Quotes about bend
page 2

“You just have to keep driving down the road. It's going to bend and curve and you'll speed up and slow down, but the road keeps going.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Speed

“The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“I'm a lawyer. I make lawyers for a living. I believe in the law. I believe in the law of copyright. Indeed, I have devoted my life to working in law, not because there are big bucks at the end but because there are ideals at the end that I would love to live.
Yet much of this book has been a criticism of lawyers, or the role lawyers have played in this debate. The law speaks to ideals, but it is my view that our profession has become too attuned to the client. And in a world where the rich clients have one strong view, the unwillingness of the profession to question or counter that one strong view queers the law.
The evidence of this bending is compelling. I'm attacked as a "radical" by many within the profession, yet the positions that I am advocating are precisely the positions of some of the most moderate and significant figures in the history of this branch of the law.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)

Love, Life, Books, World

“In boxing, the style has changed over the years from crouching to being more and more vertical. Also people used to jump around, but the modern boxer like Tyson just moves in flat footed to demolish his opponent in a scientific way. In Wing Chun a person does not bob as in boxing. When two beginners fight it doesn't matter how they fight, but against professionals it makes a difference. Even a smaller [person] is better off to keep the body vertical and step back, then to bob and weave. This is because the hand can move faster than the body. Boxing is still like a game because there are rules for how you can hit and how you can't hit. If you attack someone and they bend their head, then in Wing Chun you can still hit them with your hand even without pulling your hand back.”

Wong Shun Leung (1935–1997) martial artist

Boxing Source: Comments From Wong Shun Leung and Tsui Shan Ting, by Ray Van Raamsdonk http://www.springtimesong.com/wcqanda.htm

People, Way, Game, Change

“They’ll be fine, and wiser for the experience. Young minds are brittle. Oldsters, now, we’ve had some disappointments. We’ve set aside the notion that we’re the center of the universe, so our minds bend with strain instead of meeting it head-on.”

Scott Lynch book The Republic of Thieves

Source: The Republic of Thieves (2013), Chapter 4 “Across the Amathel” section 1 (p. 184)

Disappointment, Universe

“My master ought to have remembered what
A glittering prize can do to bend the will,
Yet at the crucial moment he forgot
And all his fortune changed from good to ill.”

Ludovico Ariosto book Orlando Furioso

Dovea in memoria avere il signor mio,
Che l'oro e 'l premio ogni durezza inchina;
Ma, quando bisognò, l'ebbe in oblio,
Ed ei si procacciò la sua ruina.
Canto XLIII, stanza 70 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Change

“Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total — all of these acts — will be written in the history of this generation.”

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

Day of Affirmation Address (1966)
Variant: Few will have the greatness to bend history, but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and then the total — all of these acts — will be written in the history of this generation.

History, Change

“Lavoisier was right in the deepest, almost holy, way. His passion harnessed feeling to the service of reason; another kind of passion was the price. Reason cannot save us and can even persecute us in the wrong hands; but we have no hope of salvation without reason. The world is too complex, too intransigent; we cannot bend it to our simple will.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"The Passion of Antoine Lavoisier", p. 366
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

World, Hope, Way, Feeling

“Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searchin'
Searching for shelter again and again.Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter
Against the wind.”

Bob Seger (1945) American singer-songwriter

Against the Wind.
Song lyrics, Against the Wind (1980)

Search, Time

“To bend down for money is OK, but to bow is not.”

Avner Strauss (1954) Israeli musician

Introduction to Money, Power, and Honor, In Jerusalem, the Skies are Lower (1989).

Money

“Wherever we look the dreadful disintegration of the bridges of life, the capillaries and the bodies they have created, is evident, which has been caused by the mechanical and mindless work of man, who has torn away the soul from the Earth's blood - water. The more the engineer endeavors to channel water, of whose spirit and nature he is today still ignorant, by the shortest and straightest route to the sea, the more the flow of water weighs into the bends, the longer its path and the worse the water will become. The spreading of the most terrible disease of all, of cancer, is the necessary consequence of such unnatural regulatory works. These mistaken activities - our work - must legitimately lead to increasingly widespread unemployment, because our present methods of working, which have a purely mechanical basis, are already destroying not only all of wise Nature's formative processes, but first and foremost the growth of the vegetation itself, which is being destroyed even as it grows. The drying up of mountain springs, the change in the whole pattern of motion of the groundwater, and the disturbance in the blood circulation of the organism - Earth - is the direct result of modern forestry practices. The pulse-beat of the Earth was factually arrested by the modern timber production industry. Every economic death of a people is always preceded by the death of its forests. The forest is the habitat of water and as such the habitat of life processes too, whose quality declines as the organic development of the forest is disturbed. Ultimately, due to a law which functions with awesome constancy, it will slowly but surely come around to our turn. Our accustomed way of thinking in many ways, and perhaps even without exception, is opposed to the true workings of Nature. Our work is the embodiment of our will. The spiritual manifestation of this work is its effect. When such work is carried out correctly, it brings happiness, but when carried out incorrectly, it assuredly brings misery.”

Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) austrian philosopher and inventor

Viktor Schauberger: Our Senseless Toil (1934)

Life, Death, Happiness, People

“Alec is beautiful,” said Jill, bending down to kiss him.
“Like a mushroom cloud!”

Kage Baker book The Life of the World to Come

scoffed Balkister.
Source: The Life of the World to Come (2004), Chapter 6, “Alec and His Friends” (p. 109)

Beauty, Kiss

“Good humour is the only shield to keep off the darts of the satirical railer: if you have a quiver well stored, and are sure of hitting him between the joints of the harness, do not spare him; but you had better not bend your bow than miss your aim.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

“It may seem fanciful, but to me the violet is the very emblem of woman's love; it springs up in secret; it hides its perfume even when gathered; how timidly its deep blue leaves bend on their slight stem! The resemblance may be carried yet further — woman's love is but beautiful in its purity; let the hot breath of passion once sully it, and its beauty is departed — thus as the summer advances, the violet loses its fragrance; June comes, but its odours are fled — the heart too has its June; the flower may remain, but its fragrance is gone for ever.”

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

Other Gift Books

Love, Secret, Beauty, Spring

“The example of a believer is like a fresh tender plant; from whichever direction the wind blows, it bends the plant. But when the wind dies down, (it) straightens up again.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Volume 4, Number 1
Sunni Hadith

“As a fantasy writer, he was not highly regarded (“one cannot call him profoundly mediocre without venturing so far out on the critical limb as to bend it to the ground,” “so derivative that the reader loses track of who he’s ripping off,” “to say he is tin-eared would render a disservice to a blameless citizen of the periodic table of the elements”).”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Thanksgiving (prologue)
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

“Bend low, O dusky Night,
And give my spirit rest,
Hold me to your deep breast,
And put old cares to flight.
Give back the lost delight
That once my soul possest,
When Love was loveliest.”

Louise Chandler Moulton (1835–1908) American poet, story-writer and critic

To-night.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love, Soul, Night

“Under these circumstances, men lose sight of themselves and escape into the security of work or sociability or other forms of what Vidich and Bensman have called the “externalization of the self.” Vidich and Bensman sketch a troubling picture of such men: “What is left of the personality is the dulled, autonomic ritualization of behavior where … no disturbing interferences are allowed to enter into thought. … Personal and social life becomes barren, and the personal mechanics and daily routine of living become the end-all of existence. All types of activity whose operation is based upon an objective, external, automatic rhythm to which an individual can bend himself serve the function of enabling him to lose himself in an objective ceremony.””

Benjamin R. Barber (1939–2017) US political scientist

Source: Forced to be Free (1971), p. 69, quotation is from A. J. Vidich and J. Bensman, Small Town in Mass Society (New York), p. 315

Life, Men, Behavior, Personality

“The momentous meaning of this occasion impressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured? Instructions had been given; and when the head of each division column comes opposite our group, our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole line from right to left, regiment by regiment in succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from the "order arms" to the old "carry"—the marching salute. Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual, honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!”

