnt of everything.”

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

Latina Magazine (September, 2007)
2007, 2008

Tiffany Trump photo
Ted Cruz photo
Norman G. Finkelstein photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Don took it and said, “Uh, thanks! That’s awfully kind of you. I’ll pay it back, first chance.”
“Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it.””

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 8, “Foxes Have Holes, and Birds of the Air Have Nests—” (p. 91)

Fenella Fielding photo

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

Fenella Fielding (1927–2018) English actress

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

Joseph Priestley photo
Fred Dibnah photo

“Steam engines don't answer back. You can belt them with a hammer and they say nowt.”

Fred Dibnah (1938–2004) English steeplejack and television personality, with a keen interest in mechanical engineering

Unsourced

Bill Engvall photo
Ron Paul photo

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

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

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

Hariprasad Chaurasia photo

“Half-a-century ago, I came to Odisha to embark on my musical journey. This land has nourished my soul and nurtured my spirit. Through this Gurukul I wish to give back a small part of what I received from here.”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

During the launching of his “Vrindaban Gurukul”, an institution for training in Indian classical music in Orissa. Quoted in A step forward in promotion of classical music, 22 March 2010, 19 December 2013, The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/22/stories/2010032258300200.htm,

Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Susan Cain photo

“I look back on my years as a Wall Street lawyer as time spent in a foreign country.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

"The quiet strength of the introvert," The Chicago Tribune, February 20, 2012.

Marc Chagall photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Erik Naggum photo
Sacha Baron Cohen photo

“The moment I appeared the crowd started jeering and booing and shouting ‘faggot’ and spitting, I had hired a bodyguard and when the jeering started I turned to see where the bodyguard was, I could just see the back of his head as he was running out of the stadium.”

Sacha Baron Cohen (1971) English stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and voice actor

Describing the reaction of a 60,000 crowd of American Football fans and his bodyguard, while appearing as Bruno (the flamboyantly homosexual fashion journalist) at an NFL match http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2557633.html

Noam Chomsky photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“Welcome back, my cheeky wee monkeys.”

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

citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), "Welcome Back" variations

Stephen Baxter photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“For more than four years it has been my honor and my privilege to serve as the leader of the greatest police department in the world. This organization is made up of police officers, detectives and leaders who every day and every night go out and earn the title New York's Finest, and to have the opportunity to lead them and serve the people of New York City is something I have cherished and will always look back on with pride.”

Howard Safir (1941)

A statement by Safir in a press release announcing his resignation as New York City Police Commissioner.
[Archives of the Mayor's Press Office, http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2000b/pr307-00.html, Release #307-00 - MAYOR GIULIANI AND POLICE COMMISSIONER SAFIR ANNOUNCE THAT SAFIR IS LEAVING THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, The City of New York, 2000-08-09, 2007-12-20]

Alan Shepard photo

“There's no question that all the generations got excited about the first flights, with Kennedy's inspiration to go to the moon, leaving the planet for the first time, and fortunately coming back.”

Alan Shepard (1923–1998) American astronaut

Richard Louv (August 2, 1995) "The thrill of space? Let's ask Alan Shepard", The San Diego Union-Tribune, p. A-2.

Halle Berry photo
Dennis Miller photo
Tina Fey photo
Wilfred Thesiger photo
Paul Krugman photo