Quotes about barber (29 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“It seemed queer, in the barber's shop, to see the Anarchist notice still on the wall, explaining that tips were prohibited. "The Revolution has struck off our chains," the notice said. I felt like telling the barbers that their chains would soon be back on again if they didn't look out.”

George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

“Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

“Schultz: You must speak.
Jewish barber: I can't.
Schultz: It's our only hope.”

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

The Great Dictator (1940)

Hope

“Leonid Brezhnev needed a haircut, so he went down to the ground floor of the Kremlin and plopped into the chair. It was understood that at such times the barber was to say not a word, just cut hair. But this morning, after a few snips he said: "Comrade Brezhnev what are you going to do about Poland?" No reply. Some minutes later: "Comrade Brezhnev, what about Poland?" Again no reply. Then, pretty soon: "Comrade Brezhnev, you've got to do something about Poland." At this Brezhnev jumps out of the chair and tears away the cloth: "What's all this about Poland?" and the barber says: "It makes my job so much easier," and Brezhnev screams: "What do you mean?" and the barber says: "Every time I mention Poland your hair stands straight up on end."”

James A. Michener book Poland

page 567
Poland (1983)

Tear , Time , Clothes

“A barber lathers a man before he shaves him.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

“My first memory of Nirvana was getting a cassette of demos, which ended up becoming Bleach. Everybody's response was that this was an amazing band and these were amazing songs. It was another indication that the Northwest had something special that you couldn't argue with.
It was pretty shocking to see a threepiece that sounded like that, and trying to get inside the head of a guy who writes a song like "Floyd the Barber" – where does the kernel of a song like that start?
The Seattle scene benefitted from an MTV culture, and it was because of the way Nirvana looked and presented themselves that created this kind of unanimous support worldwide. Rock music had become kind of hedonistic – 35-year-old men taking a helicopter to the stage and dating supermodels, and going out of their way to separate themselves from their audience. Nirvana, more than any other band, rocked way harder, had significant originality, while looking like guys you went to high school with. I think that was their secret. There was an inclusion that was long overdue, and it was what rock was supposed to be about.
The legend isn't simply going to be the way that he took his life; I believe it will always be the songs.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Soundgarden Era

Life , Men , Secret , School

“Once the good man was dead, one wore his hat and another his sword as he had worn them, a third had himself barbered as he had, a fourth walked as he did, but the honest man that he was — nobody any longer wanted to be that.”

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

C 36
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook C (1772-1773)

Dead

“Of course Ben Carson advisors can't make him smart, you can't change its brain. That's a job for a neurosurgeon. It's the same when your barber has a #### haircut.”

Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian

18 November 2015
The Daily Show
Source: Visible at 00:50 di Ben Carson's Public Breakup http://www.cc.com/video-clips/2ybqd8/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-ben-carson-blames-the-victims, CC.com, 18 novembre 2015.

Change

“He was a stout partisan of Islãm and made great endeavours on this score. He got all temples of the infidels demolished, and did not allow even a trace of them to remain. In Mathurã, where the infidels used to get together for bathing, he got constructed caravanserais, markets, mosques and madrasas, and appointed there officers with instructions that they should allow no one to bathe; if any Hindû desired to get his beard or head shaved in the city of Mathurã, no barber was prepared to cut his hair.”

Nizamuddin Ahmad (1551–1594) historian

Sultãn Sikandar Lodî (AD 1489-1517) Mathura (Uttar Pradesh)
Tabqãt-i-Akharî

“Reform your texts, reform your history. Say leather is not untouchable to God, the barber's knife is not untouchable to God. Take a Dalit priest and a Brahmin priest to celebrations. Do these symbolic things. Let them (high-caste Hindus) come and sit with Dalits in their huts and eat with them”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

Quoted in "War against Ignorance" at The Hindu (01 February 2010) http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/war-against-ignorance/article98547.ece.

God , History

“Ho, pretty page, with the dimpled chin
That never has known the barber’s shear,
All your wish is woman to win,
This is the way that boys begin.
Wait till you come to Forty Year.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist

The Age of Wisdom, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Way , Boy , Waiting

“Sex and politics - sex and politicians. I never understand how any politician gets a shag, really. Can you? A classic example: the David Mellor sex scandal. I bet you're the same as me. We're not shocked by these scandals involving politicians. I bet when that happened, your response was not 'Good God, that's outrageous! A man in his job, he should be running the country, not messing about like this; no wonder we're in a state; terrible!' No, that wasn't the response. You open the paper, you read about that, and you go 'Ha ha ha ha - I don't think so, Dave! I don't think so. In your dreams, perhaps.' The interesting person in that relationship is not him; it's her - Antonia. A woman of mystery; a mystery woman. Antonia de Sancha, always described as an 'unemployed actress'. Unemployed actress? How's she an unemployed actress? God! if you can feign sexual interest in David Mellor, I should think Chekhov's a piece of piss. So, she thinks 'I'm an actress. It's a role. I'll prepare'. She gets to the bedroom situation. He's in a kit-off situation, and there's Antonia giving it 'Red lorry, yellow lorry - Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper'. But the hair - that's the main unattractive thing. What barber told him that suited him? Someone winding him up there. 'Yes, David, that'll suit you, mate: a greasy, oily flap of dirty-looking patent leather, wafting about down one side of your moosh; that'll drive those unemployed actresses mental!' (Linda Live, 1993)”