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828–1914) Union Army general and Medal of Honor recipient

The Passing of the Armies: An account of the Army of the Potomac, based upon personal reminiscences of the Fifth Army Corps (1915), p. 260

Death, Men, Forgiveness, Suffering

“There's a place in the world for the angry young man
With his working class ties and his radical plans
He refuses to bend he refuses to crawl
And he's always at home with his back to the wall
And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost
And struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross
And likes to be known as the angry young man.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Angry Young Man.
Song lyrics, Turnstiles (1976)

World, Home

“I dash out to the banks of the river [river the 'Loup', at Cagnes, France] and find myself amongst the rushes and the reeds. I grind some pigment over all this and the wind makes their slender stalks bend and appliqués them with precision and delicacy on to my canvas, which I thus offer to quivering nature: I obtain a vegetal mark. Then it starts to rain; a fine spring rain: I expose my canvas to the rain.... and I have the mark of the rain!”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

a mark of an atmospheric event.
In 1960; p. 61
1960 -1964, "Yves Klein, 1928 – 1962, Selected Writings"

Spring, Nature

“If Vice President Al Gore advocated killing rabbits to see if women are pregnant and called it a step forward for science, we'd all think he'd gone 'round the bend. We don't need to do that sort of thing anymore, we'd say. We have better, kinder ways.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

The Washington Times, 1999 August 29
1990s

Women, Way, Thinking, Science

“In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

Motto of the American Copyright League. (Written Nov. 20, 1885).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“If you lean on a straight stick… [it] can resist your weight, despite its slenderness, as long as it remains straight; once it starts to bend, it will easily break. The danger of breaking increases with the deflection… [T]he danger of failure will diminish with the increased moment of inertia of the cross section, or if the same are of cross section should be maintained, by distributing the material in a hollow section.”

Eduardo Torroja (1899–1961) Spanish architect

Philosophy of Structures (1958)

Failure

“Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

Theodore Parker (1810–1860) abolitionist

This portion of Parker's sermon is thought to have inspired Martin Luther King, Jr.‎'s famous assertion of similar sentiments: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice". Ten Sermons of Religion (1853), III : Of Justice and the Conscience https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Sermons_of_Religion/Of_Justice_and_the_Conscience

World, Justice, Way, Understanding

“Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors. They are the oldest civilized people on earth. Their civilization passes through phases but its basic characteristics remain the same. They yield, they bend to the wind, but they never break.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

China, Past and Present (1972) Ch. 1

People

“Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing, and therefore self-relying soul.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

Soul, Nature, Tree, Strong

“It's a tango." Marco maneuvered me out among the dancers. "I love tangos." "I can't dance." "You don't have to dance. I'll do that dancing." Marco hooked an arm around my waist and jerked me up against his dazzling white suit. Then he said, "Pretend you are drowning." I shut my eyes, and the music broke over me like a rainstorm. Marco's leg slid forward against mine and my leg slid back and I seemed to be riveted against him, limb for limb, moving as he moved, without any will or knowledge of my own, and after a while I thought, "It doesn't take two to dance, it only takes one," and I let myself blow and bend like a tree in the wind. "What did I tell you?”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Marco's breath scorched my ear. "You're a perfectly respectable dancer."
Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 9

Love, Music, Jerk, Knowledge

“Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings.”

Dan Simmons book Hyperion

Source: Hyperion (1989), Chapter 3 (p. 191)

Thinking, Reality

“The very sound of his own steps disturbed him; and he flung himself on a couch, to enjoy without interruption the exquisite melody. The intense perfume of the flowers intoxicated him like wine. He felt as if lulled in a delicious trance, in which one image became more and more distinct — the pale but lovely face of his hostess. His heart was filling with love for those radiant eyes. A softer fragrance breathed around him — it was her breath. He looked, and she was again bending over him; he saw himself mirrored in the moonlight of her eyes.”

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

The Monthly Magazine

Love, Flowers, Wine, Heart

“No straight lines make up my life;
And all my roads have bends;
There's no clear-cut beginnings;
And so far no dead-ends.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Circle
Song lyrics, Sniper and Other Love Songs (1972)

Life, Dead

“And the look on her face as she opened the door
Was like an old joke told by a friend.
It'd taken ten more years but she'd found her smile
And I watched the corners start to bend.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Sequel
Song lyrics, Sequel (1981)

Smile

“During a 2006 broadcast, a conversation with a guest morphed from George Brett to singing in the shower. Blyleven mentioned that he had showered with Brett, and the guest expressed surprise. Blyleven exclaimed "Well, there were other guys there! … Although they did say not to bend over."”

