
“The black, cold, icy water. Down and down, without end — if it would only end.”
Nora Helmer, Act III
A Doll's House (1879)
“The black, cold, icy water. Down and down, without end — if it would only end.”
Nora Helmer, Act III
A Doll's House (1879)
Speech in the U.S. Senate https://web.archive.org/web/20070123074414/http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.667/pub_detail.asp (12 August 1849)
1840s
“And finds, with keen, discriminating sight,
Black ’s not so black,—nor white so very white.”
New Morality.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Reported in Ellis Cose, " Justice: Still Keeping Score http://web.archive.org/web/20070605123712/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18248548/site/newsweek/page/2/", Newsweek (April 30, 2007).
1990s
The Second Declaration of Havana (1962)
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]
Aviation, Geography, and Race (1939)
"The Democrats and Left Masochism", New Politics, Vol. 8, No. 3, issue #31 (Summer 2001) http://nova.wpunj.edu/newpolitics/issue31/willis31.htm
Master Speaks: Address To Prayer And Fast Participants, Part 1, (1974-07-29 http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon74/SM740729.htm)
As quoted in "The Freedom of Association" http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/freedom-of-association145.html (1 June 2010).
2010s
Dissenting Kelo v. New London http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=04-108.
2000s, Kelo v. New London (2005)
2010s, Folks, you’re missing the point about the NFL protests (19 October 2017)
Source: Maria Doulton Simply brilliant: Cher Dior lights up Paris http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/jewellery/2928/simply-brilliant-cher-dior-lights-up-paris.html. The Telegraph, 16 August 2011
Letter to critic Paul Hume, as quoted in TIME magazine (18 December 1950)
The country is ours, both white and blacks
Quoted in The Financial Gazette (28 January 1993), on the need for white people to cooperate under majority rule
Source: Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War (2011), p. 251
“Eternally the choking steam goes up
From the black pools of seething oil…”
Source: Young Adventure (1918), The Lover in Hell
"A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution" (London, Robinson, 1797)
This is attributed, with an expression of doubt as to its correctness, in Mathematics, Our Great Heritage: Essays on the Nature and Cultural Significance of Mathematics (1948) by William Leonard Schaaf, p. 163; also attributed in Pi in the Sky : Counting, Thinking and Being (1992) by John D. Barrow. There are a number of similar expressions to this with various attributions, but the earliest published variants seem to be quotations of Lord Bowen:
When I hear of an 'equity' in a case like this, I am reminded of a blind man in a dark room — looking for a black hat — which isn't there.
Lord Bowen, as quoted in "Pie Powder", Being Dust from the Law Courts, Collected and Recollected on the Western Circuit, by a Circuit Tramp (1911) by John Alderson Foote; this seems to be the earliest account of any similar expression. It is mentioned by the author that this expression has become misquoted as a "black cat" rather than "black hat."
An earlier example with "hat" as a learned judge is said to have defined the metaphysician, namely, as a blind man looking for a black hat in a dark room, the hat in question not being there Edinburgh Medical Journal, Volume 3 (1898)
With his obscure and uncertain speculations as to the intimate nature and causes of things, the philosopher is likened to a 'blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that is not there.'
William James, himself apparently quoting someone else's expression, in Some Problems of Philosophy : A Beginning of an Introduction to Philosophy (1911) Ch. 1 : Philosophy and its Critics
A blind man in a dark room seeking for a black cat — which is not there.
A definition of metaphysics attributed to Lord Bowen, as quoted in Science from an Easy Chair (1913) by Edwin Ray Lankester, p. 99
A blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there.
A definition of metaphysics attributed to Lord Balfour, as quoted in God in Our Work: Religious Addresses (1949) by Richard Stafford Cripps, p. 72
A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.
H. L. Mencken, as quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 427
A metaphysician is like a blind man in a dark room, looking for a black cat — which isn't there.
Variant published in Smiles and Chuckles (1952) by B. Hagspiel
Misattributed
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
“white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President”
About Bill Clinton. Comment, The New Yorker, 5 October 1998.
Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/05/comment-6543
respect.
" Notebook B http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_notebooks.html" (1837-1838) page 231 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=233&itemID=CUL-DAR121.-&viewtype=side
quoted in [2009, Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution, Adrian Desmond & James Moore, New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 9780547055268, 23042290M, 115, http://books.google.com/books?id=V9cGkBj_8iYC&pg=PA115&dq="Animals+whom+we+have+made+our+slaves"]
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements
“A Persian's heaven is easily made:
'Tis but black eyes and lemonade.”
Intercepted Letters; or The Two-Penny Post Bag, VI (1813).
Explaining the racist politics of the history of cocaine; The Howard Stern Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXZ7Wwv1og0 (2005)
1996–2005
Twitter feed statement, in response to his having retweeted a cartoon image of Hillary Clinton in Blackface https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/mark-burns-apologizes-clinton-blackface-227534#ixzz4IpY6wd3L
As prime minister, Warrenton, 24 July 1982, as cited in PW Botha in his own words, Pieter-Dirk Uys, 1987, p. 23
And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze.
1960s, I've Been to the Mountaintop (1968)
In 1927 after his Labour Party meeting in Cambridge was broken-up by pro-Fascist undergraduates. The mention of "ice-cream sellers" was a reference to Italian immigrants who had opened ice-cream parlours.
On being told in 1915 that W. G. Grace had died. From Pebbles on the Shore (1916)
“Industrial design keeps the customer happy, his client in the black and the designer busy.”
Raymond Loewy (ca. 1949); Cited in: Paul Greenhalgh (1993) Quotations and Sources on Design and the Decorative Arts. p. 117
Interview with Frederick Van Ryn, This Week Magazine (January 4, 1953), p. 11. Sandburg previously used these words at a rally at Madison Square Garden, New York City (October 28, 1952), praising Adlai E. Stevenson during the latter's 1952 presidential campaign. Reported in The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson (1955), vol. 4, p. 175.
