Quotes about bean

A collection of quotes on the topic of bean, likeness, doing, eating.

Quotes about bean

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva photo

“Look, my friend. I don't speak the language here, I've got no money, the food stinks, there's no rice, no beans. I'd rather be arrested in Brazil than stay in this dump of a country.”

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (1945) Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil

Lula da Silva (1975), Cited in: Emir Sader, ‎Ken Silverstein (1991) Without Fear of Being Happy. p. 41
After being advised to stay in the United States when his brother was arrested in Brazil as a communist subversive.

Ronald Reagan photo

“Socialists ignore the side of man that is of the spirit. They can provide shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you are ill, all the things that are guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don't understand that we dream — yes, even of some time owning a yacht.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan (2001) https://books.google.com/books?id=9ut8fnmwVkwC&pg=PA91 edited by Kiron K. Skinner, Annelise Graebner Anderson, and Martin Anderson. p. 91
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

Orson Scott Card photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Barack Obama photo
Tom Waits photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Dutch Schultz photo
Wang Wei photo

“Red beans come from Southern country,
Few blossoms on vines when Spring comes.
For my sake please pick many of them,
They are the best symbol of true love.”

Wang Wei (699–759) a Tang dynasty Chinese poet, musician, painter, and statesman

"Red Beans" (相思), trans. Zi-chang Tang

Bertolt Brecht photo

“Everyone at school seems to go by a nickname. Kat, Frosty, Bronx, Boo Bear, Jelly Bean, Freckles.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Alice in Zombieland

Orson Scott Card photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Deb Caletti photo
Ruskin Bond photo

“Red roses for young lovers. French beans for longstanding relationships”

Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer

Source: Ruskin Bond's Book Of Nature

Terry Goodkind photo
Tom Waits photo
Roald Dahl photo
Stephen Sondheim photo

“The difference between a cow and a bean is a bean can begin an adventure.”

Stephen Sondheim (1930) American composer and lyricist

Source: Into the Woods

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Roald Dahl photo
Tom Stoppard photo
John Ralston Saul photo
Rachel Maddow photo
Rachel Marsden photo

“Al Gore could really pollute a bathroom … Just look at the guy. If someone doesn't take away his pork 'n' beans, he's bound to get another one of those 'gut feelings' and mistake his own greenhouse gas production for science!”

Rachel Marsden (1974) journalist

Toronto Sun column
cited in Fox's Ann Coulter 2.0 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/29/marsden/index.html. Salon.com.

Benjamin Spock photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Agnolo Firenzuola photo

“This ogress will want to catch two beans with one pigeon.”

Agnolo Firenzuola (1493–1543) Italian poet and litterateur

Act II., Scene II. — (Golpe).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 393.
La Trinuzia (published 1549)

Benjamin Zephaniah photo
Stephen King photo
Shmuel Yosef Agnon photo
Daniel Levitin photo
Benjamin Spock photo
Arthur Young photo
Kevin James photo

“You don't know what these beans are, said the man [that Jack meets]. If you plant them overnight, by morning they grew right up to the sky.”

English Fairy Tales (1890), Preface to English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk

Vince Cable photo

“The House has noticed the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from Stalin to Mr. Bean, creating chaos out of order, rather than order out of chaos.”

Vince Cable (1943) British Liberal Democrat politician

House of Commons' Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm071128/debtext/71128-0003.htm#71128-0003.htm_spnew0, 28 November 2007.
2007

Plutarch photo
Ringo Starr photo
Roald Dahl photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Paul Merson photo

“He's hit the beans on toast.”

Paul Merson (1968) English footballer and manager

Interview on Rileys' News http://www.rileys.co.uk/news/240.

Robert Lynn Asprin photo

“But—as Kit and Sven had been so fond of saying—the Universe didn’t give beans for “fair.” It simply was. You got it right or paid the price.”