Bert Blyleven (1951) Major League Baseball player and broadcaster

Source: http://www.deadspin.com/sports/baseball/question-seems-perfectly-logical-to-us-177650.php (12:19 PM comment)

Guy, Singing

“In this country and in other democracies, the enemies of civilisation and freedom have turned to the gun and the bomb to destroy those they can't persuade. The terrorist threat to freedom is worldwide. It can never be met by appeasement. Give in to the terrorist and you breed more terrorism. At home and abroad our message is the same. We will not bargain, nor compromise, nor bend the knee to terrorists.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352 Third term as Prime Minister

Democracy, Home, Freedom, Country

“The head must bow, and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darkey may go;
A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
In the field where the sugar-canes grow.
A few more days for to tote the weary load,—
No matter, 't will never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road:—
Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!”

Stephen Foster (1826–1864) American songwriter

My Old Kentucky Home. As quoted at Anthology of American Poetry, by George Gesner, (1983).

Home, Light, Night

“Although I cannot accuse myself of being remarkably unstable, I do not pretend that I have never altered my opinion both in respect to men and things. Indeed, I have been very much modified both in feeling and opinion within the last fourteen years. When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions, and defended them just as long as I deemed them true. I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent experience and reading have led me to examine for myself. This had brought me to other conclusions. When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child. But the question is not as to what were my opinions fourteen years ago, but what they are now. If I am right now, it really does not matter what I was fourteen years ago. My position now is one of reform, not of revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the Government — not over its ruins. If slaveholders have ruled the American Government for the last fifty years, let the anti-slavery men rule the nation for the next fifty years. If the South has made the Constitution bend to the purposes of slavery, let the North now make that instrument bend to the cause of freedom and justice. If 350,000 slaveholders have, by devoting their energies to that single end, been able to make slavery the vital and animating spirit of the American Confederacy for the last 72 years, now let the freemen of the North, who have the power in their own hands, and who can make the American Government just what they think fit, resolve to blot out for ever the foul and haggard crime, which is the blight and mildew, the curse and the disgrace of the whole United States.”

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

1860s, The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery? (1860)

Men, Justice, Feeling, Question

“I cannot sit and let
Something happen I'll regret.
Ooh, he scares me!
There's a man behind those eyes.
I catch him when I'm bending.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, Never for Ever (1980)

“Software breaks before it bends, so it demands perfection in a universe that prefers statistics.”

Jaron Lanier (1960) American computer scientist, musician, and author

"One Half of a Manifesto," The New Humanists: Science at the Edge (2003)

Universe, Perfection

“[bends over] *errgh* Sorry for making that noise, but … that's what happens when you get older. One day what happens is that you bend over, and you never come back.”

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

2009-07-24 broadcast
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)

“I suspect that in the beginning Maurice hoped that Rosy would calm down. Yet mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes. This she did not. There was never lipstick to contrast with her straight black hair, while at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed all the imagination of English blue-stocking adolescents. So it was quite easy to imagine her the product of an unsatisfied mother who unduly stressed the desirability of professional careers that could save bright girls from marriages to dull men. But this was not the case. Her dedicated austere life could not be thus explained — she was the daughter of a solidly comfortable, erudite banking family.
Clearly Rosy had to go or be put in her place. The former was obviously preferable because, given her belligerent moods, it would be very difficult for Maurice to maintain a dominant position that would allow him to think unhindered about DNA. Not that at times he'd didn't see some reason for her complaints — King's had two combination rooms, one for men, the other for women, certainly a thing of the past. But he was not responsible, and it was no pleasure to bear the cross for the added barb that the women's combination room remained dingily pokey whereas money had been spent to make life agreeable for him and his friends when they had their morning coffee.
Unfortunately, Maurice could not see any decent way to give Rosy the boot. To start with, she had been given to think that she had a position for several years. Also there was no denying that she had a good brain. If she could keep her emotions under control, there was a good chance she could really help him. But merely wishing for relations to improve was taking something of a gamble, for Cal Tech's fabulous chemist Linus Pauling was not subject to the confines of British fair play. Sooner or later Linus, who had just turned fifty, was bound to try for the most important of all scientific prizes. There was no doubt he was interested. … The thought could not be avoided that the best home for a feminist was in another person's lab.”

James D. Watson book The Double Helix

Description of Rosalind Franklin, whose data and research were actually key factors in determining the structure of DNA, but who died in 1958 of ovarian cancer, before the importance of her work could be widely recognized and acknowledged. In response to these remarks her mother stated "I would rather she were forgotten than remembered in this way." As quoted in "Rosalind Franklin" at Strange Science : The Rocky Road to Modern Paleontology and Biology by Michon Scott http://www.strangescience.net/rfranklin.htm The Double Helix (1968)

Life, Women, Men, Money

“I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.”