Rachel on more of her favorite musicians.
Off & On Broadway documentary (2006)
Hoggart's Guardian column 9 Feb 1980 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1980/feb/09/zimbabwe.simonhoggart
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity
Que peut-il faire celui qui manque du nécessaire en travaillant, s'il vient à chômer ? Il n'a qu'à se laisser mourir de faim. Alors on jettera quelques paroles de pitié sur son cadavre. C'est ce que j'ai voulu laisser à d'autres. J'ai préféré me faire contrebandier, faux-monnayeur, voleur, meurtrier et assassin. J'aurais pu mendier : c'est dégradant et lâche et même puni par vos lois qui font un délit de la misère. Si tous les nécessiteux, au lieu d'attendre, prenaient où il y a et par n'importe quel moyen, les satisfaits comprendraient peut-être plus vite qu'il y a danger à vouloir consacrer l'état social actuel, où l'inquiétude est permanente et la vie menacée à chaque instant.
Trial statement
As quoted in Bannon: Always the Rebel (2017) by Keith Koffler
1960s, (1963)
The just man followed then his angel guide
Where he strode on the black highway, hulking and bright;
But a wild grief in his wife's bosom cried,
Look back, it is not too late for a last sight
Of the red towers of your native Sodom, the square
Where once you sang, the gardens you shall mourn,
And the tall house with empty windows where
You loved your husband and your babes were born.
Translator unknown
Lot's Wife
"Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke" (1958), in The Collected Essays, ed. John F. Callahan (New York: Modern Library, 1955), p. 104.
Song lyrics, Lionheart (1978)
Quoington Star article entitled "Has President Nixon Gone Crazy?", "The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-up Call" (1996)
Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality (1889)
Source: https://frederickdouglass.infoset.io/islandora/object/islandora%3A2333 "Negroes and the National War Effort"]
speech in Philadelphia (6 July 1863): Should the Negro Enlist in the Union Army? (1863)
Elephants and cattle, and countless arms also, became the spoil of the victors.
Kalinjar (Uttar Pradesh) . Hasan Nizami: Taju’l-Ma’sir in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 231 Also quoted in Jain, Meenakshi (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts.
White Liberals: We’re Not Racist (August 29, 2016)
2004, The Socialist Review; on what the Love Music, Hate Racism campaign could achieve today
Music and politics
That was my one sentence. And so I have improved.
GreenCine interview (16 November 2005) http://www.greencine.com/article?action=view&articleID=254
"Duke Speaks Out," in The Crusader, a Knights of the KKK newsletter (November 1978)
The fight against racism doesn't stop here (2013)
A Morning for Flamingos (1990)
“One morning one of us had run out of black; and that was the birth of Impressionism.”
Klaus Honnef, Ingo F. Walther, Karl Ruhrberg (1998) Art of the 20th Century: Painting. p. 7
undated quotes
2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Priest
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, uit zijn brief:) ..het is hier zo mooi met dat vriesende weer. o je moest thans de verschieten eens zien, en die akkers met zijn zwarte aarde en vlakken schaduwen dat zou je frapperen, heerlijk schijnt de zon in de ..
in a letter to Willem Maris, 1860's; as cited in 'Zó Hollands - Het Hollandse landschap in de Nederlandse kunst sinds 1850', Antoon Erftemeijer https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/zohollands_eindversie_def_1.pdf; Frans Hals museum | De Hallen, Haarlem 2011, p. 31
1860's
Quote from Dutch art-magazine: 'Eenheid' (in Dutch: Unity) no. 283, 6 November 1915; as quoted in Theo van Doesburg, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 105
1912 – 1919
To My People (July 4, 1973)
“Her old man, he don't like blacks or queers
Yet he's proud we beat the Nazis
How queer…”
"Arbeit Macht Frei"(with Carl Barat)
Lyrics and poetry
On Mark Halperin’s inclusion of a lengthy quote by convicted murderer Jack Henry Abbott in his One Hundred Years of Homosexuality.
Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf
The Golden Violet - The Broken Spell
The Golden Violet (1827)
On controversy over her novel Killing Mr. Griffin, interview with Megan Abbott (2011)
2003–2016
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech on fighting ISIS (November 20, 2015)
Source: Dream of the Red Chamber (1958), p. 161
Source: Vamps and Tramps (1994), "No Law in the Arena: A Pagan Theory of Sexuality", p. 43
As cited in: Joseph Beuys, Dia Art Foundation. Joseph Beuys, Dia Art Foundation, 1988. p. 23 ; Statement about the ' Rubberized Box http://rubberizedbox.blogspot.nl/2007/10/rubberized-box-by-joseph-beuys-1957.html' by Joseph Beuys, 1957
1970's, Interviews with Caroline Tisdall, 1974 & 1978
“…he must need wish in a hurry; and wish he did, that the black pudding may come off his nose.”
English Fairy Tales (1890), More English Fairy Tales (1894), The Three Wishes
Source: The Hidden Goddess (2011), Chapter 8, “Chaos and Disorder” (p. 140)
2010s, Voting Democratic for the next 200 years (2014)
2010s, Obama is a Republican (2014)
“A Bit of the Dark World” (p. 263)
Short Fiction, Night's Black Agents (1947)
“My Life Philosophy: Policy Credos and Working Ways,” in M. Szenberg (ed.) Eminent Economists: Their Life Philosophies (1992)
1980s–1990s
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (1983)
"The conscience of South Africa talks about her country's new racial order" (1998) by Dwight Garner
1870s, The Unknown Loyal Dead (1871)
2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)