Linda Smith (1958–2006) comedian

Stand-up

God , Dreams , Sex , Understanding

“…He was firmly attached to the Mahomedan religion, and made a point of destroying all Hindoo temples. In the city of Mutra he caused musjids and bazars to be built opposite the bathing-stairs leading to the river and ordered that no Hindoos should be allowed to bathe there. He forbade the barbers to shave the beards and beads of the inhabitants, in order to prevent the Hindoos following their usual practices at such pilgrimages…”

Firishta (1560–1620) Indian historian

Sultãn Sikandar Lodî (AD 1489-1517) Mathura (Uttar Pradesh)
Tãrîkh-i-Firishta

Religion

“O faithless brother what has happened that in vain you joined hands to violate my honour, and to stain your own hand with my blood. You gathered round yourself a band of persons addicted to vice … you excited this gang of villains to hate me … I appointed you to act for me. I ordered my friends to obey you … you are now out to destroy me. I was your guest you abused me. You swore at me in my face. That which you yourself deserved you ascribed to me. You inspired your servants with rancorous hatred of me. Even you taught your own barber your own falsehoods. He gave false evidence against the truth. You set in motion this great sedition …. Outwardly you pretended to be my friend. You attended my feast. You ate my meal of trust. Inwardly you manifested your falsehood until Shawal 23 [Presumably March 11, 1866] when I was keeping a fast you withheld bread and water from me. … By deceit you intercepted my epistles. Some of them which were to your advantage you paraded before the inhabitants of the city [i. e. Edirne]. At present am in straitened circumstances and you are in affluence. And yet you pretend the contrary.”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Quoted in Mirza Mustafa Katib's Response to Zayn al-Muqarrabin on page 46
Open Letter to Bahá'u'lláh

Hate , Truth , Water , Personality

“[BitCoin]'s the greatest scam of modern times. … the poor, the average mom-and-pop, the truck driver and the barber, who put their life savings into this, are going to lose their money, and be told to keep holding on, trust us, the value will go up. And they're gonna go bankrupt. They're gonna lose their life savings. … This is what happened with the dot-com boom, the grandma and grandpa lost their life savings. History is repeating itself. … We have these scamsters, basically, hyping the heck out of it, while all it's being used for is illegal money laundering. … It's simply gonna implode before you know it. And regular people who trust you are gonna lose their shirts. … Would you put your life savings into digital currency? You lose a password and you've lost everything. … They know it's gonna crash and burn. … it crashes and it goes to zero, and people lose their life savings. Don't do it. Get out of it, rather than losing everything you have. Yes, the price might increase, but more likely than not it's gonna be zero before you know it.”

Vivek Wadhwa American academic

Digital Gold or Ponzi Scheme? http://youtube.com/watch?v=mkSw04Guw0E on CNN (6 January 2018, 1045 EST)

Life , Money , People , History

“The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."”

Andrew Paterson (1877–1948) Scottish photographer

The Man From Ironbark.

“It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."”

Andrew Paterson (1877–1948) Scottish photographer

Home , Despair

“If you resist, their job will be to "take you into custody"—which is a euphemism for seizing you, handcuffing you, and taking you to jail.At this point, it will be obvious that the regulation's purpose is to force barbers to charge at least $8—not by persuasion, but with a gun.Every government program, no matter how benign it may appear, is the same. Coercion is the reason—and the only reason—it is a government program.”

Harry Browne (1933–2006) American politician and writer

Part One, chapter 2, page 12
1990s, Why Government Doesn't Work (1996)

Appearance

“On the other hand, Hindu saints used to assuage the outraged feelings of Hindus and encourage them reconvert to Hinduism. For instance Harihar and Bukka, sons of the Raja of Kampil, converted to Islam by Muhammad bin Tughlaq, fled his court. At the instance of sage Vidyaranya they reverted to Hinduism and founded the Vijayanagar kingdom to resist the expansion of Muslim power in the South. Like Vidyaranya, there were scores of Bhakta saints who were helping people to resist injustice and retain their original religion. In Maharashtra, Namdeva in the fourteenth century declared that people were blind in insisting upon worshipping in temples and mosques, while His worship needed neither temple nor mosque.69 Such courageous denunciations were infectious and these spread in Gujarat, Bengal, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Ramananda, Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya, Raidas, Dhanna, Sain, Garibdas and Dadu Dayal and a host of others spoke out in the same idiom openly and repeatedly. They came from all classes of society - Raidas was a chamar, Sain was a barber while Pipa was a Raja, Raja of Gauranggarh - but they were all respected and listened to. Of these the three most important saints who turned Bhakti into a movement were Kabir, Nanak and Chaitanya.”