Sonia Sotomayor (1954) U.S. Supreme Court Justice

1997 Senate confirmation hearing, reported in Deborah Tedford, " "Senate Will Have To Confirm Court Choice http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104532843&ft=1&f=3", NPR (26 May 2009).

“Like a Long Magnolia Blossom Bending to the Wind. Under heavy silence. Of a house in mourning. Only the cry of cicadas. Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. Seem to long for you who is now gone. Under the August sun. The Indian Lilacs turn crimson. As if trying to heal the wounds of the mind. My wife has departed alone. Only I am left. Like a lone magnolia blossom bending to the wind. Where can I appeal. The sadness of a broken heart.”

Park Chung-hee (1917–1979) Korean Army general and the leader of South Korea from 1961 to 1979

Poem (August 1974), as quoted in Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781846680670 (2013), by Sheila Miyoshi Jager, London: Profile Books, p. 414. 1970s

Sadness, Silence, Sun, Heart

“Fir: it contains a great deal of air and fire with very little moisture and the earthy, so that, as its natural properties are of the lighter class, it is not heavy. Hence, its consistence being naturally stiff, it does not easily bend under the load, and keeps its straightness when used in the framework. But it contains so much heat that it generates and encourages decay, which spoils it; and it also kindles fire quickly because of the air in its body, which is so open that it takes in fire and so gives out a great flame.”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IX, Sec. 6

Nature

“Is it not true which Seneca reporteth, that as too much bending breaketh the bowe, so too much remission spoyleth the minde?”

John Lyly book Euphues

Source: Euphues (Arber [1580]), P. 112.

“Sweet is the melody, so hard to come by,
It's so hard to make every note bend just right.
You lay down the hours and leave not one trace
But a tune for the dancing is there in it's place.”

Iris DeMent (1961) American singer and songwriter

Sweet is the Melody
Song lyrics, My Life (1994)

Dance

“The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Liberty.

“"I'll be going now," she said.
Shinji made no answer and a surprised look came over his face. He had caught sight of a black streak that ran straight across the front of her red sweater.
Hatsue followed his gaze and saw the dirty smudge, just in the spot where she had been leaning her breast against the concrete parapet. Bending her head, she started slapping her breast with her open hands. Beneath her sweater, which all but seemed to be concealing some firm supports, two gently swelling mounds were set to trembling ever so slightly by the brisk brushing of her hands.
Shinji stared in wonder. Struck by her hands, the breasts seemed more like two small, playful animals. The boy was deeply stirred by the resilient softness of their movement.
The streak of dirt was finally brushed out.”

Yukio Mishima book The Sound of Waves

Source: The Sound of Waves (1956), p. 31, ch. 4.

Boy, Support, Animals

“To bend and prostrate oneself to express sentiments of respect, appears to be a natural motion.”

Isaac D'Israeli (1766–1848) British writer

Modes of Salutation, and Amicable Ceremonies, Observed in Various Nations.
Curiosities of Literature (1791–1834)

Nature, Appearance

“She held the car grimly to the road as it negotiated the bends with considerable difficulty and the straight sections with only slightly less. The car had landed her in court on one occasion when one of its front wheels had sailed off on a little expedition of its own and nearly caused an accident. The police witness in court had referred to her beloved Citroën as "the alleged car" and the name had subsequently stuck. She was particularly fond of the alleged car for many reasons. If one of its doors, for instance, fell off she could put it back on herself, which is more than you could say for a BMW.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 12

Cars

“The national Democratic Party and its southern affiliates labored mightily to re-subjugate the newly free blacks, eventually succeeding by implementing Jim Crow laws, motivating the birth of the Klan and then protecting it, establishing separate-but-equal schools and public facilities, and enacting codes of lawful segregation, all of which Democrats defended in a fight to the death until the 1960s. In U. S. history, from the ratification of the Constitution to the economic devastation wrought by Obama on contemporary black Americans, the men and women who run Democratic Party, from Jefferson and Jackson forward, have been the ferocious enemy of black Americans entering the mainstream of American life, to this day bending every tool of political power to keep them angry, unemployed, mired in poverty, and politically and economically dependent in a manner that approaches quite near to re-enslavement.”

