Quotes about back
page 64

Dan Quayle photo

“We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to move forward.”

Dan Quayle (1947) American politician, lawyer

Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_xcaBdBHf4

Eric Hoffer photo

“Our passionate preoccupation with the sky, the stars, and a God somewhere in outer space is a homing impulse. We are drawn back to where we came from.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

On the first moon-landing, as quoted in The New York Times (21 July 1969)

Amitabh Bachchan photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Little Richard photo

“I woke up this mornin', Lucille was not in sight,
I asked my friends about her but all their lips was tight,
Lucille, please come back where you belong,
I've been good to you baby, please don't lead me along.”

Little Richard (1932) American pianist, singer and songwriter

Lucille, written by Albert Collins and Richard Penniman.
Song lyrics, Little Richard (1958)

Salwa Bugaighis photo
Bruno Schulz photo
Richard Proenneke photo
Rajiv Gandhi photo
Miriam Makeba photo
Joseph Campbell photo
Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Hesiod photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo
Judith Sheindlin photo
Alan Bean photo
Douglas Hofstadter photo
Lewis Pugh photo

“As a pioneer swimmer, you've got to be willing to fail and try again. The point isn’t to learn to fail, the point is to learn to bounce back.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

Website

Stevie Wonder photo

“I wish those days could come back once more,
Why did those days ever have to go?”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

I Wish
Song lyrics, Songs In The Key of Life (1976)

Bill Engvall photo
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis photo
Bernie Sanders photo

“A nation that in many ways was created—I'm sorry to have to say this, from way back—on racist principles, that's a fact, we have come a long way as a nation.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

"Bernie Sanders to Liberty University: America Founded on 'Racist Principles, That's a Fact'" by Fred Lucas, in The Blaze (14 September 2015) http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/14/bernie-sanders-to-liberty-university-america-founded-on-racist-principles-thats-a-fact/
2010s, 2015

E.M. Forster photo
V. V. S. Laxman photo

“I hope his back pretty sore for next week as well and he can't play.”

V. V. S. Laxman (1974) former Indian cricketer

w:Ricky Ponting worry on VVS batting against Team Australia. http://www.scrolldroll.com/quotes-about-vvs-laxman-that-show-he-is-truly-very-very-special/

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.”

"Essay on Ludwig von Ranke's 'History of the Popes', in "Critical and Historical Essays", iii, (London; Longman, 7th Edn. 1952), 100-1.
Attributed

Richard Smalley photo
Glen Cook photo

“I began to back away.
This is how I handle my women. Duck for cover when they get distressed.”

Source: Shadow Games (1989), Chapter 5, “Chains of Empire” (p. 31)

Stanley Baldwin photo
Yvette Cooper photo

“I have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Ministers are like fraudsters in the fairy tale, telling gullible Liberal Democrat MPs about the beautiful progressive clothes that the emperor is wearing, if only they are clever enough and loyal enough to see them. And desperately, we have Liberal Democrats clinging to shreds of invisible cloth, reaching deep into their Liberal and Conservative history to pretend that they can be progressive now. They are claiming that Keynes might have backed the Budget. They are calling on Beveridge for support, kidding themselves that they can call on their history and that they are following in the footsteps of great liberal Conservatives like Winston Churchill, who supported the minimum wage, but the truth is that the emperor has no clothes.
The truth is that if you look at the detail, the Budget is nastier than any brought in by Margaret Thatcher. Instead of Churchill, Keynes or the founders of the welfare state, the Liberal Democrats have signed up, with the Right Honourable Member for Chingford and his Chancellor, to cut support for the poor. It is perhaps apt that in this week of World Cup disappointments, it was actually a footballer who got it right. In 2002, after England were defeated in the World Cup by Brazil, Gareth Southgate reflected ruefully on England's performance and said:
"We were expecting Winston Churchill and instead got Iain Duncan Smith."
That is the reality for the Liberal Democrats now. With all their high hopes, they have betrayed the poor and the vulnerable, whom they stood up to defend.
[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb) rose]
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because I know he has a history of supporting people on low incomes and I do not know why he is betraying it now.”

Yvette Cooper (1969) British politician

During a budget response debate http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100628/debtext/100628-0012.htm, 28 July, 2010. Link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtORBuxY0MU.

Rachel Whiteread photo

“We still have prostitutes standing on our corner, and people crapping round the back of buildings. The charms are still there.”

Rachel Whiteread (1963) British sculptor

On her home-studio in Bethnal Green, as quoted in "Still breaking the mould" by Gordon Burn in The Guardian (11 October 2005) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1589344,00.html

Allen C. Guelzo photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“We can define a fact as an observation backed up by such a preponderance of evidence that no useful purpose would be served by doubting it.”