K. S. Lal book The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India

Source: The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (1992), Chapter 6

People , Religion , Feeling , Courage

“A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, "In silence."”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

33 Archelaus
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Silence

“[Nasreddin Hoca is being shaved by an inexperienced barber. ]
"One moment, Sir!" said the barber, and he stuck a bit of cotton on the wound. In the next pass of the razor, another bit of the Hoca's cheek went with it. "One moment, sir!" and he stuck a bit of cotton on the second wound. With each stroke of the razor, another bit of cotton joined the crop sprouting on the Hoca's left cheek. "Now," said the barber, "I'll do the other side." "One moment, young man!" said the Hoca as he studied the bits of cotton that dotted his left cheek. "Stop right there! I believe I'll plant wheat on the other side."”

Nasreddin (1208–1284) philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes

Barbara K. Walker and Helen Siegl, The Art of the Turkish Tale (1990), Vol. 1, , p. 57

Study

“A barber is by nature and inclination a sport. He can tell you at what exact hour the ball game is to begin, can foretell its issue without losing a stroke of the razor, and can explain the points of inferiority of all the players, as compared with the better men that he has personally seen elsewhere, with the nicety of a professional.”

Stephen Leacock Literary Lapses

Men Who Have Shaved Me
Literary Lapses (1910)

Men , Game , Nature , Sport

“The historical associations of the word algebra almost substantiate the sordid character of the subject. The word comes from the title of a book written by… Al Khowarizmi. In this title, al-jebr w' almuqabala, the word al-jebr meant transposing a quantity from one side of an equation to another and muqabala meant simplification of the resulting expressions. Figuratively, al-jebr meant restoring the balance of an equation… When the Moors reached Spain… algebrista… came to mean a bonesetter… and signs reading Algebrista y Sangrador (bonesetter and bloodletter) were found over Spanish barber shops. Thus it might be said that there is a good historical basis for the fact that the word algebra stirs up disagreeable thoughts.”

Morris Kline (1908–1992) American mathematician

Source: Mathematics and the Physical World (1959), p. 69

Books , Reading

“Don't blame me for the fact that competent programming, as I view it as an intellectual possibility, will be too difficult for "the average programmer" — you must not fall into the trap of rejecting a surgical technique because it is beyond the capabilities of the barber in his shop around the corner.”

Edsger W. Dijkstra (1930–2002) Dutch computer scientist

Dijkstra (1975) Comments at a Symposium http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD05xx/EWD512.html (EWD 512).
1970s

“I can imagine nothing except being a footman or common soldier as more degrading than being either a barber or a tailor.”

Francis Place (1771–1854) English social reformer

Source: The Autobiography of Francis Place: 1771-1854, 1972, p. 216

Imagination

“"I’m an owl; you’re another. Sir Critic, good day."
And the barber kept on shaving.”

James Thomas Fields (1817–1881) American writer and publisher

The Owl-Critic, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“The children of fighter pilots tell different stories than other kids do. None of our fathers can write a will or sell a life insurance policy or fill out a prescription or administer a flu shot or explain what a poet meant. We tell of fathers who land on aircraft carriers at pitch-black night with the wind howling out of the China Sea. Our fathers wiped out aircraft batteries in the Philippines and set Japanese soldiers on fire when they made the mistake of trying to overwhelm our troops on the ground. Your Dads ran the barber shops and worked at the post office and delivered the packages on time and sold the cars, while our Dads were blowing up fuel depots near Seoul, were providing extraordinarily courageous close air support to the beleaguered Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and who once turned the Naktong River red with blood of a retreating North Korean battalion. We tell of men who made widows of the wives of our nations' enemies and who made orphans out of all their children. You don't like war or violence? Or napalm? Or rockets? Or cannons or death rained down from the sky? Then let's talk about your fathers, not ours. When we talk about the aviators who raised us and the Marines who loved us, we can look you in the eye and say "you would not like to have been American's enemies when our fathers passed overhead". We were raised by the men who made the United States of America the safest country on earth in the bloodiest century in all recorded history. Our fathers made sacred those strange, singing names of battlefields across the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh and a thousand more. We grew up attending the funerals of Marines slain in these battles. Your fathers made communities like Beaufort decent and prosperous and functional; our fathers made the world safe for democracy.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Eulogy for a Fighter Pilot (1998)

Love , Life , Death , Men

“My grandfather, a teacher of religion, could think of nothing better than to place my father – his eldest son, still a child – as a clerk with a firm of herring wholesalers, and his youngest son with a barber. No, my father was not a clerk, but, for thirty-two years, a plain workman [in the Jewish ghetto of Vitebsk ]. He lifted heavy barrels, and my heart used to twist like a Turkish pretzel as I watched him carrying those loads and stirring the little herrings with his frozen hands... Sometimes my father's clothes would glisten with herring brine. The light played above him, besides him. But his face, now yellow, now clear, would sometimes break into a wan smile.”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

Quote in Marc Chagall - the Russian years 1906 – 1922, editor Christoph Vitali, exhibition catalogue, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 1991, p. 23
1920's, My life (1922)

Religion , Smile , Thinking , Light

“The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation. But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Huxley—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Darwin?... They are laughing at Nietzsche yet...”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"On Truth" in Damn! A Book of Calumny (1918), p. 53
1910s

Truth , Law , Housing , Swine