Michael Scheuer (1952) American counterterrorism analyst

As quoted in Michael Scheuer's Non-Intervention https://archive.is/QBuxT (22 June 2015), by M. Scheuer. 2010s

Life, Death, Women, Men

“Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment.”
Invadat animum sacra quaedam ambitio ut mediocribus non contenti anhelemus ad summa, adque illa (quando possumus si volumus) consequenda totis viribus enitamur.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola book Oration on the Dignity of Man

10. 50; translation by A. Robert Caponigri
Variant translation by Robert Hooker:
Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1496)

Soul, Effort

“When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care. I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.”

Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American writer and poet

"I Shall Not Care
Rivers to the Sea (1915)

Peace, Tree, Heart, Dead

“So stands the statue that enchants the world,
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.”

James Thomson (poet) The Seasons

Source: The Seasons (1726-1730), Summer (1727), l. 1346.

World, Beauty

“The moon draws back its waters from the shore.
By the lake's edge, I see a silver swan,
And she is what I would. In this light air,
Lost opposites bend down —
Sing of that nothing of which all is made,
Or listen into silence, like a god.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"The Swan," ll. 15-20
Words for the Wind (1958)

God, Light, Silence, Water

“The cities are everywhere in decline. Trade, industry and agriculture bend under the weight of taxation.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

“He who feels that in his inmost being he cannot be compared with others, will be his own lawgiver. For one thing is needful: to give style to one’s character. This art is practised by him who, with an eye for the strong and weak sides of his nature, removes from it one quality and another, and then by daily practice and acquired habit replaces them by others which become second nature to him; in other words, he puts himself under restraint in order by degrees to bend his nature entirely to his own law. Only thus does a man arrive at satisfaction with himself, and only thus does he become endurable to others. For the dissatisfied and the unsuccessful as a rule avenge themselves on others. They absorb poison from everything, from their own incompetence as well as from their poor circumstances, and they live in a constant craving for revenge on those in whose nature they suspect harmony. Such people ever have virtuous precepts on their lips; the whole jingle of morality, seriousness, chastity, the claims of life; and their hearts ever burn with envy of those who have become well [harmonious] and can therefore enjoy life.”

Georg Brandes (1842–1927) Danish literature critic and scholar

Source: An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism (1889), p. 26

Life, People, Law, Art

“Baine, what do you think of this?” Tossie said, indicating the bishop’s bird stump. “Don’t you agree it’s the most beautiful piece of art you’ve ever seen?”
Baine straightened and looked at it, blinking water out of his eyes.
There was a considerable pause while Baine wrung out his sleeve. “No.”
“No?” Tossie said, making it into a screamlet.
“No.”…
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean the sculpture is a hideous atrocity, vulgarly conceived, badly designed, and shoddily executed,” he said, folding the shawl carefully and bending to lay it back in the bundle.
“How dare you say that,” Tossie said, her cheeks very pink.
Baine straightened. “I beg you pardon, miss. I thought you were asking my opinion.”
“I was, but I expected you to tell me you thought it was beautiful.”

Connie Willis book To Say Nothing of the Dog

He bowed slightly. “As you wish, miss.” He looked at it, his face impassive. “It is very beautiful.”
Source: To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998), Chapter 19 (p. 333; the ellipsis represents a minor elision of description)

Beauty, Art, Bird, Thinking

“In the ideal socialist state, power will not attract power freaks. People who make decisions will show no slightest bias towards their own interests. There will be no way for a clever man to bend the institutions to serve his own ends. And the rivers will run uphill.”

David D. Friedman book The Machinery of Freedom

Source: The Machinery of Freedom, 1973, p.108

People, Way, Decision

“My arrangement of my shelves may earn me a reputation for untidiness among the unthinking, but I am indifferent to these. From natural laziness – if you like – from sheer inability to discover any congruity between one book and another – I will not classify. There they are – as they come – as they go – in serried shelves – all happy with the fortuity of things – there are my books from the lowest shelf – to reach which the seeker must go (as he ought) on bended knees – to "the dust and silence of the upper shelf," as Lord Macaulay put it – there they are – awaiting the touch of the discerning hand and the light of the critical eye.
The Bankrupt Bookseller by Will Y. Darling, Robert Grant & Son Ltd, Edinburgh, 1947, p. 28.”