Robert Lynn Asprin (1946–2008) American science fiction and fantasy author

Source: Time Scout (1995), Chapter 17 (p. 364)

Roger Ebert photo
Vida Guerra photo

“I’m Cuban, so we grew up eating meat. But I didn’t like it. I’d say, ‘Rice and black beans is just fine with me.’ But my mother, you know, would say, ‘Tu estas muy flaca!’ Then one day I saw my dad kill a chicken and ever since then I was grossed out by chicken.”

Vida Guerra (1974) American model

"Nude Vida Guerra Ad Pulls the Caliente Card to Raise Money for PETA", Fox News (25 March 2011) http://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/2011/03/24/vide-guerra-gets-spicy-raise-money-peta.html

P.G. Wodehouse photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Harlan Ellison photo
Pete Seeger photo

“The world would never amount to a hill of beans if people didn't use their imaginations to think of the impossible.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

Pete Seeger's Storytelling Book, 2001, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN 0156013118, p. 220

Subramanian Swamy photo

“Earlier, the scams were related to the defence deals, where things were difficult. Now, they have got into things within the country. And since there are lots of players, some of them spill the beans.”

Subramanian Swamy (1939) Indian politician

1999-2010
Source: On the scams under UPA government, as quoted in "I saved prime minister in telecom scandal, says Swamy" http://gulfnews.com/news/asia/india/i-saved-prime-minister-in-telecom-scandal-says-swamy-1.722635, Gulf Times (4 November 2010)

Chuck Hagel photo

“This is a ping-pong game with American lives. These young men and women that we put in Anbar province, in Iraq, in Baghdad, are not beans. They're real lives. And we better be damn sure we know what we're doing, all of us, before we put 22,000 more Americans into that grinder.”

Chuck Hagel (1946) United States Secretary of Defense

On the Iraq troop surge of 2007, Excerpts From Senate Iraq Meeting, The Bellingham Herald, 24 January 2007, 2007-01-25 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRAQ_EXCERPTS?SITE=WABEL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT,
2007

A. Wayne Wymore photo
Gautama Buddha photo

“… how can I permit my disciples, Mahāmati, to eat food consisting of flesh and blood, which is gratifying to the unwise but is abhorred by the wise, which brings many evils and keeps away many merits; and which was not offered to the Rishis and is altogether unsuitable?
Now, Mahāmati, the food I have permitted [my disciples to take] is gratifying to all wise people but is avoided by the unwise; it is productive of many merits, it keeps away many evils; and it has been prescribed by the ancient Rishis. It comprises rice, barley, wheat, kidney beans, beans, lentils, etc., clarified butter, oil, honey, molasses, treacle, sugar cane, coarse sugar, etc.; food prepared with these is proper food. Mahāmati, there may be some irrational people in the future who will discriminate and establish new rules of moral discipline, and who, under the influence of the habit-energy belonging to the carnivorous races, will greedily desire the taste [of meat]: it is not for these people that the above food is prescribed. Mahāmati, this is the food I urge for the Bodhisattva-Mahāsattvas who have made offerings to the previous Buddhas, who have planted roots of goodness, who are possessed of faith, devoid of discrimination, who are all men and women belonging to the Śākya family, who are sons and daughters of good family, who have no attachment to body, life, and property, who do not covet delicacies, are not at all greedy, who being compassionate desire to embrace all living beings as their own person, and who regard all beings with affection as if they were an only child.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Mahayana, Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, Chapter Eight. On Meat-eating

Kevin Kelly photo
Karl Pilkington photo

“Where you are is what you eat. When I'm in London I'll have beans on toast for lunch. On holiday — what? Tapas? Go on then I'll have a bit. You eat whatevers in that area.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Podcast Series 3 Episode 5
On Food

Cole Porter photo

“Some Argentines, without means, do it,
People say, in Boston, even beans do it.
Let's do it, let's fall in love.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" (there have been many variant renditions of this song by various artists).
Paris (1928)

Russell Brand photo
Roald Dahl photo
John Banville photo
Charles-François Daubigny photo

“I have bought at Auverse thirty perches of land, all covered with beans, on which I shall plant some legs of mutton when you come to see me. They are building me a studio there, some eight by six meters, with several rooms around it, which will serve me, I hope, next Spring [of 1861]. Father Corot has found Auvers very fine, and has engaged me to fix myself there for a part of the year, wishing to make rustic landscapes with figures. I shall be truly well of there, in the midst of a good farming country, where the ploughs do not yet go by steam.”

Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878) French painter

Quote in his letter to his friend Frédéric Henriet, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric+Henriet&title=Special:Search&go=Go&searchToken=dt4h140y68u3oxynlcr55rftr#/media/File:Eaux-fortes._(Frontispiece)_(NYPL_b12616975-1690388).jpg, 1860; as cited in 'Charles-francois Daubigny', by Robert J. Wichenden, in The Century Illustrated Montly Magazine, Vol. XLIV, July 1892, p. 335
Daubigny bought property in Auvers-sur-Oise in 1860; four years later Corot would decorate there his Villa des Vallées, with beautiful murals.
1840s - 1850s

John A. McDougall photo
Joel Fuhrman photo

“Manuel Mercado Acosta is an indio from the mountains of Durango. His father operated a mescal distillery before the revolutionaries drove him out. He met my mother while riding a motorcycle in El Paso. Juana Fierro Acosta is my mother. She could have been a singer in a Juarez cantina but instead decided to be Manuel’s wife because he had a slick mustache, a fast bike and promised to take her out of the slums across from the Rio Grande. She had only one demand in return for the two sons and three daughters she would bear him: “No handouts. No relief. I never want to be on welfare.” I doubt he really promised her anything in a very loud, clear voice. My father was a horsetrader even though he got rid of both the mustache and the bike when FDR drafted him, a wetback, into the U. S. Navy on June 22, 1943. He tried to get into the Marines, but when they found out he was a good swimmer and a non-citizen they put him in a sailor suit and made him drive a barge in Okinawa. We lived in a two-room shack without a floor. We had to pump our water and use kerosene if we wanted to read at night. But we never went hungry. My old man always bought the pinto beans and the white flour for the tortillas in 100-pound sacks which my mother used to make dresses, sheets and curtains. We had two acres of land which we planted every year with corn, tomatoes and yellow chiles for the hot sauce. Even before my father woke us, my old ma was busy at work making the tortillas at 5:00 A. M. while he chopped the logs we’d hauled up from the river on the weekends.”

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 72.

George Raymond Richard Martin photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Haruki Murakami photo
George Herbert photo

“649. A beane in liberty is better than a comfit in prison.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Nakayama Miki photo
John Nance Garner photo

“Worst damnfool mistake I ever made was letting myself be elected Vice President of the United States. Should have stuck with my old chores as Speaker of the House. I gave up the second most important job in the Government for one that didn't amount to a hill of beans. I spent eight long years as Mr. Roosevelt's spare tire. I might still be Speaker if I didn't let them elect me Vice-President.”

John Nance Garner (1868–1967) American politician

Comment shortly after leaving office, on leaving his post as speaker of the United States House of Representative to become the Vice President, quoted by Frank X. Tolbert, "What is Cactus Jack Up to Now," Saturday Evening Post (November 2, 1963) and recounted in Alden Whitman's obituary of Garner in the New York Times (November 8, 1967).

Finley Peter Dunne photo

“Sure, politics ain't bean-bag. 'Tis a man's game, an' women, childer, cripples an' prohybitionists 'd do well to keep out iv it.”

Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) author

Chicago Evening Post, October 5, 1895. Excerpted in Finley Peter Dunne and Mr. Dooley: The Chicago Years https://books.google.com/books?id=sbgfBgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA125&dq=%22politics%20ain't%20bean-bag%22&pg=PA125#v=onepage&q=%22politics%20ain't%20bean-bag%22&f=false by Charles Fanning (1978).