Mordechai Ben-Ari (1948) Israeli computer scientist

Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 3, “Words Scientists Don’t Use: At Least Not the Way You Do” (p. 46)

Jim Clyburn photo

“Has he paid his dues? Is he black enough? … John Lewis and I were out there marching and organizing sit-ins back in the '60s so that his children and my children would not have to do it. … We would have been failures if [Obama] had to do the same things we did.”

Jim Clyburn (1940) American politician

Attacking critics of presidential candidate Barack Obama who contend that Obama hasn't endured the Civil Rights-era struggles that other black politicians have
[6 July 2007, http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/07/clyburn_takes_up_heavy_politic.html, "Clyburn Does Heavy Political Lifting for Dems", The Washington Post, 2007-07-24]

Archibald Lampman photo
Marcus Aurelius photo

“Not to feel exasperated, or defeated, or despondent because your days aren't packed with wise and moral actions. But to get back up when you fail, to celebrate behaving like a human--however imperfectly--and fully embrace the pursuit that you've embarked on.”

Hays translation
Flinch not, neither give up nor despair, if the achieving of every act in accordance with right principle is not always continuous with thee.
V, 9
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

André Breton photo
Aung San Suu Kyi photo
Aron Ra photo
Linda McQuaig photo
William G. Boykin photo
Eddie Izzard photo

“Agatha Christie? We go back years, me and Ag. She's a … she's just a … she's dead, isn't she?”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Live at the Ambassadors (1993)

Roberto Clemente photo

“Look, here is the way I swing. I swing hard. I don’t punch the ball. I have bat control, and I don’t go for home runs, but I still swing as hard as some fellows who swing for the fences. My back is practically to first base when I finish the swing. I have to turn around before I can start running. Sometimes the ball is in the fielder’s hands before I drop the bat.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

On how being right-handed negatively impacted his chances of batting .400, as quoted in "Aches, Pains... and Base Hits" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=W6lWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xecDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7036%2C4509721 by Jim Murray, in The Los Angeles Times (August 10, 1971). Also see the above comment (August 11, 1964) re "stepping in the bucket."
Baseball-related, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Ian Holloway photo
Sergei Prokofiev photo

“The first was the classical line, which could be traced back to my early childhood and the Beethoven sonatas I heard my mother play. This line takes sometimes a neo-classical form (sonatas, concertos), sometimes imitates the 18th century classics (gavottes, the Classical symphony, partly the Sinfonietta). The second line, the modern trend, begins with that meeting with Taneyev when he reproached me for the “crudeness” of my harmonies. At first this took the form of a search for my own harmonic language, developing later into a search for a language in which to express powerful emotions (The Phantom, Despair, Diabolical Suggestion, Sarcasms, Scythian Suite, a few of the songs, op. 23, The Gambler, Seven, They Were Seven, the Quintet and the Second Symphony). Although this line covers harmonic language mainly, it also includes new departures in melody, orchestration and drama. The third line is toccata or the “motor” line traceable perhaps to Schumann’s Toccata which made such a powerful impression on me when I first heard it (Etudes, op. 2, Toccata, op. 11, Scherzo, op. 12, the Scherzo of the Second Concerto, the Toccata in the Fifth Concerto, and also the repetitive intensity of the melodic figures in the Scythian Suite, Pas d’acier[The Age of Steel], or passages in the Third Concerto). This line is perhaps the least important. The fourth line is lyrical; it appears first as a thoughtful and meditative mood, not always associated with the melody, or, at any rate, with the long melody (The Fairy-tale, op. 3, Dreams, Autumnal Sketch[Osenneye], Songs, op. 9, The Legend, op. 12), sometimes partly contained in the long melody (choruses on Balmont texts, beginning of the First Violin Concerto, songs to Akhmatova’s poems, Old Granny’s Tales[Tales of an Old Grandmother]). This line was not noticed until much later. For a long time I was given no credit for any lyrical gift whatsoever, and for want of encouragement it developed slowly. But as time went on I gave more and more attention to this aspect of my work. I should like to limit myself to these four “lines,” and to regard the fifth, “grotesque” line which some wish to ascribe to me, as simply a deviation from the other lines. In any case I strenuously object to the very word “grotesque” which has become hackneyed to the point of nausea. As a matter of fact the use of the French word “grotesque” in this sense is a distortion of the meaning. I would prefer my music to be described as “Scherzo-ish” in quality, or else by three words describing the various degrees of the Scherzo—whimsicality, laughter, mockery.”

Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer

Page 36-37; from his fragmentary Autobiography.
Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960)

Boris Johnson photo

“Take back control of huge sums of money, 350 million pounds a week, and spend it on our priorities such as the NHS.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Speaking during the ITV Referendum Debate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMjvG0-dI44 (9 June 2016)
2010s, 2016

Kumar Sangakkara photo

“You would always prefer to give back to your own country first but the way Mahela conducted himself as a player for Sri Lanka over the years has been exemplary”

Kumar Sangakkara (1977) Sri Lankan cricketer

Kumar Sangakkara on Mahela as a coaching consultant for England, quoted on The Guardian, "Kumar Sangakkara: England made smart move on mentor Mahela Jayawardene" http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/mar/13/kumar-sangakkara-england-mahela-jayawardene-world-twenty20-sri-lanka, March 13, 2016.

Paul Cézanne photo

“You must forgive me for continually coming back to the same thing; but I believe in the logical development of everything we see and feel through the study of nature and turn my attention to technical questions later.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote of 1906 from a letter; cited in Paul Cézanne, Letters ed. John Rewald, New York, Da Capro Press, 1995, p. 313
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900

“Envy is ashamed of itself. If it weren’t hanging back, it would go all the way to emulation and love.”

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#355
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

Russell Crowe photo
John Gray photo
Jean Giraudoux photo
Nanabhoy Palkhivala photo

“India is like a donkey carrying a sack of gold. The donkey does not know what it is carrying but is content to go along with its load on the back.”

Nanabhoy Palkhivala (1920–2002) Indian jurist and economist

Quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2014). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa., p. 10

Allan Kaprow photo
Richard Henry Horne photo

“The wisdom of mankind creeps slowly on,
Subject to every doubt that can retard
Or fling it back upon an earlier time.”

Richard Henry Horne (1802–1884) English poet and critic

Orion (1843), Book iii, Canto ii.

Cat Stevens photo

“Life is a journey, you know; and a lot of journeys, you go out, you come back.”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

From an interview with Yusuf Islam on London Tonight, an ITV (UK) television news programme, 8th December 2009

John Cheever photo

“When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places. That’s the way I remember them, heading for an exit.”

John Cheever (1912–1982) American novelist and short story writer

Quoted by Susan Cheever, Home before Dark Houghton Mifflin (1984).

Donald J. Trump photo
Gautama Buddha photo
Leslie Feist photo

“One, two, three, four, five, six, nine, and ten
Money can't buy you back the love that you had then.”

Leslie Feist (1976) Canadian musician

"1 2 3 4" (written with Sally Seltmann)
The Reminder (2007)

Theo de Raadt photo

“It's terrible, everyone is using it, and they don't realize how bad it is. And the Linux people will just stick with it and add to it rather than stepping back and saying, 'This is garbage and we should fix it.”

Theo de Raadt (1968) systems software engineer

Quoted in [Is Linux For Losers?, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2005/06/16/linux-bsd-unix-cz_dl_0616theo.html, Lyons, Daniel, 2005-06-16, 2007-01-10]
on the quality of the code of the Linux kernel

Willem de Kooning photo
James Hudson Taylor photo
Will Cuppy photo

“Charlemagne lived away back in the Dark Ages when people were not very bright. They have been getting brighter and brighter ever since, until finally they are like they are now.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part III: Strange Bedfellows, Charlemagne

Britney Spears photo
Stephen Vincent Benét photo
Muhammad photo
Louise Bourgeois photo

“Looking back on things, the view always improves.”

Walt Kelly (1913–1973) American cartoonist

Impollutable Pogo (1970)

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“Mr Mayor and gentlemen - I have great pleasure in associating myself in how ever humble and transitory manner with this great and splendid undertaking. I am glad to be associated with an enterprise which I hope will carry still further the prosperity and power of Liverpool, and which will carry down the name of Liverpool to posterity as the place where a great mechanical undertaking first found its home. Sir William Forwood has alluded to the share which this city took in the original establishment of railways. My memory does not quite carry me back to the melancholy event by which that opening was signalised, but I can remember that which presents to my mind a strange contrast with the present state of things. Almost the earliest thing I can recollect is being brought down here to my mother's house which is close in the neighbourhood, and we took two days on the road, and had to sleep half way. Comparing that with my journey yesterday I feel what an enormous distance has been traversed in the interval, and perhaps a still larger distance and a still more magnificent rate of progress will be achieved before a similar distance of time has elapsed from the present day. I will not detain you in a room where it is perhaps difficult to hear. Of all my oratorical efforts, the one which I find most difficult to achieve is that of competing with a steam engine. Occasionally you are invited to do it at railway stations, and I know distinguished statesmen who do it with effect, but I think I have never ventured to compete in that line. I will therefore, though with some fear and trembling, fulfil the injunctions of Sir William Forwood, and proceed to handle the electric machinery which is to set this line in motion. I only hope the result will be no different from what he anticipates.”