William Darling (politician) (1885–1962) Scottish politician

The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947)

Happiness, Books, Nature, Light

“And what is the relationship of muscle to bone? Through its ability to contract or shorten itself, the muscle brings two bones into a new angular relationship.... The position of two bones toward each other must change if the muscle so decides.
Bones give support to the total organism; also when in motion.
Muscles have a higher function because they act beside each other.
One bends, the other stretches.
One bone alone achieves nothing.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

I.10 B, p. 28
1921 - 1930, Pedagogical Sketch Book, (1925)

Support, Change

“It having been said above that God bends all the reprobate, and even Satan himself, at his will, three objections are started. First, that this happens by the permission, not by the will of God. To this objection there is a twofold reply, the one, that angels and men, good and bad, do nothing but what is appointed by God; the second, that all movements are secretly directed to their end by the hidden inspiration of God…”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book I Ch. 18 "The Instrumentality of the Wicked employed by God, while He continues free from every taint" as translated by Henry Beveridge.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Men, God, Angels

“Matt Morgan: Have you been thinking about your religion/new order?Russell Brand: Yes I have actually Matt, and I've got a few more theories for it to make it absolutely watertight. We'll all be living on a nice island, vegetarians doing yoga and that. We'll get rid of ideas such as the nuclear family and like in African tribes the word 'mother' will mean all female members of the tribe and the word 'father' will mean all male members. There will be a lot of [wolf whistles] … and also we're not going to have no more currency, stuff like that, no brain-bending or mind-washing and we'll all be free to explore ourselves although there will be an age of consent and it'll be the same as usual so as people don't go 'Oh no…'.Matt Morgan: Pretty watertight, isn't it?Russell Brand: Pretty watertight so far Matt, I'd like to see a political theorist drive a bus through that. If so where did he get his licence? As we're in charge of issuing bus licences and they're not issued to possible dissenters, who are immediately killed on traitor's cove; one of the nicest parts of our island, decorated with all lovely corpses.”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

Radio 2 Show - 13th January 2007
Radio 2 Show (2007–2008)

Love, People, Age, Family

“Around the child bend all the three
Sweet Graces: Faith, Hope, Charity.
Around the man bend other faces;
Pride, Envy, Malice, are his Graces.”

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) British writer

Dry Sticks, Different Graces (1858).

Faith, Hope, Envy

“In the whole range of human vision, nothing is more attractive than to see a young^ man full of promise and of hope, bending all his energies in the direction of truth and duty and God, his soul pervaded with the loftiest enthusiasm, and his life consecrated to the noblest ends. To be such a young man is to rival the noblest and best of men in heroic valor and Christian chivalry. Nay, to be such a young man is to be like Christ, the highest type, the most illustrious example of enthusiasm the world has ever seen.”

John McClellan Holmes (1834–1911) US Christian minister and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 208.

Life, Men, God, Truth

“Playing Godzilla for GODZILLA - KING OF THE MONSTERS was very difficult. Playing Rodan also was difficult because the legs of birds, unlike those of human beings, bend backward.”

Haruo Nakajima (1929–2017) Japanese actor

As quoted by David Milner, "Haruo Nakajima Interview" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/nakajima.htm, Kaiju Conversations (March 1995)

Bird

“Eternity, not as a static “now,” nor as a sequence of “nows” rolling off into the infinite, but as the “now” that bends back into itself. … Thinking the most difficult thought of philosophy means thinking being as time.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Nietzsche (1961), p. 20

Thinking, Time

“Others of graver mien; behold, adorn'd
With holy ensigns, how sublime they move,
And bending oft their sanctimonious eyes
Take homage of the simple-minded throng;
Ambassadors of heaven!”

Mark Akenside book The Pleasures of the Imagination

Book III, lines 109–113
The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744)

“Bend close! You will smell the lily fragrance of love, the stench of lust, now odors as exquisite as the very spirit of violets, and now such nauseous repulsions as words cannot tell.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 5 (1919), The Human Heart

Love

“I do not think that word “compromise” means what Mr. Ryan thinks it means. Above all, he failed to offer the one thing the White House won’t, can’t bend on: an end to extortion over the debt ceiling. Yet even this ludicrously unbalanced offer was too much for conservative activists, who lambasted Mr. Ryan for basically leaving health reform intact.Does this mean that we’re going to hit the debt ceiling? Quite possibly; nobody really knows, but careful observers are giving no better than even odds that any kind of deal will be reached before the money runs out. Beyond that, however, our current state of dysfunction looks like a chronic condition, not a one-time event. Even if the debt ceiling is raised enough to avoid immediate default, even if the government shutdown is somehow brought to an end, it will only be a temporary reprieve. Conservative activists are simply not willing to give up on the idea of ruling through extortion, and the Obama administration has decided, wisely, that it will not give in to extortion.So how does this end? How does America become governable again?”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