Orson Scott Card photo
Osvaldo Pugliese photo
Billy Joel photo
Gordon Brown photo

“The House has noticed the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks, from Stalin to Mr. Bean.”

Gordon Brown (1951) British Labour Party politician

Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm071128/debtext/71128-0003.htm#07112862002023, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 468, col. 275 (28 November 2007)
Vincent Cable, acting leader of the Liberal Democrats.
About

Yoweri Museveni photo

“When we sell a kilo of bean coffee in Uganda, we get one dollar per kilo. The same kilo, when it is processed [and sold in the UK], goes for $10, $11 or even more a kilo. That is the same situation [price disparity] that goes for all raw materials.”

Yoweri Museveni (1944) President of Uganda

As quoted in "President Museveni Highlights Ugandan Achievements for Americans: Ugandan leader proud of political opening, economic growth in his country" https://web.archive.org/web/20050927025054/http://news.findlaw.com/wash/s/20050923/200509231521551.html (23 September 2005), by Jim Fisher-Thompson, Washington File, FindLaw
2000s

W. S. Gilbert photo
Ibn Battuta photo

“One day I rode in company with ‘Alã-ul-mulk and arrived at a plain called Tarna at a distance of seven miles from the city. There I saw innumerable stone images and animals, many of which had undergone a change, the original shape being obliterated. Some were reduced to a head, others to a foot and so on. Some of the stones were shaped like grain, wheat, peas, beans and lentils. And there were traces of a house which contained a chamber built of hewn stone, the whole of which looked like one solid mass. Upon it was a statue in the form of a man, the only difference being that its head was long, its mouth was towards a side of its face and its hands at its back like a captive’s. There were pools of water from which an extremely bad smell came. Some of the walls bore Hindî inscriptions. ‘Alã-ul-mulk told me that the historians assume that on this site there was a big city, most of the inhabitants of which were notorious. They were changed into stone. The petrified human form on the platform in the house mentioned above was that of their king. The house still goes by the name of ‘the king’s house’. It is presumed that the Hindî inscriptions, which some of the walls bear, give the history of the destruction of the inhabitants of this city. The destruction took place about a thousand years ago…”

Ibn Battuta (1304–1377) Moroccan explorer

Lahari Bandar (Sindh) . The Rehalã of Ibn Battûta translated into English by Mahdi Hussain, Baroda, 1967, p. 10.
Travels in Asia and Africa (Rehalã of Ibn Battûta)

Jean Mayer photo

“In becoming a vegetarian, you will eat a greater percentage of your calories from cereal grains, dried beans and peas, potatoes and pasta—the very foods most dieters avoid with zeal. And you will lose weight.”

Jean Mayer (1920–1993) French-American scientist, university administrator

Quoted in "Why People Get Fat" by Keith Akers, Vegetarian Times (May 1983), p. 29 https://books.google.it/books?id=SQgAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29.

Dylan Moran photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Maddox photo

“In an effort to salvage the money I wasted on this bullshit, I ate six cups of jello, one bag of corn nuts, a Soynut bar, and a bag of jelly beans for dinner. The only thing X-TREME about this experience was the X-TREME dump I took later that night:”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Take your X-TREME marketing and shove it. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=xtreme_bullshit
The Best Page in the Universe

Katie Melua photo

“I really began to miss family and friends not to mention baked beans!”

Katie Melua (1984) British singer-songwriter

Context: I spend eight to nine months working abroad and cram in a holiday when I have the odd week off. This year, three of those months were spent in America playing gigs with my band, so we got to visit all kinds of places from Arizona to New York. After a few weeks, I really began to miss family and friends not to mention baked beans!