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

At the opening of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, 4 February 1893. Quoted in the Liverpool Echo of the same day, p. 3
1890s

Garry Kasparov photo

“Solving new problems is what keeps us moving forward as individuals and as a society, so don't back down.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

Part III, Chapter 13, Man Vs. Machine, p. 170
2000s, How Life Imitates Chess (2007)

Ray Lewis (American football) photo

“Remove the word black and say 'lives matter'… Stop sending mothers back home empty. You can never replace a mother's child. If we want black lives matter, let's make it matter to us. That's the new call.”

Ray Lewis (American football) (1975) former American football linebacker

As quoted in "Former NFL Player Ray Lewis: 'Let's Make Lives Matter'" https://web.archive.org/web/20150917002938/http://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/former-nfl-de-ray-lewis-lets-make-lives-matter-n424971 (2015), by Khorri Atkinson, NBC News.
2010s, 2015

Olympia Snowe photo

“Ultimately, we're heading to having the smallest political tent in history, the way events have been unfolding. If the Republican Party fully intends to become a majority party in the future, it must move from the far right back toward the middle.”

Olympia Snowe (1947) United States Senator from Maine

Statement of April 2009, as quoted in "US Sen. Olympia Snowe in her own words" by The Associated Press (28 February 2012).

Vitruvius photo

“nothing suffers annihilation, but at dissolution there is a change, and things fall back to the essential element in which they were before.”

Introduction, Sec. 1
De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book VII

“The forms often loop back on themselves… circling around on an idea in order to examine it more fully.”

Anne Simpson (1956) Canadian poet

Loop Annual Award.com Interview (February 2010)

Alanis Morissette photo

“And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back I hope you feel it.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

You Oughta Know
Jagged Little Pill (1995)

Woodrow Wilson photo
Louis Pasteur photo

“A little science estranges men from God, but much science leads them back to Him.”

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist

This alleged quotation is attributed to Pasteur at least as early as 1952, in Miracles, by Morvan Lebesque. It appears in a letter about Pasteur reprinted in the February 7, 1920 issue of America magazine, but the author of the letter attributes the saying to Pascal and says it applies to Pasteur. It may be a paraphrase of Francis Bacon, in "On Atheism" in Essays (1597): A little Philosophy inclineth Mans Minde to Atheisme; But depth in Philosophy, bringeth Mens Mindes about to Religion.
Misattributed

T.I. photo

“I like my beat down low, and my top let back
Can see me ride 24's wit a chopper in the back”

T.I. (1980) American rapper, record producer, actor, and businessman from Georgia

"Top Back".

Vincent Van Gogh photo
Sachin Tendulkar photo

“It's about not accepting every little challange thrown at you. Sometimes you hold back and when it's needed you go for it.”

Sachin Tendulkar (1973) A former Indian cricketer from India and one of the greatest cricketers ever seen in the world

Sometimes it is about being patient and not just about grabbing every opportunity that comes our way. http://www.storypick.com/quotes-by-tendulkar/

Miley Cyrus photo

“Some people don't have a family to fall back on, like I have, and that's when something greater than even that comes in, and that's faith and that's what I have for me, that's what keeps me strong.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

BREATHEcast.com http://www.breathecast.com/Christian.Music.News-Hannah.Montana.Star.Says.Faith.Keeps.Her.Grounded/1_2024.htm (March 3, 2008)

Ben Croshaw photo
Scott Clifton photo
Bob Dylan photo

“Take your clothes, put 'em in a sack. You goin' down the road, baby, and you cant come back. Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Modern Times (2006), Someday Baby

Janeane Garofalo photo

“Granted, not really a joke, but how often do you get a mic in your hand? You know? So. I am sorry but don't anybody trip on my soap box on the way out. Don't anybody trip over that. And the chip on my shoulder's a little heavy. I have back problems now.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

self-titled TV comedy special, 1997
said after she suggested a "Buddy System" where pro-lifers are federally assigned orphaned babies
Standup routines

Isabel II do Reino Unido photo

“Although we must leave you,
Fair Castle of Mey,
We shall never forget,
Nor will never repay,
A meal of such splendour,
Repast of such zest,
It will take us to Sunday,
Just to digest.
To leafy Balmoral,
We are now on our way,
But our hearts will remain
At the Castle of Mey.
With your gardens and ranges,
And all your good cheer,
We will be back again soon
So roll on next year.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Ode to the Castle of Mey, recorded in the visitors' book at the Castle of Mey, in Caithness, during a visit to the Queen Mother, 1993. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3049709.stm

T. H. White photo