Regarding the ongoing 2013 U.S. government shutdown
[Paul Krugman, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/krugman-the-dixiecrat-solution.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1381867276-0uKEJS5eBZAKIo/by2ipKQ, The Dixiecrat Solution, New York Times, October 13, 2013, October 15, 2013]
The New York Times Columns

Money, Health, Idea, Thinking

“In this country — the most favored beneath the bending skies — we have vast areas of the richest and most fertile soil, material resources in inexhaustible abundance, the most marvelous productive machinery on earth, and millions of eager workers ready to apply their labor to that machinery to produce in abundance for every man, woman, and child — and if there are still vast numbers of our people who are the victims of poverty and whose lives are an unceasing struggle all the way from youth to old age, until at last death comes to their rescue and lulls these hapless victims to dreamless sleep, it is not the fault of the Almighty: it cannot be charged to nature, but it is due entirely to the outgrown social system in which we live that ought to be abolished not only in the interest of the toiling masses but in the higher interest of all humanity…”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

Federal Court statement (1918)

Death, People, Youth, Age

“She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep — only soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky — before a steady glowing planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a silent pathway.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 13 (at page 118)

Beauty, Feeling, Flowers, Tree

“Remember what the Patriarch King Solomon
Told his harem on the night they'd had a few:
"Teetotalum overcoatum asqua scutum atomack
Sonata with tomoto, laringitis, cul de sac."
Translation: "If your rhubarb's fallen try and bend it back."
That's a motto for the likes of me and you.”

Billy Bennett (1887–1942) British comedian

"Mottoes", line 41

Night

“We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land!”

Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) former Palestinian President, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

In his speech "The Impending Total Collapse of Israel" at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, January 30, 1996 as quoted in “The Legacy of Islamic AntiSemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History”, by Andrew Bostom, Prometheus Books, c.2008, pg. 682.
1990s

“Actually, each generation likes to think of itself as at the pivot point in history, that in its time the great decision is made which puts man either on the true road or the false. But things aren’t really that serious. Truthfully, the way of mankind is too massive to be kinked, suddenly; it only changes direction in a long and gradual bend over many generations.”

Gordon R. Dickson book Necromancer

Source: Necromancer (1962), Chapter 22 (p. 142)

Way, History, Thinking, Decision

“He’s stunned numb when she takes his hand and says, “Let’s give it a try. I’ve been thinking maybe I don’t bend enough or try to see anyone else’s point of view.””

John Barnes book Mother of Storms

Section 1, “Attractor“ (p. 18)
Mother of Storms (1994)

Thinking

“I don't pay any attention. The stunt people take care of all that. All I do is get in and out of the Coyote [the car Skid drove, which required anyone riding in it to enter and exit through the window], which is no mean trick. You can't get into the S. O. B. without bending yourself into a pretzel. Me, I'd rather drive a pickup.”

Brian Keith (1921–1997) actor

TVGuide.com)
Brian Keith who became very antsy about the car that was needed in every script

People, Cars

“Son of my son," begun the king, "O Oscar, pride of youth! I saw the shining of thy sword, I gloried in my race. Pursue the fame of our fathers; be thou what they have been, when Trenmor lived, the first of men, and Trathal the father of heroes! They fought the battle in their youth. They are the song of bards. O Oscar! bend the strong in arm: but spare the feeble hand. Be thou a stream of many tides against the foes of thy people; but like the gale, that moves the grass, to those who ask thine aid. So Trenmor lived; such Trathal was; and such has Fingal been. My arm was the support of the injured; the weak rested behind the lightning of my steel.”

James Macpherson (1736–1796) Scottish writer, poet, translator, and politician

Book III. Compare: Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. ("Spare the conquered, battle down the proud.") Virgil, Aeneid (19 BC), Book VI, line 853 (tr. Robert Fitzgerald).
The Poems of Ossian, Fingal, an ancient Epic Poem

Men, People, Youth, Support