Bill Bailey photo
Bill Downs photo

“I am personally ashamed that men have to prove that they are not “kangaroos.” When bigots attack a colored man, I ashamed that my skin also is white. During the War, in Amsterdam, I felt shame because a starving mother wept over a can of beans for her child. I was ashamed of my fat. And on D-Day, and again later in Korea, I had a sense of shame at being alive when so many around me had to die. When this kind of shame is banished from the Earth, then perhaps we will have that civilization man has been striving for, for so many centuries.”

Bill Downs (1914–1978) American journalist

This I Believe (1951)
Context: My favorite story on this subject is the one that was being whispered in Moscow when I was assigned there for CBS back in 1943. It concerns a hapless individual, running down the street in a Russian village, his clothing flung over one arm and a loaf of bread tucked under the other. "Pavel," a friend calls, "where are you running to?" "Haven't you heard?" Pavel replies. "Tomorrow they're going to sterilize all kangaroos." "But there are no kangaroos in the Ukraine," the friend declares. "Yes," answers Pavel, "but can you prove that you’re not one?" I am personally ashamed that men have to prove that they are not “kangaroos.” When bigots attack a colored man, I ashamed that my skin also is white. During the War, in Amsterdam, I felt shame because a starving mother wept over a can of beans for her child. I was ashamed of my fat. And on D-Day, and again later in Korea, I had a sense of shame at being alive when so many around me had to die. When this kind of shame is banished from the Earth, then perhaps we will have that civilization man has been striving for, for so many centuries.

Pythagoras photo

“Abstain from beans.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Symbol 37; This was long thought by many to be simply a dietary proscription, and often ridiculed, but many consider it to have originally been intended as advice against getting involved in politics, for voting on issues in his time was often done by using differently colored beans. Others have stated that it might signify a more general admonition against relying on the votes of people to determine truths of reality. The explanation provided in the translation used here states: "This Symbol admonishes us to beware of everything which is corruptive of our converse with the gods and divine prophecy."
The Symbols
Variant: Abstain from animals.

Bill Bailey photo
Richard Wright photo

“A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Tapes for the movie Ciao! Manhattan, on her first experiences with heavy drugs.
Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: Dr. Roberts says, "Hello, girls... how are we today? Are you all ready? Okay. Hop up. Put all your weight on this leg. Okay? ready? My god, this rear end looks like a battlefield." You went to hear something I wrote about the horror of speed? Well, maybe you don't but the nearly incommunicable torments of speed, buzzerama, that arcylic high, horrorous, yodeling, repetitious echoes of an infinity of butally harrowing that words cannot capture the devastation nor the tone of such a vicious nightmare. Yes, I'm even getting paranoid, which is a trip for me. I don't really dig it, but there it is. It's hard to choose between the climactic ecstasies of speed and cocaine. They're similar. Oh, they are so fabulous. That fantabulous sexual exhilaration. Which is better, coke or speed? It's hard to choose. The purest speed, the purest coke, and sex is a deadlock. Speeding and booze. That gets funny. You get chattering at about fifty miles an hour over the downdraft, and booze kind of cools it. It can get very funny. Utterly ridiculous. It's a good combination for a party. Not for an orgy, though. Speedball! Speed and heroin. That was the first time I had a shot in each arm. Closed my eyes. Opened my arms. Closed my fists, and jab, jab. A shot of cocaine and speed, and a shot of heroin. Stripped off all my clothes, leapt downstairs, and ran out on Park Avenue and two blocks down it before my friends caught me. Naked. Naked as a lima bean. A speedball is from another world. It's a little bit dangerous. Pure coke, pure speed, and pure sex. Wow! The ultimate in climax. Once I went over to Dr. Roberts for a shot of cocaine. It was very strange because he wouldn't tell me what it was and I was playing it cool. It was my first intravenous shot, and I said, "Well, I don't feel it." And so he gave me another one, and all of a sudden I went blind. Just flipped out of my skull! I ended up wildly balling him. And flipping him out of his skull. He was probably shot up... he was always shooting up around the corner anyway.